James Laxton

James Laxton, born in San Francisco back in early ’81, is one of those cinematographers whose work doesn’t really need much of an intro if you’ve been paying attention to movies over the last decade. He’s the guy with the eye behind “Moonlight”—yeah, THAT “Moonlight,” the one that basically made everyone start debating if lighting could actually be poetry. And then, just to prove it wasn’t a fluke, he turned around and shot “If Beale Street Could Talk” in 2018, drenching every frame in that same dreamy, liquid gold vibe that made you want to crawl into the screen and live there. Fast forward a bit, and you find him working on “The Underground Railroad” in 2021, where he just doubled down on the whole “cinema as art” thing. The guy’s got a knack for capturing emotion, not just with the actors, but with the way he lets light and color do half the talking. Outside the camera stuff, Laxton’s life isn’t exactly tabloid fodder, but it’s got its layers. He’s married to Bex Crofton-Atkins now, though before that he was hitched to Adele Romanski, who, fun fact, is a producer with her own impressive resume. The San Francisco roots really show in his style—there’s this West Coast chill, but also a sharpness, like he’s always looking for the unexpected angle. You watch his movies and it’s obvious the dude just gets how stories should look and feel, not just how they should be told.