Barry Spikings (born 23 November 1939) is a British film producer who worked in Hollywood. Spikings is best known as a producer of the filmThe Deer Hunter (1978), which won fiveAcademy Awards.^[1][2][3]

Spikings was born inBoston, Lincolnshire. After leavingBoston Grammar School he joined the local newspaper, theLincolnshire Standard, as a trainee reporter. Later he joined theFarmers' Weekly, where he won aGolden Ear award for a fifteen-minute film that he produced and directed himself.

Spikings then moved to the entertainment world. Initially, he promoted pop music festivals and later films.

In 1972, he became the co-owner ofBritish Lion Films; Spikings later joinedEMI when it took over British Lion.^[4][5] For the film,The Deer Hunter (1978), Spikings won anAcademy Award for Best Picture. The film also garnered awards for several of its actors.^[6]

Filmink argued After Deeley left EMI Spikings' choice of films became more risky and less commercial, writing "Spikings deserves all the credit in the world for trying to make intelligent pictures that raised the bar for cinema. He is under-rated as a backer of classy pictures. But he felt ill-suited for his position."^[2]

In July 1979 Spikings argued "if you make a good film there is no way you won't make money."^[3]

He quit EMI in January 1983 with a year laeft to work on his contract.^[7]

In 1985, Spikings formed a Canadian company, Nelson Holdings International, with British financier Richard Northcott, to purchase entertainment firms. Nelson later acquired the home video assets ofEmbassy Pictures fromCoca-Cola and film production companies Galactic Films and the Spikings Corporation, and formedNelson Entertainment.^[8][9] Nelson had the North American home video rights and all international rights to the output from the newly-formedCastle Rock Entertainment.^[10]

Spikings served as president of Nelson Entertainment through the early 1990s. Afterwards, he formed a production partnership withEric Pleskow.^[11]

• 1975:Conduct Unbecoming (producer withMichael Deeley andAndrew Donally)
• 1976:The Man Who Fell to Earth (producer withMichael Deeley)
• 1978:Convoy (executive producer)
• 1978:The Deer Hunter (producer with Michael Deeley,Michael Cimino, andJohn Peverall)
  • Academy Awards 1978: Best Picture, Supporting Actor (Christopher Walken), Director (Cimino), Film Editing, and Sound.
• 1990:Texasville (producer withPeter Bogdanovich)
• 1991:Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (executive producer)
• 1991:Picture This: The Times of Peter Bogdanovich in Archer City, Texas (producer)^[12]
• 1991:The Taking of Beverly Hills (executive producer)
• 1994:The Favor (executive producer)
• 1994:There Goes My Baby — also known asThe Last Days of Paradise (executive producer)
• 1995:Beyond Rangoon (producer withJohn Boorman andEric Pleskow)
• 2013:Lone Survivor (producer withPeter Berg, Sarah Aubrey, Randall Emmett, Norton Herrick,Akiva Goldsman,Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson, Vitaly Grigoriants)

• The Wicker Man (1973)
• Don't Look Now (1973)
• A Doll's House (1973)
• Who? (1974)
• The Internecine Project (1974)
• The Land That Time Forgot (1974)
• Conduct Unbecoming (1975)
• Ransom (1975)
• The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
• Nickelodeon (1976)
• At the Earth's Core (1976)

• Nickelodeon (December 1976)
• The Greatest (May 1977)
• The Deep (June 1977)
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind (November 1977)
• The Cheap Detective (June 1978)
• Silver Bears (1977) (Dist by C in USA)
• Sweeney 2 (1978)
• Warlords of Atlantis (1978) (Dist by C in USA)
• Convoy (1978)
• The Driver (1978)
• Death on the Nile (1978)
• The Deer Hunter (1978)
• Arabian Adventure (July 1979)
• The Crown Prince (1979)
• Can't Stop the Music (June 1980)
• The Awakening (October 1980)
• Times Square (October 1980)
• The Elephant Man (October 1980)
• The Jazz Singer (December 1980)
• The Mirror Crack'd (December 1980)
• Honky Tonk Freeway (August 1981)
• Evil Under the Sun (March 1982)
• Britannia Hospital (May 1982)
• Frances (December 1982)
• Second Thoughts (February 1983)
• Bad Boys (March 1983)
• Tender Mercies (Mar 1983)
• Strange Invaders (Sep 1983)
• Cross Creek (May 1983)
• Handgun (May 1983, produced in 1981)

• Barry SpikingsArchived 5 January 2018 at theWayback Machine
• Barry Spikings atIMDb

• 1939 births
• Living people
• British film studio executives
• British film producers
• English film producers
• Producers who won the Best Picture Academy Award
• People from Boston, Lincolnshire
• People educated at Boston Grammar School

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