Freddie Francis was born in Islington and trained as an engineer before pursuing photography and film. After apprenticing with stills photographer Louis Prothero, he worked his way up from clapper boy to camera operator at British studios. During the Second World War, he served in the Army Kinematograph Service before returning to Denham Studios, where he worked on films including The Small Back Room, Tales of Hoffmann, Moulin Rouge, Beat the Devil, and Moby Dick. His work on Moby Dick led to his first feature as director of photography, A Hill in Korea (1956).
Francis quickly established himself as one of Britain's leading cinematographers, earning his first Academy Award for Sons and Lovers (1960) and shooting classics such as Room at the Top, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, and The Innocents. In the early 1960s he turned to directing, becoming closely associated with Hammer and Amicus horror films including Paranoiac, Nightmare, Dr Terror's House of Horrors, The Skull, Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, Tales from the Crypt, The Creeping Flesh, and The Ghoul. Although he became known as a horror director, Francis maintained that his real interest lay in visual storytelling rather than the genre itself.
Returning to cinematography in 1980, Francis enjoyed a remarkable second career, photographing David Lynch's The Elephant Man and The Straight Story, Karel Reisz's The French Lieutenant's Woman, Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear, and Edward Zwick's Glory, for which he won his second Academy Award. Admired for his mastery of black-and-white photography and atmospheric lighting, Francis cited Freddie Young, John Huston, and Michael Powell as his greatest influences. Throughout his career, he believed the cinematographer's role was to serve the director by creating atmosphere through light, shadow, and composition, famously remarking that he always "photographed the script in my mind."