Robbie Ryan is an Irish cinematographer born in Dublin in 1970. He became interested in cinematography as a teenager and studied film at Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Ireland. After graduating, he moved to London to pursue work in film, gaining experience through short films, commercials and music videos before progressing to feature-length productions.
Ryan’s breakthrough came through his collaboration with writer-director Andrea Arnold on the short film Wasp (2003), which won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2005. He subsequently photographed Arnold’s feature films Red Road (2006), Fish Tank (2009), Wuthering Heights (2011) and American Honey (2016). His cinematography on Wuthering Heights received the award for Outstanding Technical Contribution at the Venice Film Festival.
Ryan has also worked extensively with director Ken Loach, photographing The Angels’ Share (2012), Jimmy’s Hall (2014), I, Daniel Blake (2016), Sorry We Missed You (2019) and The Old Oak (2023). Other feature credits include Philomena (2013), Ginger & Rosa (2012), Slow West (2015), The Meyerowitz Stories (2017), The Favourite (2018), Marriage Story (2019), C’mon C’mon (2021) and Poor Things (2023).
Ryan received Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography for The Favourite and Poor Things. His more recent work includes Andrea Arnold’s Bird (2024) and Yorgos Lanthimos’s Kinds of Kindness (2024), both of which screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as Bugonia (2025).