Jeremy Thomas, Producer of Oscar-Winning 'The Last Emperor,' Dies at 77

Jeremy Thomas, the British film producer behind The Last Emperor, died peacefully on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, at his country home in Oxfordshire, his team said. He was 77.

Born in London on July 26, 1949, Thomas produced more than 80 feature films over his career. He founded Recorded Picture Company and later co-founded HanWay Films, and worked with directors including Bernardo Bertolucci, David Cronenberg, Jonathan Glazer, Christopher Hampton and Nagisa Oshima.

Thomas produced Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor, which won nine Oscars at the 1987 Academy Awards, including Best Picture; the film also won the BAFTA for Best Film. In 2006 he received a European Film Award for outstanding European achievement in world cinema.

Other producing credits include Cronenberg’s Crash, Hampton’s A Dangerous Method, Glazer’s Sexy Beast and Oshima’s Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence. He also directed the 1998 feature All the Little Animals, starring Christian Bale and John Hurt.

At the time of his death two films he produced were on the fall festival circuit: Werner Herzog’s Bucking Fastard was in competition at the 83rd Venice Film Festival, and Takashi Miike’s Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo was set to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 14, 2026.

Speaking at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in August 2026, Thomas reflected on his career and said, "I was at the tail end of the golden age of cinema, when films made money in the cinema before VHS was even thought about."