Celebrated British film producer Jeremy Thomas, whose independent vision shaped decades of world cinema and brought home an Academy Award for The Last Emperor, died on Friday at his home in Oxfordshire at age 77, according to a statement from his family.
Over a career spanning more than 50 years, the London-based producer built an international reputation by championing auteurs and backing projects that mainstream Hollywood studios routinely passed over. His family confirmed in a statement that Thomas passed away peacefully at his country home surrounded by family and loved ones.
Building an Independent Empire With The Last Emperor
Thomas carved out his defining triumph with Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1987 Chinese epic, The Last Emperor. The sweeping biographical drama about Puyi, the final monarch of China’s Qing dynasty, was independently financed and required three years to complete. The gamble paid off spectacularly when the film won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, cementing Thomas’s status as a powerhouse in global filmmaking.
Born into a filmmaking family on July 26, 1949—his father Ralph directed over 40 features, and his uncle Gerald helmed the Carry On comedy franchise—Thomas started his career on the cutting room floor. He worked as an assistant editor on films such as The Harder They Come before earning his first producer credit on the 1976 Australian outlaw drama Mad Dog Morgan, starring Dennis Hopper.
A Fearless Collaborator With Global Auteurs
In the 1970s, Thomas founded the London-based independent production house Recorded Picture Company (RPC), kicking off its slate with Jerzy Skolimowski’s Cannes prize-winner The Shout. He followed it by forging creative alliances with some of the most distinctive directors of the 20th and 21st centuries, spanning Japan, Italy, Canada, and the United States.
He collaborated repeatedly with Bernardo Bertolucci on films including The Sheltering Sky, Little Buddha, Stealing Beauty, and The Dreamers. He also partnered with David Cronenberg on major psychological and literary adaptations, including the kinky 1996 adaptation Crash, which stoked a fierce censorship battle and sparked a backlash upon its Cannes Film Festival premiere.
“Jeremy Thomas was one of the most significant producers of world cinema in the world. The list of the giants of cinema that he curated, encouraged, selflessly supported and believed in, often when others wouldn’t take the risk, was a tribute to his belief in film as an art above all else. Jeremy’s legacy is incalculable and he has left an indelible mark on cinema history.”
Mike Downey, producer and former chair of the European Film Academy
His eclectic credits further include Nagisa Oshima’s prisoner-of-war drama Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, starring David Bowie; Jonathan Glazer’s crime thriller Sexy Beast; Jim Jarmusch’s vampire romance Only Lovers Left Alive; and Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise.
A Fixture of the Festival Circuit and International Cinema
He later co-founded the sales and production banner HanWay Films in 1998 with Peter Watson and Stephan Mallmann.
News of his death arrived on the final day of the 83rd Venice Film Festival, where his final producing efforts were still making waves. He helped shepherd Werner Herzog’s main competition title Bucking Fastard—at a press conference, Herzog credited Thomas with the idea of casting Kate and Rooney Mara as a pair of sisters—alongside Takashi Miike’s Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo, slated for a Toronto International Film Festival premiere.
“He was a hero for me. A rebel with taste.”
Andrew Macdonald, producer
Fellow producer Stephen Woolley noted that Thomas was a huge inspiration and a massively undervalued rebel in the industry, adding, I have to thank him for my career.
