Michael Barker is the co-president and co-founder of Sony Pictures Classics (with Tom Bernard and Marcie Bloom), an autonomous division of Sony Pictures Entertainment founded in January 1992. Sony Pictures Classics distributes, produces, and acquires independent films from the United States and around the world.
The trio has worked with many of the world’s finest independent filmmakers including Akira Kurosawa, John Boorman, Louis Malle, David Mamet, James Ivory, Zhang Yimou, Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch, Allison Anders, Agniezska Holland, John Sayles, Fred Schepisi, Errol Morris, Alan Rudolph, Hal Hartley, Pedro Almodóvar, Mike Figgis, Woody Allen, François Truffaut, R.W. Fassbinder, Lily Tomlin, Richard Linklater, Merchant Ivory, Neil LaBute, Sally Potter, David Cronenberg, Hector Babenco, Guillermo del Toro, Gary Oldman, Paul Schrader, Robert Altman, Ingmar Bergman, Norman Jewison, Ang Lee, Paul Verhhoeven, Kenneth Branagh and Francis Ford Coppola.
Highlights include:
Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud), And When Did You Last See Your Father? (Anand Tucker), Youth Without Youth (Francis Ford Coppola), Sleuth (Kenneth Branagh), My Kid Could Paint That (Amir Bar-Lev), The Jane Austen Book Club (Robin Swicord), Moliere (Laurent Tirard), Interview (Steve Buscemi), Paprika (Satoshi Kon), Angel-A (Luc Besson), The Valet (Francis Veber), Black Book (Paul Verhoeven), The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck), Volver (Pedro Almodóvar), Quinceneara (Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer), Who Killed the Electric Car? (Chris Payne), Friends With Money (Nicole Holofcener), The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Tommy Lee Jones), Why We Fight (Eugene Jarecki), Cache (Michael Haneke), Breakfast on Pluto (Neil Jordan), Capote (Bennett Miller), 2046 (Wong Kar Wai), Junebug (Phil Morrison), House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou), Saraband (Ingmar Bergman), Kung Fu Hustle (Steven Chow), Spider (David Cronenberg), Baadasssss! (Mario Van Peebles), The Company (Robert Altman), The Fog of War (Errol Morris), Triplets of Bellville (Sylvain Chomet), Winged Migration (Jacques Perrin), All the Real Girls (David Gordon Green), 13 Conversations About One Thing (Jill Sprecher), Talk to Her (Pedro Almodóvar), Dogtown and Z Boys (Stacy Peralta), Pollock (Ed Harris), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee), Sweet and Lowdown (Woody Allen), American Movie (Chris Smith), Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer), The General (John Boorman), Central Station (Walter Salles), The Opposite of Sex (David Roos), Spanish Prisoner (David Mamet), In the Company of Men (Neil LaBute), Suburbia (Richard Linklater), Waiting for Guffman (Chris Guest), Lone Star (John Sayles), Welcome to the Dollhouse (Todd Solondz), The City of Lost Children (Jean Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro), Safe (Todd Haynes), Persuasion (Roger Michell), Crumb (Terry Zwigoff), Vanya on 42nd Street (Louis Malle), Mi Vida Loca (Allison Anders), Orlando (Sally Potter) and Howards End (Merchant Ivory).
Sony Pictures Classics has also played a significant role in preserving film’s heritage. Together with the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and the Merchant Ivory Foundation, they have restored and released nine of master filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s greatest works. They have also preserved and reissued Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger and Vittorio de Sica’s The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. In 2006, SPC re-issued eight Pedro Almodóvar films in the United States.
As a co-founder of Orion Classics (1983-1991) and an executive at United Artists (1980-1983), Barker released films by Akira Kurosawa (Ran), R.W. Fassbinder (Lola, Veronika Voss), and François Truffaut (The Last Metro).
Honors bestowed on his team and their films include 23 Academy Awards and 90 Academy Award nominations, including three for Best Picture (Howards End, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Capote), as well as nine Opening Night Presentations at the New York Film Festival.
He and his partner Tom Bernard (with SPC co-founder Marcie Bloom) have also received the Honors Award from the Directors Guild of America, France’s Chevalier, Order of Arts and Letters, the IFP/West Sprit Awards, the GLAAD Media Award, a recent retrospective at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, the Gotham Industry Lifetime Achievement Award from the IFP, and the FINDIE Spirit Award.
Mr. Barker serves on the Entertainment Media and Technology Dean’s Advisory Board at NYU’s Stern School of Business and is a member of the Visiting Committee to the Division of the Humanities at the University of Chicago. He is also a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Texas. He was born in Nuremberg, Germany.