Born in Mexico City in 1965, Rodrigo Prieto is the son of a Mexican father and an American mother from Montana. He studied at the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC), in Mexico City, where he focused in Cinematography.
Prieto started his career shooting Television commercials at the age of 22, moving into features with "Un Instante Para Morir" in 1992. He built a reputation for meticulous attention to visual and dramatic detail with such films as "Sobrenatural," which garnered him Mexico's Ariel Award in 1996 (Mexico's Academy Award), and "Carlos Carrera's Un Embrujo (Under A Spell)" which took the Concha de Plata for best cinematography at the San Sebastian Film Festival, in addition to another Ariel Award.
"Amores Perros" (2000) brought him to the attention of the world film community. His work on the feature, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, garnered Prieto several honors, including a third Ariel Award and the Golden Frog Award at the Camerimage International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography in Poland.
His subsequent films as cinematographer have included Julie Taymor's "Frida," for which he was an ASC Award nominee; Curtis Hanson's "8 Mile"; Spike Lee's "25th Hour"; and, again for Alejandro González Iñárritu, the award-winning "21 Grams." In 2003, he went to Cuba with director Oliver Stone to shoot "Comandante," a documentary on Fidel Castro. The two then went to the Middle East to film a documentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, "Persona Non Grata." Their next project together was the epic "Alexander," for which Prieto was honored with the Silver Frog Award at the Camerimage International Film Festival.
For his work on Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain," Rodrigo Prieto was nominated for an Academy Award®, a BAFTA Award, and an American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Award. His cinematography on the film was cited as the year's best by the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association, the Florida Film Critics Circle, and the Chicago Film Critics Association.
In 2006, Rodrigo and Iñárritu reunited for Babel, which earned him his second consecutive BAFTA Award nomination. After this, he travelled to Hong Kong and Shanghai with Ang Lee to shoot "Lust, Caution, "which earned a Golden Osella award for Best Cinematography at the Venice Film Festival, and was also nominated for an Independent Spirit Award in 2008. He then shot "State of Play" for director Kevin Macdonald, after which he joined director Pedro Almodóvar in Madrid to work on "Broken Embraces," starring Penélope Cruz. From there, he went to Barcelona to join forces once again with Iñárritu for "Biutiful," marking their fourth collaboration.
Rodrigo worked once again with Oliver Stone for "Wall Street, Money Never Sleeps." His later works include working with director Francis Lawrence on "Water for Elephants," Cameron Crowe on "We Bought a Zoo," Ben Afflect on "Argo" and Tommy Lee Jones on "The Homesman."
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