Matthew Greenfield
As President of Searchlight Pictures, Matthew Greenfield manages all areas of the world-renowned specialty studio. An 18-year Searchlight veteran, Greenfield has overseen many of Searchlight’s most successful films to date. Founded in 1994 as Fox Searchlight Pictures, the company’s titles have grossed over $5 billion worldwide, amassing 51 Academy Awards including five Best Picture winners since 2009: Slumdog Millionaire, 12 Years a Slave, Birdman, The Shape of Water, and Nomadland; five of the last seven Best Actress Oscar winners; 62 BAFTA awards, and many more.
Recent theatrical releases include Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds of Kindness, which earned the highest per screen average in 2024 and won the Best Actor award for Jesse Plemons at Cannes, and stars Emma Stone, Plemons, Willem Dafoe; Lanthimos’ four-time Academy Award winner Poor Things, starring and produced by Stone; and Andrew Haigh’s critically acclaimed romantic drama All of Us Strangers. Searchlight Pictures’ streaming originals include Tina Mabry’s The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat starring Uzo Aduba, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Sanaa Lathan; Ned Benson’s The Greatest Hits starring Lucy Boynton, Justin H. Min, and Austin Crute; Laura Chinn’s Suncoast, for which Nico Parker won the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance at Sundance; and Eva Longoria’s Flamin’ Hot, which premiered to rapturous response at the 2023 SXSW film festival and became the first original film to debut simultaneously on both Hulu and Disney+, and Searchlight’s most-watched streaming motion picture of all time. Upcoming releases include Hold Your Breath starring Sarah Paulson; A Real Pain, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin, which won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: U.S. Dramatic at Sundance; Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch starring Amy Adams; and James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown starring Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan.
At the studio, Greenfield has worked closely with a roster of filmmakers from across the globe on projects including Nomadland; Can You Ever Forgive Me?; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; Brooklyn; Jojo Rabbit; Beasts of the Southern Wild; Enough Said; The Favourite; The Descendants; Ready or Not; The Shape of Water; The Old Man and the Gun; Win Win; Once; and Cyrus, among others.
The company also includes Searchlight Television, whose founding was spearheaded by Greenfield alongside former Searchlight co-president David Greenbaum, and which develops and produces series for streaming, network, and cable. Its first production The Dropout, the Hulu Original limited series produced in conjunction with 20th Television, won an Emmy Award for Best Actress for Amanda Seyfried and earned an additional five nominations. Other recent Searchlight Television productions include the Emmy-nominated Hulu Original variety series History of the World, Part II, the follow up to the classic Mel Brooks comedy film in partnership with 20th Television; and the eight-part series adaptation of The Full Monty, in partnership with FX and co-commissioned by Disney+ and FX. Greenfield is overseeing several highly anticipated projects including the Spanish-Language limited series La Máquina, with Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, also for Hulu and Disney+.
Prior to his tenure at Searchlight, Greenfield was the Associate Director of the Sundance Institute Feature Film program and an award-winning producer of films that include The Good Girl, Chuck & Buck, and Star Maps.
Greenfield is a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and a former member of the board of trustees of Wesleyan University, his alma mater.