Picturehouse (company)

Picturehouse is an American independent entertainment company owned by CEO Bob Berney and COO Jeanne R. Berney. Based in Los Angeles, the company specializes in film marketing and distribution, both in the U.S. and internationally. Picturehouse's leadership focuses on theatrical distribution while considering the entire life of a film.[1]

In coverage of the company’s 2013 relaunch, Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos described the Berneys as “legendary tastemakers and innovators.”[2] Early collaborators include filmmakers such as Guillermo Del Toro, who wrote in a January 2026 post on X that his Academy Award-winning film Pan's Labyrinth (2006) “exists because of Bob’s faith,” and Christopher Nolan.[3] Nolan’s Memento (2000) was initially rejected by distributors over fears that its non-linear narrative would be confusing for audiences.[4][5][6] After Memento financier Newmarket Films opted to release it themselves, Bob Berney and his young-adult-oriented campaign helped it earn roughly $25 million at the North American box office and launch Nolan’s career.[7][8][9]

Many Picturehouse titles have received critical acclaim, including most recently BAFTA Award nominee Becoming Cousteau (2021), Emmy Award winner The Territory (2022) and the Oscar nominated Porcelain War (2024).

History

Formed by Bob Berney in 2005, Picturehouse was a joint venture created by Time Warner subsidiaries New Line Cinema and HBO Films to acquire, produce and distribute independent films.[10] Berney, who guided the acquisition, marketing and distribution of Christopher Nolan’s Memento, Joel Zwick’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, among other notable releases, has run the company from its inception.[11]

Over the next two years, Picturehouse released features such as Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion, starring Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin; Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, which was acquired at script stage and went on to earn six Academy Award nominations and wins in three categories; La Vie en Rose, which garnered Marion Cotillard an Academy Award for Best Actress;[12] and Sergei Bodrov's Genghis Khan biopic Mongol, a nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.[13]

Time Warner's 2008 consolidation resulted in Warner Bros. exiting the independent business to concentrate on big-budget "tentpole" releases. This prompted the closure of marketing and distribution operations at both New Line Cinema and Picturehouse, costing 70 employees their jobs.[14]

In 2013, Berney and his wife Jeanne acquired the Picturehouse logo and trademark from Warner Bros. and relaunched the label as an independent theatrical distribution company.[15] Initial releases included Adriana Trigiani's Big Stone Gap, starring Ashley Judd; Grammy Award nominee Metallica Through the Never, starring Dane DeHaan; and Adam Wingard’s The Guest, an Independent Spirit Award nominee starring Dan Stevens and Maika Monroe.

In 2020, the company released the faith-based drama Fatima, directed by Marco Pontecorvo and starring Joaquim de Almeida, Goran Visnjic, Harvey Keitel and Sônia Braga.[16] One year later, Picturehouse announced that it would release Becoming Cousteau, a documentary using previously unseen archival footage to chronicle the life and career of the adventurous oceanographer and filmmaker Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who coinvented scuba diving and foretold the impact of pollution on climate change. Directed by Liz Garbus, the film was released on October 22, 2021 and earned a 2022 British Academy Film Award for Best Documentary, in addition to winning Best Science/Nature Documentary at the 2021 Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards.[17][18][19]

Alex Pritz’s The Territory, a 2022 documentary chronicling the struggle of Brazil’s indigenous Uru-eu-wau-wau against farmers, colonizers and settlers whose deforestation encroaches on a protected area of the Amazon rainforest, was shortlisted for the 95th Academy Awards in the Best Documentary Feature category and won the award for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking at the 75th Emmy Awards.[20][21][22]

In 2024, Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev’s Porcelain War, which documents the experience of Ukrainian artists facing the Russian occupation in Ukraine, won the U.S. Documentary Competition Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and was later Oscar nominated in the Best Documentary Feature Film category.[23][24][25]

Filmography

External links