Recorded Picture Company is a British

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 film production company

Production company

A production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, and video.- Tasks and functions :...

 founded in 1974 by Academy Award-winning producer Jeremy Thomas

Jeremy Thomas

Jeremy Jack Thomas, CBE is a British film producer, founder of the Recorded Picture Company. He was the producer of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, which won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2006 he received a European Film Award for Outstanding European Achievement in World...

.

Recorded Picture Company (RPC) is an independent production company that makes feature films for worldwide theatrical release. Jeremy Thomas

Jeremy Thomas

Jeremy Jack Thomas, CBE is a British film producer, founder of the Recorded Picture Company. He was the producer of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, which won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2006 he received a European Film Award for Outstanding European Achievement in World...

 founded the London-based company in 1974, and remains Chairman. Its first production, The Shout

The Shout

The Shout is a 1978 British horror film directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, based on a short story by Robert Graves which was adapted for the screen by Michael Austin...

directed by Jerzy Skolimowski

Jerzy Skolimowski

Jerzy Skolimowski is a Polish film director, screenwriter, dramatist and actor. A graduate of the prestigious National Film School in Łódź, Skolimowski has directed more than twenty films since his 1960 début Oko wykol...

, went on to win the Grand Prix de Jury at the Cannes Film Festival

Cannes Film Festival

The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

 in 1978. Thomas has since produced or executive-produced over 50 films through RPC, of which all but one have obtained North American theatrical release.

RPC is a director-driven company, and has close relationships with a number of leading directors including Bernardo Bertolucci

Bernardo Bertolucci

Bernardo Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers...

, Phillip Noyce

Phillip Noyce

Phillip Noyce is an Australian film director.-Life and career:Noyce was born in Griffith, New South Wales, attended Barker College, Sydney, and began making short films at the age of 18, starting with Better to Reign in Hell, using his friends as the cast...

, Terry Gilliam

Terry Gilliam

Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...

, Stephen Frears

Stephen Frears

Stephen Arthur Frears is an English film director.-Early life:Frears was born in Leicester, England to Ruth M., a social worker, and Dr Russell E. Frears, a general practitioner and accountant. He did not find out that his mother was Jewish until he was in his late 20s...

, David Cronenberg

David Cronenberg

David Paul Cronenberg, OC, FRSC is a Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or venereal horror genre. This style of filmmaking explores people's fears of bodily transformation and infection. In his films, the...

 and Takeshi Kitano

Takeshi Kitano

is a Japanese filmmaker, comedian, singer, actor, film editor, presenter, screenwriter, author, poet, painter, and one-time video game designer who has received critical acclaim, both in his native Japan and abroad, for his highly idiosyncratic cinematic work. The famed Japanese film critic...

. Its films have achieved commercial success and critical acclaim, with the best-known being Bertolucci's The Last Emperor

The Last Emperor

The Last Emperor is a 1987 biopic about the life of Puyi, the last Emperor of China, whose autobiography was the basis for the screenplay written by Mark Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci. Independently produced by Jeremy Thomas, it was directed by Bertolucci and released in 1987 by Columbia Pictures...

, winner of nine Academy Awards

Academy Awards

An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

 including 'Best Picture'. Other notable productions include Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty

Stealing Beauty

Stealing Beauty is a 1996 drama film directed by Academy Award-winning Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci and written by Bertolucci and Susan Minot. It stars Liv Tyler, D.W. Moffett, Jeremy Irons, and Rachel Weisz...

and Little Buddha

Little Buddha

Little Buddha is a 1994 feature film by Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci, starring Bridget Fonda and Keanu Reeves. Made by Bertolucci's regular partner, British producer Jeremy Thomas, it marked the team's return to the East after The Last Emperor....

, Cronenberg's Naked Lunch

Naked Lunch

Naked Lunch is a novel by William S. Burroughs originally published in 1959. The book is structured as a series of loosely-connected vignettes. Burroughs stated that the chapters are intended to be read in any order...

and Crash

Crash (1996 film)

Crash is a 1996 Canadian/British drama thriller film written and directed by David Cronenberg based on the J. G. Ballard 1973 novel of the same name. It tells the story of a group of people who take sexual pleasure from car accidents, a notable form of paraphilia. The film generated considerable...

, Sexy Beast

Sexy Beast

Sexy Beast is a 2000 British-Spanish crime drama film directed by Jonathan Glazer and starring Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, and Ian McShane. Produced by Jeremy Thomas, it was Glazer's debut feature film, who had previously been a music video director for videos such as Rabbit in Your Headlights for...

by Jonathan Glazer

Jonathan Glazer

Jonathan Glazer is an English director of films, commercials and music videos.-Biography:After studying theatre design at Nottingham Trent University, Glazer started out directing theatre and making film and television trailers, including award-winning work for the BBC...

, Brother by Kitano, and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence by Nagisa Oshima

Nagisa Oshima

is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. After graduating from Kyoto University he was hired by Shochiku Ltd. and quickly progressed to directing his own movies, making his debut feature A Town of Love and Hope in 1959....

. RPC's films have garnered numerous prizes at Cannes and other major festivals and awards ceremonies.

Jeremy Thomas later remembered forging the reputation of the company in the 1970s:
Recent releases include Bertolucci’s The Dreamers, Terry Gilliam’s Tideland

Tideland

Tideland is the third published book by author Mitch Cullin, and is the third installment of the writer's Texas Trilogy that also includes the coming-of-age novel Whompyjawed and the novel-in-verse Branches....

