Vilmos Zsigmond is a European cinematographer – maybe this was his key to success in America. His European sensitivity got appreciated when, at the beginning of the 1970s when a new generation of directors created New Hollywood. The 1956 Hungarian emigré, who had the European cinema culture at his fingertips, was the right man on the right place – and became the cinematographer of the greatest directors: Robert Altman, Michael Cimino, John Boorman, Brian De Palma, and Steven Spielberg. The Close Encounters of the Third Kind brought him the Oscar in 1977. One year later, his next movie, The Deer Hunter, won five Oscars, including Best Picture. He was nominated for the Oscar in 1985 and in 2007 as well. In 1999 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC).