V for VistaVision: the return of Paramount’s widescreen format
Posted on Apr 17, 2026 by Admin
VistaVision, Paramount’s once-forgotten widescreen format, is enjoying an unlikely revival. We speak with DOP Robbie Ryan, BSC, ISC and Paramount’s Charlotte Barker to find out more
Words Oliver Webb
VistaVision is experiencing an unexpected renaissance and is once again at the forefront of filmmaking. As a new generation of filmmakers and DOPs fall in love with the format, drawn in by its distinctive style and classic film texture, it is time to dive into what exactly VistaVision is, who’s using it… and why?
Before the fifties, most Hollywood films were shot in the 4:3 frame known as the Academy ratio. That changed in 1953 when 20th Century Fox introduced CinemaScope, bringing widescreen images to theatres across the US. Other studios soon followed, developing their own widescreen processes in an effort to compete with the growing popularity of television.
One such studio was Paramount Pictures, which introduced VistaVision in 1954. Rather than relying on anamorphic lenses to capture a wider field of view, the system uses horizontally running 35mm film to create a larger negative area. By exposing eight perforations per frame instead of the standard four, VistaVision captures significantly more image information while remaining in the familiar ecosystem of 35mm production.
Although VistaVision negatives are shot horizontally, most theatrical prints would end up being reduced to the standard vertical 35mm format before projection. However, the larger negative still allows for finer grain and improved image clarity, even after that optical reduction process.
VistaVision retains the unique, organic qualities of film – the texture, grain structure, highlight behaviour and colour response. “For filmmakers who want a large format look but still value the character of film, VistaVision sits in a very appealing space,” states Thom Trigger, marketing manager at Cinelab.
“Many cinematographers today are rediscovering classic film technologies and adapting them to contemporary production. We are seeing a new generation revisit VistaVision with modern lenses, colour science and digital post workflows.”
Back in vogue
Released in 2024, The Brutalist was the first English-language feature film shot in the VistaVision format since Marlon Brando’s One-Eyed Jacks (1961). Both films are widely renowned for their visuals and were nominated for best cinematography at the Academy Awards. The Brutalist won.
Although VistaVision had not been employed in English-language features for decades, several international films continued to use the format, including In the Realm of the Senses (1976) and Vengeance Is Mine (1979). VistaVision also saw a partial revival in Hollywood during the seventies, when movies such as Star Wars turned to it to create visual-effects shots.
Since The Brutalist, the format has began to make a comeback. Both of the teams behind One Battle After Another (2025) and Wuthering Heights (2026) decided to shoot in VistaVision, while the upcoming productions Digger and Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew have also opted to use the format.
One of the most recent notable examples is Yorgos Lanthimos’ 2025 film Bugonia. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan, BSC, ISC had previously experimented with the format for a sequence in a different Lanthimos film. “Yorgos wanted to shoot on VistaVision for Poor Things (2023),” Ryan says. “However, because of the noise of the VistaVision Beaumont camera (Beaucam) and his dislike for ADR (automated dialogue replacement), we decided to keep it to the reanimation scene, which had no dialogue.”
“For this, we used the VistaVision Beaucam and Ektachrome reversal stock – which was a first, I believe. The results were impressive, so it gave us a taste for attempting to shoot a full feature film on the format.”
When Bugonia came along, Lanthimos felt it was the right project on which to pursue the VistaVision route. “I had done some research and found the more silent Wilcam W11,” adds Ryan. “This was a more sync-friendly version of the very noisy VistaVision Beaucam. Scotty Smith helped us out because he and technician Marty Mueller had updated many of the features on the Wilcam W11 to make it more production ready.”
According to Ryan, VistaVision is aptly named because it’s designed to shoot a big image such as a vista or similar view. “It is twice the size of normal 35mm film stock,” he says. “In effect, it provides the same negative space as a 35mm stills camera – and achieves this by flipping the transport mechanism in the camera from vertical to horizontal. Transporting film through the camera gate like this requires more torque and power, hence the noisier cameras. Twice the neg size is quite a jump in image quality and is very pleasing to the eye whether it’s a landscape or a portrait. We really leant into shooting portraits on Bugonia so the faces would become a landscape.”
The only significant drawback for Ryan is that the camera design for the VistaVision system never truly evolved. “I like to compare it to VHS and Betacam – CinemaScope is more like VHS, while VistaVision is more like Betacam,” he says. “It never got a chance to evolve, so shooting on these cameras has quite a few quirks. You need a bit more patience with reload times. Some models have an inherent flicker issue that is possibly belt-drive related. It’s like a vintage car with a dodgy fanbelt. People’s imagination makes VistaVision sound like some high-spec fantasy camera. It’s not, but the results are still fantastic.”
Paramount preservation
Charlotte Barker is director of film restoration and preservation at Paramount Pictures, where she has worked for 21 years. She has always been a fan of VistaVision.
“When I got into the archives, no one was prioritising this division,” she begins. Barker began questioning why the format got left behind. “I thought we should be prioritising Paramount’s premier format. I was initially told it’s too expensive to work on – which is true – but I was also told the movies weren’t really any good. Well, that is not at all true of course.
