Columbia Pictures: 100 Years of Cinema

Tom Rothman is chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Motion Picture Group and the longest-tenured of all modern-era studio executives. In that role, Rothman oversees the studio’s motion-picture businesses worldwide, including those of Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Animation, and Sony Pictures Classics. Prior to joining Sony, he was the longtime co-chairman and CEO of Twentieth Century Fox, having joined that studio as the founder of Fox Searchlight Pictures. He also ran production for the Samuel Goldwyn Company in the early 1990s.

Under Rothman’s leadership, Sony’s motion picture business has experienced several of its most profitable years ever. He has launched or reignited multiple active franchises including Spider-verse, Venom, Uncharted, Jumanji, and Bad Boys. Widely known as a passionate movie lover and defender of the theatrical experience, he has brought multiple topflight filmmakers to the studio including Sam Mendes, Danny Boyle, Greta Gerwig, Quentin Tarantino, Edgar Wright, Jon Watts, Jason Reitman, Ang Lee, Denzel Washington, Leonardo DiCaprio, and many others. In 2019, the Studio had the rare distinction of having two films, Little Women and Once Upon a time in Hollywood, both nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars.

Sam Wasson is the best-selling author of The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood and other books on film.

Chris Cotonou is a writer and editor with bylines in GQ, Esquire, Robb Report, the London Evening Standard, The Rake, Gentleman’s Journal, and more. He is also the deputy editor and co-founder of A Rabbit’s Foot, one of the only non-cyclical film journals in the English language, now circulated worldwide.