Aspects of the invention provide, in some aspects, a method of face recognition that includes receiving plural frames of a video stream imaging a candidate individual, e.g., in the field of view of a camera, and generating for each of those frames a score of the image and/or of the candidate therein. This can include, for example, a score (or count) indicative of the number of individuals present in the frame, a pose of the candidate individual (e.g., face-on or otherwise), blur in the image, and so forth. The method further includes selecting, based on the respective scores of the frames, a subset of the frames for matching by a face recognizer against a set of one or more images of designated individuals. That set may be of individuals approved for access, individuals to be prevented for access, or otherwise. An output is generated, according to the method, based on such matching by the face recognizer.