The Focal Lengths and Lenses used by Great Directors

In this page I’m collating famous directors and the focal lengths they preferred. As and when I get new information, I’ll keep updating this list.

Here’s the video I made on the focal lengths and lenses used by 19 great directors:

Important: Information is either hearsay, guesses and some plain research from interviews, books, videos and so on. It could be completely wrong! Do not rely or use this information for any serious work or study!

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Specific lenses mentioned in the video:

• Zeiss 50mm f/0.7 adapted for Barry Lyndon (37.5mm with wide-angle adapter)
• Kinoptik 9.8mm
• Cine-Pro 24-480mm T9 zoom lens

Links mentioned in the video and which could be useful to your research and study:

• Is Scope 2.39:1?
• Understanding the medium format and anamorphic look
• How to choose focal lengths
• Crop factor
• 35mm Equivalent
• Focal length of the human eye
• Making Movies by Sidney Lumet
• Focal Lengths Used by Akira Kurosawa

Focal lengths and lenses used by great directors

Here’s the list:

S. No.	Director	Focal length, Lens
1	Orson Welles	18mm (Touch of Evil), 25mm (Citizen Kane)
2	Jean-Pierre Jeunet	18 an 25mm lens, 14mm (Alien Resurrection), 25mm (Delicatessen)
3	Roman Polanski	18mm, 40mm anamorphic (Chinatown)
4	Wes Anderson	40mm anamorphic, 27mm (The Royal Tenebaums, The Grand Budapest Hotel)
5	Quentin Tarantino	40mm or 50mm anamorphic
6	Steven Spielberg	21mm
7	Tim Burton	21mm, never beyond 50mm. Long lenses as a punctuation
8	Martin Scorsese	25mm and wider, 32mm (The King of Comedy), long lenses for Raging Bull
9	Joel and Ethan Coen	27 and 32mm (Stays between 25-40mm)
10	David Cronenberg	27mm
11	David Fincher	27mm and 35mm
12	Francis Ford Coppola	40mm (Most of Godfather)
13	Yasujiro Ozu	50mm
14	Robert Bresson	50mm
15	Alfred Hitchcock	50mm
16	Ridley Scott	75mm and longer, zoom lens – anamorphic. Eventually shifted to spherical
17	Akira Kurosawa	35-50mm, tended towards longer lenses in late career, but occasionally
18	Sidney Lumet	Changed focal lengths for every movie
19	Stanley Kubrick	18mm, Special lenses – Kinoptik 9.8mm, Zeiss 50mm f/0.7, Cine-Pro 24-480mm T9 zoom
20	Terry Gilliam	14mm (later work), earlier work is wider than 28mm
21	Steven Soderbergh	18mm (only recent work)

If you know the focal lengths preferred by directors I’ve left out, please let me know. Please also link to sources so I can confirm the information. I’ll be happy to update this list.