A list of the most relevant and successful production companies in the US. The list follows an alphabetical order and includes the most awarded production companies of the last decade:
Founded in 2000 by director Noam Murro and managing director Shawn Lacy, Biscuit Filmworks is a commercial production company based in London and Los Angeles. The company is an incubator of some of the top industry talent with a constant production of memorable work. Since its beginnings, Biscuit has been one of the most prolific and award-winning companies in commercial production, with two DGA wins for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials for Noam Murro and one win for Andreas Nilsson; plus countless AICP, D&AD, Clio, Cannes Lions, and One Show awards for all of the directors on the Biscuit roster. A regular of Ad Age's top production companies list while Noam Murro has been named to Creativity’s Top 50 list of creative professionals. The director has made the first animated drama mini-series ever made for television "Watership Down" based on Richard Adams’s classic novel, also the first major co-production between the BBC and Netflix and came out in 2018. Isaiah Seret’s music video "Pleader" for Alt-J inspired by Richard Llewlyn’s book "How Green Was My Valley?" and filmed in the Rhonda Valley in South Wales picked up Best Alternative Music Video at the UKMVA’s in 2018 as well as winning big at all major award shows. Biscuit Entertainment is a new path for the company: the Film, TV and development arm of the company.
Director: Andreas Nilsson
Production company: Biscuit Filmworks
AGENCY: Droga5 London
CLIENT: Amazon
With offices in Los Angeles, London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Prague, Paris & Madrid, Caviar is an award-winning entertainment company with a clear vision and passion: entertain audiences, wherever they are. Caviar’s ever growing circle of creators is rooted in branded content, film, digital and post production. Created in 2006, each office has a slightly different tone, whether it’s the comedic virals coming from Los Angeles office or the award winning dramatic television series coming from Brussels – but it’s Caviar’s commitment to multiple time-zone collaborations and a stubborn ideology of thinking outside the box that’s made it unique and a growing force to be reckoned with on the international production stage. Caviar engages around seventy-five full-time employees and hundreds more in top-notch freelance talent. In 2012, we cumulatively produced almost 400 TV and internet commercials, eighteen hours of television and close to 320 minutes of movies. Ultimately, Caviar’s bottom line is storytelling, driven by compelling characters, unexpected laughs, immersive atmospheres and provocative material and feel lucky to be in a business that trades in them.
Director: Henry Schofield
Production company: Caviar
AGENCY: AMV BBDO
CLIENT: Pepsi
Hungry Man is an international commercial marketing and film production company with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Rio de Janeiro and London, founded in 1997 by Steve Orent, Bryan Buckley and Hank Perlman. It has been voted by Creativity Online to be one of the top five commercial production companies in the world and It's also the only production company to be ranked within the top ten at the Cannes Advertising Festival's Palme d'Or for over ten consecutive years. The organization has created over 50 Super Bowl commercials over a ten-year period. The first collaboration of Buckley and Perlman was ESPN's "This is Sportscenter" campaign, named as one of the Top 10 Commercial Campaigns of the 20th century by TV Guide. Hungry Man is home to an accomplished and award winning group of 31 directors and production executives. Hungry Man was awarded the production business’ highest accolade, the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Advertising Festival in 2004. Their clients are diverse and include American Express, Apple, Kraft, Google, Mercedes and Heineken, to note only a few. Buckley has been dubbed by more than one news publication as the “King of the Super Bowl.” It probably has something to do with him having at least one commercial in every Super Bowl for the last 15 years. Their directors have won countless industry accolades in all the major awards shows; D&AD, Cannes, British Arrows, including the coveted Palm D’or at Cannes. Our longer format work has received Academy and BAFTA nominations and this year has produced its first feature film "Pirates of Somalia", written and directed by Buckley.
Director: Bryan Buckley
Production company: Hungry Man
AGENCY: Saatchi & Saatchi London
CLIENT: Direct Line
MJZ (Morton Jankel Zander, Inc.) is a bi coastal/international commercial and music video production giant company founded in 1989 by producer David Zander and director Rocky Morton. It represents an impressive roster of acclaimed filmmakers, producing award-winning feature films, commercials and music videos that has consistently set the industry standard with work that is fresh, exciting and innovative. It has produce commercials for Coca- Cola, Volkswagen, Old Spice, Chevy, Nike, Levy’s, H&M, Gucci, Sony, Dove, Skittles and other well-known brands MJZ is a part of the Grey Group, which is owned by WPP, one of the largest advertising and marketing companies in the world. MJZ has an in-house staff about 25 people, which include high profile directors and producers. Some of these award-winning directors include Spike Jonze, Dante Ariola, Tom Kuntz and Joaquin Baca-Asay. With its A-List directors, MJZ has produced an impressive collection of commercials, music videos and short films, but it focuses mostly on producing commercials. MJZ has earned more “awards than any other commercial production company in the history of the industry”: the Palm d’Or, the highest prize at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival for four different years since 2005, and named “Production Company of the Year” by Creativity Magazine and Boards Magazine for seven years in a row. The directors of MJZ have been nominated and have won several Emmys, Clios and so many more honorable distinctions
Director: Tom Kuntz
Production company: MJZ
AGENCY: TBWA New York
CLIENT: Mountain Dew
Park Pictures is a commercial and film production company founded in 1998 by Executive Producer Jacqueline Kelman Bisbee and renowned director/cinematographer Lance Acord with an auspicious track record for discovering new talent and mentoring directors to reach their highest potential. A company that welcomes the future formats, longer form filmmaking and integrated projects; maintaining its relevance within the changing advertising arena. A company full of honors, including Cannes Lions, Clios, D&ADs, Andys, AICP, One Show awards as well as Emmy nominations, and most recently, an Academy Award® for The New Tenants. Their clients are high-brands such as Apple, Nike, Google, Adidas, GE, Verizon, Nissan and VW for 17 years. Park Pictures director Terri Timely won the Cannes Lion Grand Prix in 2015 for their "Unskippable" Geico pre-roll campaign. Park Pictures produced in 2010 the short film "The New Tenants" which won the 2010 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. In 2012, Creativity Magazine named Lance Acord’s Nike "Jogger" the Best TV Spot of the Year, and for the third time, he was nominated for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials at the 2012 DGA Awards. Lance was nominated for the 2013 Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial for Nike "Jogger" and won the Emmy in 2014 for Apple "Misunderstood". Park Pictures also won the Emmy for Outstanding Commercial in 2019 for Nike’s "Dream Crazy" directed by Lance Acord, Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki, and Christian Weber. Park Pictures Features have debuted several projects at Sundance: the first one, the hit "Robot & Frank" directed by Park director Jake Schreier, "God’s Pocket" directed by John Slattery and "Infinitely Polar Bear" directed by Maya Forbes. In recent years, Park Pictures Features has produced many noteworthy films, including "Cop Car", directed by Jon Watts, the acclaimed and awarded "Other People" directed by Chris Kelly, "The Hero" and "Hearts Beat Loud" both directed by Brett Haley. In 2020 Park Pictures returned to the Sundance Film Festival with four films, including "The Truffle Hunters". Park also produced the documentary "The Sentence", premiered at The 2018 Sundance Film Festival where received the Audience Award for U.S. Documentary and then earned the Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking.
