Paramount Pictures
American film studio, subsidiary of Paramount Global
Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production and distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount Skydance. Founded on May 8, 1912, it is the sixth-oldest global film studio and the second-oldest in the United States behind Universal Pictures, and it is one of the Big Five studios located within the city limits of Los Angeles.
In 1916, film producer Adolph Zukor put 24 actors and actresses under contract and honored each with a star on the logo. In 1967, the number of stars was reduced to 22 and their hidden meaning was dropped. In 2014, Paramount Pictures became the first major Hollywood studio to distribute all of its films in digital form only. The company's headquarters and studios are located at 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, California.
The most commercially successful film franchises from Paramount Pictures include Star Trek, Indiana Jones, Top Gun, Mission: Impossible, and Transformers. Additionally, the studio's library includes many notable films such as The Greatest Show on Earth, The Ten Commandments, Love Story, The Godfather, Grease, Ghost, Forrest Gump, Titanic and Saving Private Ryan, with four of the nine films winning the Academy Award for Best Picture, and all of them were among the highest-grossing films of all time, with Titanic breaking the record during its initial release. Paramount Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA), and is currently one of seven film studios of Paramount Skydance Studios, alongside a 49% stake in Miramax, a 50% stake in United International Pictures, Paramount Players, a revival of Republic Pictures, and Skydance Animation.
History
Famous Players Film Company
Paramount is the sixth-oldest surviving film studio globally, after Gaumont (1895), Pathé (1896), Titanus (1904), Nordisk Film (1906) and Universal Pictures (1912).
“Paramount Pictures” enters the record as american film studio, subsidiary of Paramount Global. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Paramount, Pictures and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Paramount Pictures” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Paramount, Pictures and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q159846. VIAF identifies the subject as 305126469. The Library of Congress control number is n79055404. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1912, 1916, 1967 and 2014.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Paramount Pictures”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Paramount Pictures primary sources, Paramount Pictures archive and Paramount research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Paramount Pictures”?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Paramount Pictures” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.