, Wim Wenders

Wim Wenders

Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf...

’ Don't Come Knocking

Don't Come Knocking

Don't Come Knocking is a 2005 film, a comedy-drama road movie directed by German director Wim Wenders and written by Wenders and actor/playwright Sam Shepard. The two had previously collaborated on the film Paris, Texas...

, Richard Linklater

Richard Linklater

-Early life:Linklater was born in Houston, Texas. He studied at Sam Houston State University and left midway through his stint in college to work on an off-shore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. While working on the rig he read a lot of literature, but on land he developed a love of film through...

’s Fast Food Nation

Fast Food Nation

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal is a book by investigative journalist Eric Schlosser that examines the local and global influence of the United States fast food industry....

and Gerald McMorrow’s Franklyn

Franklyn

Franklyn is a 2008 British film written and directed by Gerald McMorrow as his debut feature. Produced by Jeremy Thomas, it stars Ryan Phillippe, Eva Green and Sam Riley. Shooting took place in London in the fourth quarter of 2007. Franklyn held its world premiere at the 52nd London Film Festival...

, starring Eva Green

Eva Green

Eva Gaëlle Green is a French actress and model.Green performed in theatre before making her film debut in The Dreamers , which generated controversy over her numerous nude scenes. She achieved greater fame for her parts in Kingdom of Heaven , and in the 2006 James Bond film Casino Royale, for...

, Sam Riley

Sam Riley

Sam Riley is an English actor and singer.-Early life:Riley was born in Menston in the Metropolitan District of Bradford in West Yorkshire, the son of "a textile agent and nursery-school teacher". He was educated at Uppingham School...

 and Ryan Phillippe

Ryan Phillippe

Matthew Ryan Phillippe , better known as Ryan Phillippe, is an American actor. After appearing on the soap opera One Life to Live, he came to fame in the late 1990s starring in a string of films, including I Know What You Did Last Summer, Cruel Intentions, and 54...

. RPC's latest film, Jon Amiel

Jon Amiel

Jon Amiel is an English film director who has since the early 1980s worked in film and television in both the UK and the US.-Early life:...

’s Creation

Creation (2009 film)

Creation is a 2009 British biographical drama film. Produced by Jeremy Thomas, the film was directed by Jon Amiel, and stars Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly as Charles and Emma Darwin...

, about the life of Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

 starring Paul Bettany

Paul Bettany

Paul Bettany is an English actor. He has appeared in a wide variety of films, including A Knight's Tale, A Beautiful Mind, and The Da Vinci Code...

 and Jennifer Connelly

Jennifer Connelly

Jennifer Lynn Connelly is an American film actress, who began her career as a child model. She appeared in magazine, newspaper and television advertising, before making her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America...

, was the Opening Gala of the 2009 Toronto Film Festival. 2010 saw Takashi Miike

Takashi Miike

is a highly prolific and controversial Japanese filmmaker. He has directed over seventy theatrical, video, and television productions since his debut in 1991. In the years 2001 and 2002 alone, Miike is credited with directing fifteen productions...

's samurai epic Thirteen Assassins

Thirteen Assassins

is a 2010 Japanese-British jidaigeki film directed by Takashi Miike.A samurai epic based on a true incident, the film was produced by Toshiaki Nakazawa, who also produced the 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film Departures...

and Jerzy Skolimowski's Essential Killing

Essential Killing

Essential Killing is a 2010 Polish political thriller film directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, starring Vincent Gallo and Emmanuelle Seigner.- Plot :...

have their world premieres In Competition at the Venice International Film Festival, with both films going on to feature in Official Selection at Toronto.

RPC's upcoming films include David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method

A Dangerous Method

A Dangerous Method is a 2011 historical film directed by David Cronenberg and starring Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley and Vincent Cassel...

, starring Keira Knightley

Keira Knightley

Keira Christina Knightley born 26 March 1985) is an English actress and model. She began acting as a child and came to international notice in 2002 after co-starring in the film Bend It Like Beckham...

, Viggo Mortensen

Viggo Mortensen

Viggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. is a Danish-American actor, poet, musician, photographer and painter. He made his film debut in Peter Weir's 1985 thriller Witness, and subsequently appeared in many notable films of the 1990s, including The Indian Runner , Carlito's Way , Crimson Tide , Daylight , The...

, Michael Fassbender

Michael Fassbender

Michael Fassbender is an Irish-German actor. He is best known for playing Lt. Archie Hicox in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds and Magneto in the superhero blockbuster X-Men: First Class...

 and Vincent Cassel

Vincent Cassel

Vincent Cassel is a Cesar award winning French actor probably best known to English-speaking audiences through his performances in the Ocean's Trilogy of films and Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan.-Personal life:...

, Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is a planned feature film by director Terry Gilliam. As documented in Lost in La Mancha, production originally commenced in October 2000, but stopped within a week due to a serious injury to Jean Rochefort, who had been cast for the title role of Don Quixote...

, and titles from Vincenzo Natali

Vincenzo Natali

Vincenzo Natali is an American-Canadian film director and screenwriter, best known for writing and directing science fiction films such as Cube, Nothing and Splice.-Early life:...

 and Phillip Noyce

Phillip Noyce

Phillip Noyce is an Australian film director.-Life and career:Noyce was born in Griffith, New South Wales, attended Barker College, Sydney, and began making short films at the age of 18, starting with Better to Reign in Hell, using his friends as the cast...

. RPC's senior development executive
Alainée Kent works closely on the slate with Thomas.