Sony Pictures Classics
Sony Pictures Classics Inc. is an American film production and distribution company that is a division of Sony Pictures. It was founded in 1992 by former Orion Classics heads Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Marcie Bloom. It distributes, produces and acquires specialty films such as documentaries, independent and arthouse films in the United States and internationally. As of 2015, Barker and Bernard are co-presidents of the division. History. Sony Pictures Classics was formed in 1992, by Michael Barker, Tom Bernard, and Marcie Bloom, set up as an autonomous division of Sony Pictures. The model of the  company is to produce, acquire and/or distribute independent films from the United States and internationally. Sony Pictures Classics has releases prestigious films that have won 37 Academy Awards and have garnered 155 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture nominations for The Father, Call Me By Your Name, Whiplash, Amour, Midnight in Paris, An Education, Capote, Howards End, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Sony Pictures Classics has a history of making reasonable investments for small films, and getting a decent return. It has a history of not overspending. Its largest commercial success of the 2010s is Woody Allen's "Midnight in  Paris" (2011), which grossed over $56 million in the U.S., becoming Allen's highest-grossing film ever in the United States. Sony Pictures Classics has been a pioneer in theatrical distribution. In 2001, Sony Pictures Classics championed foreign-language film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and it earned the most Oscar nominations ever for a non-English-language film going on to win the best foreign-language film Oscar and Golden Globe in 2001 — and at the box office, garnering more than $213 million worldwide on a $17 million budget, including $128 million in the U.S. as  a Sony Pictures Classics release. In 2006, SPC promoted "The Lives of Others" to an Oscar and BAFTA, after the movie had been rejected by Cannes, Berlin, Venice and the New York Film Festival. Occasionally, Sony Pictures Classics agrees to release films for all other film studio divisions of Sony; however, under Sony Pictures Classics' structure within Sony, all other divisions of Sony (including the parent company) cannot force Sony Pictures Classics to release any film that the division does not want to release.