“As soon as I took over the restoration team, I made it my priority to focus on the VistaVision films,” Barker states. At the time, only three of them had been restored. Across the last seven years, the team have worked to restore 42, and there are around 20 more to go. Films currently being restored include Strategic Air Command (1955), War and Peace (1956) and a new HDR transfer of Funny Face (1957).
The restoration process involves looking for what elements of the film exist and hoping to find the original negative. Barker explains what happens after it is found. “Firstly, we inspect it to make sure there are no tears or damage. We also look for sections that have been replaced. Sometimes, if there was damage, they would cut out the negative and replace it with a dupe section, so we will look for and identify those. After that, we can try to find a more original piece than whatever dupe was cut in. Then we will scan it at 6K resolution.”
Everything is done digitally afterwards. As soon as it’s scanned, there is the clean up, colour work and stabilisation. “There’s a lot of flicker in this division,” says Barker. “You can see it in Wuthering Heights. It’s just something inherent to the cameras sometimes. We try to look for a vintage print and, if we can, a Technicolor IB print, to have a good colour reference that can give us an idea of what it looked like when it was originally projected. A few of the first films were also released with a Perspecta audio track, so we’ll restore that as well.”
VistaVision was Paramount’s answer to CinemaScope, and White Christmas (1954) marked the studio’s first release shot in the format. The engineers at Paramount didn’t like how grainy the widescreen image was in CinemaScope.
“They also didn’t like how anamorphic lenses were stretching people,” Barker explains. “They were interested in quality and having a widescreen process but making it better. The only way to do that was to shoot with a larger negative; 65 and 55mm were too cost prohibitive, so they opted for regular 35mm film. It was based on old patents, and they found a 25-year-old camera that would work shooting horizontally.”
Alfred Hitchcock was impressed enough to use it for To Catch a Thief (1955), The Trouble with Harry (1955), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Vertigo (1958) and North by Northwest (1959), and has become one of the filmmakers most associated with it.
The format didn’t last long, however. “Ultimately because of cost,” says Barker. “You see all these memos going back and forth about how much money they would have saved without VistaVision. For two years, Paramount was a total VistaVision studio. Everything they shot and released was in the format.”
Another factor in its demise was technological competition with studios such as Panavision. “The intention was always to have a negative format. Panavision could do that cheaper and get similar results theatrically with the newer anamorphic lenses. They could also shoot with only half the amount of film because a VistaVision system uses twice the amount.”
The future of the format
Ryan puts the current VistaVision trend down to numerous different factors. “I think people are really enjoying shooting on celluloid again for a start. It is a larger format for 35mm that is still cheaper than 65mm or IMAX, and the jump in image quality is considerable.”
For Trigger, VistaVision will probably remain a more specialist format, but its resurgence shows how DOPs are now rediscovering classic film technologies and applying them in modern ways. “It offers a distinctive visual quality while still fitting neatly into contemporary production pipelines,” he concludes.
“What’s remarkable is that many of the VistaVision cameras in use today are several decades old, yet continue to perform beautifully. That’s largely thanks to the care of specialist technicians and film enthusiasts who have maintained them. These are very well-engineered mechanical systems and it’s a reminder that film technology was built to last.”
Barker says To Catch a Thief (1955) is her favourite VistaVision film. “It shows the best of the format,” she argues. “I was lucky enough to be able to work on the restoration a few years ago. When you go through something frame by frame, you develop even more of an appreciation for it. It was shot by Robert Burks, ASC and it’s just gorgeous. It may be fluffy and a lot of people disregard it as not one of Hitchcock’s best, but I think it’s a lot of fun and Grace Kelly never looked better.
“I’ve been obsessed with VistaVision for a long time,” says Barker. “I started writing a book about it because there are none that really highlight it. It’s exciting people are talking about it now.”
Supporting the format
Bugonia was processed and scanned at Cinelab, who handled the original VistaVision negatives. “From the laboratory perspective, VistaVision fits very comfortably into an existing 35mm workflow,” says Thom Trigger, marketing manager at Cinelab.
“The negative is processed using the same motion-picture film chemistry and lab systems as standard 35mm. Our role is then to scan that larger image area at a high resolution so that all of the detail captured on the negative is preserved as the material moves into editorial and colour finishing.”
In practical terms, the photochemical stage is identical to standard 35mm. “The negative is processed in exactly the same way as standard 35mm colour negative film,” explains Trigger. “That familiarity makes the format relatively straightforward to adopt.”
While, as Trigger says, ‘processing remains identical to 35mm’, the main difference arises in scanning. “Because VistaVision exposes eight perforations per frame rather than four, the scanned image area is effectively doubled,” says Trigger. “This results in larger image files and slightly different handling in the scanning stage. The scanned image needs to be rotated by 90° because the film runs horizontally through
the camera.”
Beyond that, it seamlessly integrates into established scanning workflows. “Once scanned, material moves through editorial, VFX and colour pipelines in much the same way as any other film-originated project,” he adds. Overall, VistaVision manages to offer a large format aesthetic without radically changing the workflow. “The files are bigger, of course, but once scanned it moves just like any other project.”
This article appears in the April/May 2026 issue of Definition