Director: Lance Acord
Production company: Park Pictures
AGENCY: Wieden+Kennedy
CLIENT: Nike
Established in 2005 by Thomas Benski and Marisa Clifford, Pulse Films is an award-winning, independent, modern-day studio encompassing the development, production, financing and distribution of cross-platform content for audiences worldwide. Pulse’s motto: “artist first” allowed the company to build a thriving talent management component to the business that completes its holistic approach to content creation. Dedicated creators of moments that define culture through innovative storytelling, Pulse Films operates under the following divisions: Film, Television, Branded Entertainment, Music and Commercials. Composed by an award-winning film team that excels in producing fiction films, music documentaries and drama-documentaries that are provocative and redefining in their approach. They team-up with them most talented and influential people in film to create eventful, genre-defying theatrical releases and TV single dramas & drama series. A company defined by its fluid approach to production, with all four of their departments working together. This method helps good ideas to cross between departments and grow to become genre busting, multi platform pieces of content. A company that embraces digital as an important and integral part of everything they integrate it woven through the entire company's DNA. They have produced stand out commercials for brands including Kronenbourg, Puma, Lucozade, McDonalds, Aviva, Yeo Valley and Nike. They've re-launched Myspace with an award winning fully integrated campaign (Cannes Lion 2010), developed the YouTube blogging hit 'Mystery Package' for RNLI (Cannes Lion 2009) and produced the branded entertainment feature documentary series "Lives of the Artists" for Coca Cola's Relentless energy drink. Pulse is a major player in the international music landscape, they now produce live concert, documentary and online content, critically acclaimed feature length documentaries like "No Distance Left to Run" for Blur, as well as branded content, such as the "Live and Lost" TV series for Blackberry. Pulse TV is renowned for its innovative concepts, cross-genre programming and high-end production values. We have an award-winning tradition of producing groundbreaking programming, working across Factual Entertainment and Entertainment formats, Reality and Documentary. Pulse Films’ credits include feature films such as Andrea Arnold’s Cannes Jury Prize winner and BAFTA nominated "American honey", Sundance Award winners "The Witch" and "All these sleepless nights", Beyonce’s Emmy nominated "Lemonade", and 2017’s London Film Festival hit "Kingdom of us" and "Trophy".
Director: Sam Pilling
Production company: Pulse
AGENCY: Mother
CLIENT: IKEA
Smuggler is a production company founded by Patrick Milling Smith and Brian Carmody. Headquartered in Hollywood, Smuggler also operates offices in New York and London. Originally developed to produce commercials, Smuggler has expanded to include divisions for film, television, and theater. Smuggler is a collective of storytellers, comprised of more than 20 directors. To date, the commercial production branch of the company has developed campaigns for clients such as FedEx, MTV, Converse, Ford, Activision, Nike, and Coca-Cola. Smuggler is responsible for the Logitech “Bacon on Bacon” commercial, as well as the T-Mobile “Welcome Back” campaign that featured a flash mob at the Heathrow airport in London. Perhaps the most notable was the Ecko Unlimited “Still Free” viral video, directed by Randy Krallman, which featured graffiti artists supposedly jumping a fence at Andrews Air Force Base to tag Air Force One. Sandy Hook Promise’s Harrowing "Back-to-School Essentials" commercial was created by BBDO New York and directed by SMUGGLER’s Henry-Alex Rubin, who also helmed other notable spots for the client, including the startling 2016 “Evan” ad, featuring a love story with a grim twist. The spot won the 2020 Outstanding Commercial Emmy. Under the banner of the Film & Theater division, Smuggler is actively in development of several projects, working with internal directors, as well as outside collaborators. "Holy Wars" released in 2010, is the company’s first feature-length documentary. "Seminar" which opened on Broadway in 2011, is the first play produced by Smuggler in partnership with Jeffrey Finn and Jill Furman, starring Alan Rickman. In 2012, the musical adaptation of "Once" based on the 2007 film, opened on Broadway, developed and produced by Smuggler along with producers Barbara Broccoli (James Bond franchise) and Fred Zollo.
Director: Henry Alex Rubin
Production company: Smuggler
AGENCY: BBDO New York
CLIENT: Sandy Hook Promise
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