Michael Ballhaus

Michael Ballhaus, A.S.C. (born 5 August 1935) is a German cinematographer. In 1990, he was the Head of the Jury at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival.

Ballhaus was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of actors Lena Hutter and Oskar Ballhaus. Ballhaus was influenced by family friend Max Ophüls, and appears as an extra in Ophüls last film Lola Montès (1955).

He came to prominence with his work on sixteen films for Rainer Werner Fassbinder beginning with Whity (1970) and, including The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), Satan's Brew and Chinese Roulette (both 1976).

Since settling in the United States, he has also worked on many American films, including Baby It's You (1983) for John Sayles; Old Enough (1984) for Marisa Silver; After Hours (1985), The Color of Money (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Goodfellas (1990), The Age of Innocence (1993), Gangs of New York (2002), and The Departed (2006) for Martin Scorsese; Dracula (1992) for Francis Ford Coppola, and Sleepers (1996) for Barry Levinson.

Ballhaus has been nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, for Broadcast News (1987), The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), and Gangs of New York (2002), but has never won. He won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Cinematography for Goodfellas.

Ballhaus released his documentary In Berlin together with Ciro Cappelari in May 2009.

His wife since 1958, Helga Ballhaus, née Betten, appeared in a handful of films, including several directed by Fassbinder; she died in 2006. Their son Florian is also a cinematographer (Flightplan, The Devil Wears Prada). In 2011, he married German-American film director Sherry Hormann (Desert Flower). Michael Ballhaus is a nephew of the German stage and film actor Carl Balhaus (M, The Blue Angel).

• 2007 Bavarian Film Awards Honorary Award