VistaVision, a vintage format left for dead, is revived in 'One Battle After Another' and more

VistaVision, the large-scale film format used largely in the 1950s, is enjoying a big-screen revival

NEW YORK -- When Paul Thomas Anderson told his cinematographer Michael Bauman that he wanted to shoot “One Battle After Another” on VistaVision — a large-scale film format born in the 1950s — he had some questions.

“Question one was: Is this even going to be reliable?” Bauman recalls.

For much of the past 60 years, the few remaining VistaVision cameras have been mostly collecting dust on shelves. Though the format was widely used in the 1950s, when Alfred Hitchcock shot “Vertigo” on it and Cecil B. DeMille used it for “The Ten Commandments,” VistaVision went dormant by the early 1960s.

Yet at the March 15 Academy Awards, a movie made largely with decades-old antique cameras is poised to win best picture. Even in 2026, when most films are shot digitally and AI has begun filtering into moviemaking, “One Battle After Another” has — with film equipment borrowed from collectors and museums — showed that a vintage, analog film system can still astonish moviegoers.

“One Battle After Another” presented a major new test for an old format. A sprawling American epic filmed largely in dusty, rural locations, Bauman estimates it meant running 1.5 million feet of film through antique cameras.