Fred Zinnemann the first 25 American films chosen in 1989 for the National Film Registry. With its psychological and moral examinations of its lawman hero Marshall Will Kane, played by Gary Cooper and its innovative chronology whereby screen time approximated the 80-minute countdown to the confrontational hour, the film broke the mold of the formulaic western. Working closely with cinematographer and longtime friend Floyd Crosby, he shot without filters, giving the landscape a harsh "newsreel" quality that clashed with the more painterly cinematography of John Ford's westerns. During production he established a strong rapport with Gary Cooper, photographing the aging actor in
Fred Zinnemann Sundowners" (1960), starring Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr as an Australian outback husband and wife, led to more Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actress (Kerr) and Best Supporting Actress (Glynis Johns), but won none. "Behold A Pale Horse" (1964) was a post-Spanish Civil War epic based on the book "Killing A Mouse on Sunday" by Emeric Pressburger and starred Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn and Omar Sharif, but was both a critical and commercial flop; Zinnemann would later admit that the film "didn't really come together." In 1965 he was a member of the jury