Jeremy Thomas, Legendary British Producer and Oscar Winner, Dies at 77

Jeremy Thomas, one of the film industry’s most highly respected independent producers with a body of work spanning more than half a century, has died. He was 77 years old.

According to his team, Thomas passed away peacefully at his country home in Oxfordshire late on Friday Sep 11, surrounded by his family and loved ones.

Across his career, Thomas — who founded the Recorded Picture Company and later co-founded Hanway Films — helped bring to life more than 80 features, championing the work of both international cinema and daring auteur filmmakers in the process.

Among numerous accolades and awards, Thomas won a best picture Oscar for Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Last Emperor” in 1988, one of nine Academy Awards for the film. He would make features across 17 years with the Italian director, one of several filmmakers with whom he’d have enduring working relationships.

Within his vast library of films, Thomas also produced Jonathan Glazer’s debut feature “Sexy Beast,” David Cronbenberg “Crash,” Christopher Hampton’s “A Dangerous Method” and Nagisa Oshima’s “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence.” Other directors he collaborated with, many across multiple films, would include Jim Jarmusch, Stephen Frears, Julien Temple, Takashi Miike, Matteo Garrone, Werner Herzog, Terry Gilliam, Richard Linklater, Karel Reisz, Phillip Noyce, David Mackenzie, Jerzy Skolimowski, Ben Wheatley and Wim Wenders.

Working to the last, Thomas produced Herzog’s “Bucking Fastard,” starring Rooney and Kate Mara, which premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival. Meanwhile, at the current Toronto Film Festival, his latest collaboration with Miike, “Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo,” is due to world premiere on Sep 14.

In 2006 Thomas received a European Film Award for Outstanding European Achievement in World Cinema. In 2021, Thomas came to Cannes as the subject of Mark Cousins’ documentary “The Storms of Jeremy Thomas,” recounting his numerous trips to the festival and work as a producer. He recently appeared in Luca Guadagnino’s documentary “Joie De Vivre,” which also premiered in Venice, about the cinema, art, and life of Bertolucci.

The son of director Ralph Thomas (who directed many “Doctor” films) and nephew of Gerald Thomas (who directed all of the “Carry On” films), Thomas was born in London in 1949. He began working in the industry immediately after leaving school, helping in the cutting rooms for films including “The Harder They Come” and “Family Life,” eventually rising to edit Ken Loach’s 1973 TV short “A Misfortune.”

While he originally wanted to be a director, Thomas shifted to producing, with his first producer credit being the 1976 feature “Mad Dog Morgan,” which he made in Australia at the age of 27 for director Phillipe Mora. He later returned to the U.K. and produced Skolimowski’s 1978 horror “The Shout,” the first for his newly-launched Recorded Pictures Company banner. The film went to Cannes, where it competed for the Palme d’Or and won the Grand Prix de Jury prize.