Rotten Tomatoes
Cancel Movies Tv shows FanStore News Showtimes

Fred Murphy

Highest Rated: 100% Heartland (1979)

Lowest Rated: 0% Fresh Horses (1988)

Birthday: Not Available

Birthplace: New York, USA

Native New Yorker Fred Murphy's first credits as a director of photography came on low-budget films helmed by females: Martha Coolidge's "Not a Pretty Picture" (1975), Claudia Weill's "Girlfriends" (1978) and Lee Grant's "Tell Me a Riddle" (1980). In each case, he provided clean camerawork that did not detract from the inherent drama. He acquired his first real cachet in the industry, however, working with cinematographer-turned-director Richard Pearce on "Heartland" (1980), an unromanticized portrait of frontier life in 1910 Wyoming. Murphy's neat etching of the changing rural seasons was as much a character in the story, reflective of the shifts in the relationship between the film's protagonists. He has proven adept at capturing moments of reverie or nostalgia as in photographing Geraldine Page's bus ride to her hometown in "The Trip to Bountiful" (1985) or the passionate remembrance of a long dead love by an Irish wife in John Huston's elegiac "The Dead" (1987). Through camera placement and shifts in light, he is able to have the past and present on screen simultaneously.

Show Less Show More

Highest-Rated Movies

100% 87% Heartland
Watchlist
100% Not a Pretty Picture
Watchlist
94% 77% The Dead
Watchlist
93% 70% Girlfriends
Watchlist
91% 88% Hoosiers
Watchlist
91% 88% October Sky
Watchlist
89% 54% Enemies, a Love Story
Watchlist
85% 61% Ghost Town Watchlist
78% 53% Five Corners
Watchlist
73% 72% A Family Thing
Watchlist

Filmography

Movies TV Shows
Ghost Town 85% 61% 2008 Cinematographer Drillbit Taylor 26% 44% 2008 Cinematographer Anamorph 27% 24% 2007 Cinematographer Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life 2007 Cinematographer RV 23% 45% 2006 Cinematographer Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story 64% 78% 2005 Cinematographer Secret Window 46% 65% 2004 Cinematographer Freddy vs. Jason 41% 50% 2003 Cinematographer Murder, She Wrote: The Celtic Riddle 2003 Cinematographer Auto Focus 71% 61% 2002 Cinematographer Cheats 75% 2002 Cinematographer The Mothman Prophecies 52% 56% 2002 Cinematographer Soul Survivors 4% 26% 2001 Cinematographer Murder, She Wrote: The Last Free Man 2001 Cinematographer Witness Protection 60% 61% 1999 Cinematographer Stir of Echoes 69% 70% 1999 Cinematographer October Sky 91% 88% 1999 Cinematographer Dance With Me 51% 67% 1998 Cinematographer Metro 17% 27% 1997 Cinematographer A Family Thing 73% 72% 1996 Cinematographer Faithful 7% 49% 1996 Cinematographer Murder in the First 54% 79% 1995 Cinematographer The Fantasticks 50% 48% 1995 Cinematographer Scenes From a Mall 32% 26% 1991 Cinematographer The Final Days 83% 1989 Cinematographer
Load More