A native of Manchester, England, Barry Ackroyd studied film at Portsmouth College of Art. Afterward, he moved to London and began his career by working on documentaries. Ackroyd regularly collaborated with director Nick Broomfield, for whom he shot The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife; Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer; and Tracking Down Maggie: The Unofficial Biography of Margaret Thatcher. He also shot the Academy Award®–winning documentary Anne Frank Remembered for director Jon Blair.
With Captain Phillips, Barry Ackroyd marked his third collaboration with director Paul Greengrass. He shot the Iraq War thriller Green Zone and received a BAFTA nomination for his work on the award-winning United 93. His film credits include Contraband, for director Baltasar Kormakur; Coriolanus, for Ralph Fiennes; and Parkland, for Pete Landesman.
Ackroyd is well-known for his long creative association with British director Ken Loach, a relationship spanning almost twenty years and culminating in their collaboration on The Wind That Shakes the Barley, which won the Palme d'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival; the film brought Ackroyd Best Cinematographer honors at the 2006 European Film Awards.
In 2010, Ackroyd received an Oscar® nomination for Best Achievement in Cinematography for his work on the Best Picture winner The Hurt Locker for director Kathryn Bigelow; he also won both the BAFTA and BSC Awards for Best Cinematography. Earlier, he directed the short film The Butterfly Man, for which he received a BAFTA nomination for Best Short Film. Ackroyd was also nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Photography and Lighting (Fiction/Entertainment) for his work on the 2004 miniseries "The Lost Prince," directed by Stephen Poliakoff.
2013 Columbia Pictures
