Award-winning studio NEON announced today that Ryan Werner has joined the company as President of Global Cinema, where he will lead distribution efforts and further strengthen NEON’s position as a champion of bold, auteur-driven filmmaking. In this newly created role, Werner will bring his decades of experience in marketing, publicity, and awards to NEON’s growing slate.
Werner joins NEON from Cinetic Marketing, which he founded in 2014, and has, along with his highly regarded team, played a pivotal role in crafting some of the most successful and artistically lauded campaigns in independent film. His work has helped shape the trajectory of award-winning films across the last two decades, from emerging voices to established auteurs. Cinetic Marketing has worked on many Oscar winning projects including 5 Best Pictures, 10 Best Documentaries, 7 Best International Features and 3 Best Animated Features. The team has had a huge presence at the major film festivals especially at Cannes where they have repped 6 of the last 10 Palme d’Or winners. In 2021, Werner, along with Jonathan Sehring and the team at Janus Films, created “Sideshow” to infuse the Janus Films library with a steady stream of highly acclaimed contemporary films. Werner helped identify and release celebrated international titles such as the Oscar winning “Drive My Car” and “Flow” as well as the Award winning “EO,” “All That Breathes” and “All We Imagine As Light” among many others.
At NEON, Werner will focus full-time on theatrical distribution, deepening the studio’s commitment to creative, filmmaker-first releases. He will work closely with NEON’s senior leadership to elevate the studio’s marketing and release strategies as the company continues its expansion in both production and global distribution.
“Ryan’s taste, passion, and instincts for cinema are boundless,” said NEON CEO/Founder Tom Quinn. “Together, combined with Ryan’s extensive knowledge, wealth of relationships and envious track record, we look forward to continue growing NEON as a premiere home for groundbreaking cinema. To say we’re thrilled about working with Ryan would be the understatement of the year.”
Cinetic Marketing will continue to operate independently as one of the industry’s leading publicity and marketing agencies, maintaining its integral presence in the ecosystem of independent cinema.
“I’m incredibly excited about the opportunity to collaborate with Tom and the exceptional team at NEON. I deeply admire everything they have accomplished. This is a very special opportunity to create something with some of the most talented people working in film. I am honestly thrilled by the prospect of it.“
The news follows NEON’s ongoing momentum in 2025, with recent successes including “Anora,” winner of five Academy Awards including Best Picture, and upcoming releases such as “Keeper” by Osgood Perkins, and Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” and Julia Ducournau’s “Alpha” both of which will premiere in competition in Cannes. In Cannes, NEON will also premiere Raoul Peck’s “Orwell: 2+2=5” and Michael Angelo Covino’s “Splitsville” starring Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona, which NEON also produced.
About NEON
In only eight years, NEON has garnered 39 Academy Award nominations (7 this year), 11 total wins (5 this year), including two Best Picture wins, and has grossed over $400M at the box office. The company continues to push boundaries and take creative risks on bold cinema such as Sean Baker’s “Anora,” which recently took home five Academy Awards including Best Picture, and was released in theaters to the highest per-screen average of 2024; as well as Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite,” which made history winning four Academy Awards, becoming the first non-English-language film to claim Best Picture, and grossed over $54M at the domestic box office.
NEON has built an impressive streak winning the coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, with five consecutive wins, including “Anora” and “Parasite,” as well as “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.
Recent NEON releases include Osgood Perkins’ horror film “The Monkey” which is based on the short story by Stephen King and marked NEON’s second biggest opening weekend at the box office following Perkins’ “Longlegs,” which is the highest grossing independent film of the year at $75 million domestically.
As a burgeoning leader in the production space, NEON’s recent and upcoming in-house productions include: David Robert Mitchell’s “They Follow” starring Maika Monroe; Michael Covino’s Splitsville starring Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona; the highly anticipated Boots Riley feature “I Love Boosters” starring Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, LaKeith Stanfield, Demi Moore, and Eiza González; “The Wrong Girls” starring Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat; Tilman Singer’s “Cuckoo” starring Hunter Schafer; and Brandon Cronenberg’s “Infinity Pool.” NEON’s international sales outfit handles the company’s in-house titles as well as third party projects.
NEON has amassed a library of over 120 films, with a noteworthy selection of Academy Award nominated films including: Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig;” Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days;” “Robot Dreams” from Pablo Berger; documentaries “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” “Fire of Love,” “Moonage Daydream,” and “Flee,” which made history becoming the first film to score an impressive trifecta of Oscar nominations; Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in The World;” and Craig Gillespie’s “I, Tonya.”
Following a successful collaboration on “I, Tonya” in January 2018, 30WEST (Dan Friedkin’s and Micah Green’s strategic venture) partnered with NEON’s Tom Quinn (Founder & CEO) and Tim League (Co-Founder) to become majority investors in the company.