Tom Quinn is the CEO / Founder of NEON, est. 2017. In just nine years, NEON has garnered 57 Academy Award® nominations, 11 total wins, including two historic Best Picture wins, and has grossed over half-a-billion at the domestic box office. The company continues to push boundaries and take bold creative risks such as Sean Baker’s record breaking Best Picture Winner Anora, winning five Academy Awards®; as well as Bong Joon Ho’s historic Parasite winning four Academy Awards® and becoming the first non-English-language film to claim Best Picture (grossed over $54M at the domestic box office).
NEON continues to champion bold, risk-taking cinema and has built an impressive streak winning the coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, with six consecutive wins, including this most recent year’s winner It Was Just an Accident, as well as Anora, Parasite, Anatomy of a Fall, Titane, and Triangle of Sadness. In 2024, NEON was named The Hollywood Reporter’s Independent Studio of the Year and received the Clio Award for Studio of the Year.
Under Quinn’s leadership, NEON has emerged as a burgeoning leader in the production space, NEON’s recent and upcoming in-house productions include: Boots Riley's I Love Boosters, Damien McCarthy’s Hokum which both premiered to rave reviews in SXSW and will be released in May; the long awaited horror sequel, David Robert Mitchell’s They Follow; and newcomer Alex Ullom’s 4X4. Quinn’s acumen for finding films beloved by audiences and critics alike has led NEON to 18 Oscar nominations this year, the 2nd most of any studio, including Oscar winner Sentimental Value, six consecutive Palme d’Or wins, and 2 Best Picture Oscars in less than 5 years.
NEON’s run of box office hits include Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs, which was the highest grossing independent film of 2024 at $75 million domestically, and his follow-up feature The Monkey, NEON’s second highest opening. The studio is currently in post on its fourth Perkins film, The Young People. Their upcoming slate includes notable auteurs such as Chloe Domont, Cristian Mungiu, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Chloe Okuno, Takashi Miike. NEON’s recent releases include the indie hit Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie and the highest grossing documentary of the year around the world, Baz Luhrmann’s EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert. Up next: Steven Soderbergh’s The Christophers; Hokum starring Adam Scott; and Sundance hit Leviticus.
Quinn throughout his career is credited with having created new distribution paradigms for such groundbreaking films as Snowpiercer, It Follows and Bachelorette, while simultaneously championing a traditional distribution model for back-to-back Oscar winners 20 Feet From Stardom and Citizenfour. Having acquired, produced and distributed over 400 films spanning a 30-year career, Quinn is responsible for launching 2 distribution labels: the boutique label RADiUS and the groundbreaking genre label Magnet for Mark Cuban. He also played a key role in pioneering the use of VOD platforms as the Senior Vice President at Magnolia Pictures. He also created the Oscar Shorts Program and oversaw its distribution for the first 6 years of its existence. Prior to Magnolia, he served as the VP of Acquisitions at Samuel Goldwyn, where he was responsible for Super Size Me and Raising Victor Vargas.
Quinn is the recipient of the Visionary Award from the Stanley Film Festival, the Leading Light Award from the DOC-NYC Film Festival, Woodstock Film Festival’s Maverick Award, Virginia Film Festival’s Impresario Award, Outfest’s Guardian Award and the 2025 winner of the prestigious Gamechanger Award at the Zurich Film Festival.