Haskell Wexler ASC (February 6, 1922 – December 27, 2015) was an American cinematographer, film producer, and director.

He decided he wanted to become a filmmaker, although he had no experience, and his father helped him set up a small studio in Des Plaines, Illinois.

When his studio lost too much money, it was eventually shut down, but the business served as an unofficial film school for Wexler.

Other notable documentaries shot and co-directed (with Landau) by Wexler included Brazil: A Report on Torture and The CIA Case Officer and The Sixth Sun: A Mayan Uprising in Chiapas.

[10] The following year had Wexler as the cinematographer for the Oscar-winning detective drama, In the Heat of the Night (1967), starring Sidney Poitier.

His work was notable for being the first major film in Hollywood history to be shot in color with proper consideration for a person of African descent.

Wexler recognized that standard lighting tended to produce too much glare on that kind of dark complexion making the actors look bad.

[11] Wexler was fired as cinematographer during filming of Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation and replaced by Bill Butler.

Bound for Glory was the first feature film to make use of the newly invented Steadicam, in a famous sequence that also incorporated a crane shot.

Wexler was also credited as additional cinematographer on Days of Heaven (1978), which won a Best Cinematography Oscar for Néstor Almendros.

In DVD commentary for Criterion Collection, Wexler recalled that the studio execs were flabbergasted the film, "an edgy, Godardian tale that ricocheted from one hot-button topic to the next (poverty, racism, civil rebellion, the war in Vietnam, the Kennedy and King assassinations).

Another directing project was From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks (2007), an intimate exploration of the life and times of Harry Bridges, an extraordinary labor leader and social visionary described as "a hero or the devil incarnate--it all depends on your point of view.

In 2021, filmmakers Joan Churchill and Alan Barker released a 26-minute documentary, Shoot From the Heart, about Wexler's life and career.