Born in Mexico City in 1965, Rodrigo Prieto A.S.C., A.M.C. studied at the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC) in Mexico City, where he focused on Cinematography. He built a reputation for meticulous attention to visual and dramatic detail on a number of Mexican features before coming to the attention of the world film community with Amores Perros (2000). Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, it garnered Prieto several honors, including a third Ariel Award and the Golden Frog Award at the Camerimage International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography in Poland. 

His subsequent films as cinematographer have included Julie Taymor's Frida, for which he was an ASC Award nominee; Curtis Hanson's 8 Mile; Spike Lee's 25th Hour; and, again for Alejandro González Iñárritu, the award-winning 21 Grams. His collaborations with Oliver Stone include Comandante; Persona Non Grata; Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; and Alexander, for which Prieto was honored with the Silver Frog Award at the Camerimage International Film Festival. For his work on Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, Prieto was nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and an American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Award. 

In 2006, Prieto and Iñárritu reunited for Babel, which earned him his second consecutive BAFTA Award nomination. He travelled to Hong Kong and Shanghai with Ang Lee to shoot Lust, Caution, which earned a Golden Osella award for Best Cinematography at the Venice Film Festival, and was also nominated for an Independent Spirit Award in 2008. He then shot State of Play for director Kevin Macdonald, after which he went to Madrid, Spain to collaborate with director Pedro Almodóvar on Broken Embraces, starring Penélope Cruz. From there, he went to Barcelona to join forces once again with Iñárritu for Biutiful, marking their fourth film together. 

In the summer of 2011, Prieto joined Ben Affleck to make the political thriller Argo, which went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture in 2013. Prieto then directed his first short film, called Likeness starring Elle Fanning, dealing with eating disorders. The short premiered in the Tribeca Film Festival and has generated intense interest online, going viral shortly after its release in YouTube in December 2013. 

Early in 2012, Director Martin Scorsese asked Prieto to shoot his film The Wolf of Wall Street with Leonardo DiCaprio. Immediately after he flew to Santa Fe, New Mexico to shoot The Homesman, starring and directed by Tommy Lee Jones. The film was chosen for the Official Selection at Cannes 2014. 

In the summer of 2014, Prieto re-teamed with Scorsese to shoot the pilot for the HBO series Vinyl, about the New York Rock n’ Roll scene in the 1970’s. In January 2015, they travelled together to Taiwan to shoot his period drama Silence, for which Prieto was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. Prieto then joined forces with Director Morten Tyldum for the sci-fi drama Passengers starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. 

Recently, Rodrigo completed principal photography on another movie with Scorsese titled I Heard You Paint Houses, which tells the story of the assassin of Jimmy Hoffa, with Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Monica, and his daughters Maria Fernanda and Ximena.