Since its inception 35 years ago, Sony Pictures Classics — under the uncommonly consistent stewardship of co-chiefs Michael Barker and Tom Bernard — has been a bastion of socially minded cinema on the global stage.
The studio’s trademarks include international cinema that interrogates state power (“Persepolis,” “I’m Still Here”); character-driven dramas centered on identity (“All About My Mother,” “Call Me By Your Name”); documentaries about corruption and human rights (“The Fog of War,” “Inside Job”); and prestige releases that explore structural inequality (“Indochine,” “Incendies”), urgent social matters (“The Father,” “Foxcatcher”) and iconoclasts who defied societal norms (“Badasssss!,” “Searching for Sugar Man”).
The studio has also maintained a proud history of supporting female filmmakers (“Orlando,” “Europa Europa,” “The Rider”), not to mention a persistent dedication to underrepresented communities. In 1996, in fact, the documentary “The Celluloid Closet” — from Oscar-winning duo Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman — analyzed 100 years of LGBTQ+ representation in Hollywood cinema.
Many of these films have been heralded by the industry as Oscar-worthy, starting with Sony Classics’ first-ever release: Merchant Ivory’s “Howards End” in 1992. That film would earn the first of 10 best picture nominations for the studio. Of course, there was Ang Lee’s iconic, record-breaking “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” in 2000, as well as László Nemes’ “Son of Saul” — a haunting Holocaust drama that became the second Hungarian film to win the Oscar for best international feature film.
It’s a lineage to be proud of, and one that is increasingly difficult to sustain in a modern climate defined by consolidation and caution. What has always been so admirable is that Sony Classics has managed to do this both at home and abroad, centering not just domestic stories of injustice but international ones as well. Two films in particular this year have profoundly added to this legacy: Hasan Hadi’s “The President’s Cake,” set during Saddam Hussein’s murderous regime in 1990s Iraq, and James Vanderbilt’s “Nuremberg,” about the 1945-46 International Military Tribunal that saw high-ranking Nazi official Hermann Göring convicted of crimes against humanity.
The power of these films, and their stark warnings against authoritarianism, are what led the Kramer family — in partnership with the African American Film Critics Association and the organization’s co-founder and president, Gil Robertson — to choose Sony Classics as this year’s recipient of the Karen & Stanley Kramer Award for Social Justice. It marks the first time a studio, rather than a film or individual, has received the honor.
Barker and Bernard’s taste and mission bear a striking resemblance to that of my late husband. When Stanley made “Judgment at Nuremberg,” he was not interested in softening history. He had served in the Army’s photographic unit during World War II. He had seen the footage from the liberation of the concentration camps. He knew what had been done in humanity’s name, and he understood that if Americans were going to confront the reality of the Holocaust — 6 million Jews murdered, along with millions of others — they would have to see it unfiltered. Stanley was the first filmmaker to incorporate that footage into a narrative film.
Audiences were stunned. Many could not fathom that human beings could do such things. But that was precisely his point.
We recently screened “Judgment at Nuremberg” and “On the Beach” in recognition of the anniversaries of the Nuremberg trials and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The themes remain urgent, and that’s in part why I find that Vanderbilt’s “Nuremberg” and Stanley’s “Judgment at Nuremberg” are companion pieces. Vanderbilt trained his lens on Hitler’s designated successor, played with chilling charisma by Russell Crowe. Stanley, meanwhile, focused on the Judges’ Trial — the men who wore robes, presided over law and order and signed their names to atrocity. They were the final word of their regime. They had sworn to uphold justice. And yet they hid behind “orders.”
In Vanderbilt’s “Nuremberg,” there is a moment when footage of the camps is shown at trial, a direct echo of Stanley’s film. The horror is undeniable. But what lingers most for me is the warning embedded in the story. The film closes with the historian R.G. Collingwood’s words: “The only clue to what man can do is what man has done.” That is not a historical footnote. It is a mirror.
History does not repeat because monsters return. It repeats because ordinary people decide that silence is safer. Sony Pictures Classics understands that cinema can confront that silence. Over three and a half decades — as conglomerates merge and creative risk is sanded down to market-tested neutrality — Barker and Bernard have maintained a fiercely independent lane for films that challenge, unsettle and provoke. “The President’s Cake” examines authoritarian absurdity through a child’s eyes. “Nuremberg” confronts the architecture of state-sponsored evil head-on. These are not comfortable films. They are necessary ones.
Stanley believed the moving image could make a difference, that it could serve as both witness and warning. That belief feels more fragile today, and more essential.
It is important to remind ourselves what we are capable of. That reminder is not an act of despair. It is an act of vigilance.
For their courage in putting such reminders into the world, and for sustaining a platform where socially conscious cinema can survive, I am deeply proud to present Sony Pictures Classics with an award bearing my husband’s name. May their mission continue. We need it to.