Orion Classics

Orion Classics is a film distribution label specializing in independent and foreign films, originally formed by Orion Pictures in 1982 as an autonomous division for specialty releases under the leadership of Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Donna Gigliotti, who had previously run United Artists Classics. Its early releases included Pauline at the Beach in 1983, Babette's Feast in 1988 and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown in 1988. After Orion Pictures ran into financial difficulty in 1991, Barker and Bernard left to found Sony Pictures Classics, and by the mid 1990s the Orion Classics division had been folded into the Samuel Goldwyn Company following an acquisition of Orion by Metromedia. When MGM bought both companies in 1997 the rebranded United Artists label took over distributing independent films. The Orion Classics name was relaunched on 21 May 2018 as a multiplatform distribution label under MGM, now Amazon MGM Studios, intended to release eight to ten films a year in day and date theatrical and video on demand release.