The Alamo Drafthouse's Austin-based distribution label. It released Four Lions, the Oscar-nominated Bullhead and The Act of Killing, and took the cinema chain's genre-and-art-house taste national before it was sold to Giant Pictures in 2022.
Austin · Acquisition: the Austin label was sold in 2022 to digital distributor Giant Pictures, which installed its own general manager as CEO; the label continues under Giant
Drafthouse Films began in 2010 as the distribution arm of Austin's Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. Its motto, in its own words, was 'sharing the films we love with the widest audience possible,' and its tagline promised to destroy 'the barriers between grindhouse and art-house.' Its first release was Four Lions, which Time named one of its top ten films of the year. Its second, Bullhead, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2012. The Danish comedy Klown followed, and the company noted that Warner Bros. and Todd Phillips had slated a U.S. remake.
In 2013 the label released The Act of Killing, a documentary produced by Errol Morris and Werner Herzog. It won prizes at festivals around the world, and the company said it had the strongest box office opening of any documentary that year. The 2014 slate shows the label's range: Cheap Thrills, which won the SXSW Midnight Audience Award; Ben Wheatley's A Field in England; Borgman, the Netherlands' Oscar entry; Sion Sono's Why Don't You Play in Hell?; the Cannes selection Nothing Bad Can Happen; and Ari Folman's The Congress, with Robin Wright, Harvey Keitel and Jon Hamm. Drafthouse Films released movies in theaters, on home video and on demand, and linked them to the rest of the Alamo world, including the Mondo art boutique, the Fantastic Fest genre festival and the website Badass Digest.
The label was later spun off from the cinema chain. In March 2022, digital distributor Giant Pictures announced it had acquired Drafthouse Films. Giant's general manager, Nick Savva, became CEO, and Alamo founder Tim League became chairman. Savva said the deal would let the label keep releasing provocative genre films from around the world and would give Giant new theatrical capabilities. The first two films under the new owner, NR. 10 and Masking Threshold, had premiered at Fantastic Fest and opened in Alamo Drafthouse theaters before moving to Giant's streaming distribution. The label survives under Giant, but the independent Austin distributor that started with Four Lions ended with the sale.
| Year | Title | Kind | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Four Lions | distribution (first release; named a Time top-10 film of the year) | ↗︎ |
| — | Bullhead | distribution (Oscar nominee, Best Foreign Language Film, 2012) | ↗︎ |
| — | Klown | distribution | ↗︎ |
| 2013 | The Act of Killing | distribution (documentary produced by Errol Morris and Werner Herzog) | ↗︎ |
| 2014 | Cheap Thrills | distribution | ↗︎ |
| 2014 | A Field in England | distribution | ↗︎ |
| 2014 | Borgman | distribution | ↗︎ |
| 2014 | Why Don't You Play in Hell? | distribution | ↗︎ |
| 2014 | Nothing Bad Can Happen | distribution | ↗︎ |
| 2014 | The Congress | distribution | ↗︎ |
| 2022 | NR. 10 | distribution (first release under Giant Pictures) | ↗︎ |
| 2022 | Masking Threshold | distribution (first release under Giant Pictures) | ↗︎ |
| City | Where | Years | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austin | operated as the distribution arm of Austin's Alamo Drafthouse Cinema | 2010-2022 | ↗︎ |
| Its motto was 'sharing the films we love with the widest audience possible'; it billed itself as 'destroying the barriers between grindhouse and art-house.' | ↗︎ |
| Part of the Alamo Drafthouse family that included Mondo, Fantastic Fest and the website Badass Digest. | ↗︎ |
| Its 2022 releases premiered at Austin's Fantastic Fest and opened in Alamo Drafthouse theaters. | ↗︎ |