Michelle Hooper Leaves Searchlight After 20 Years and 49 Oscar Wins

Michelle Hooper is departing Searchlight Pictures as executive vice president of marketing. She leaves the studio after two decades of service, a period that saw the company accumulate 49 Academy Award wins.

Hooper joined the company in 2006. During her time there, her work in publicity, awards, and creative marketing contributed to nearly 200 Oscar nominations for the studio. Those nominations resulted in 49 wins, including best picture victories for “Nomadland,” “The Shape of Water,” “Birdman,” “12 Years a Slave,” and “Slumdog Millionaire.”

The studio also received best picture nominations at the Golden Globes for those same titles, plus 15 other films. In total, Searchlight earned more than 130 Golden Globe nominations during Hooper’s tenure.

Hooper was currently leading marketing campaigns for the titles “Wild Horse Nine” and “Behemonth!” for the upcoming awards season. A longtime colleague described her as a stellar leader with a keen ability to read a film’s place in the zeitgeist. The colleague noted that Hooper was also a formidable collaborator who could close a campaign by gathering real-time feedback from the ground.

Before joining Searchlight, Hooper worked at CBS Entertainment as the director of entertainment communications. She helped develop the publicity strategy for the show “Survivor.” She also spent four years at Fox Broadcast as the vice president of entertainment publicity. At Fox, she worked on campaigns for “The Simpsons,” “Arrested Development,” and “American Idol.”

Hooper was named in Variety’s 2025 Women’s Impact Report alongside Searchlight executives Rebecca Kearey, DanTram Nguyen, and Katie Goodson. The report highlighted the team’s work in securing 10 Academy Award nominations for “A Complete Unknown” and “A Real Pain.” That effort included a best supporting actor win for Kieran Culkin in the Jesse Eisenberg film.

In a joint statement, the marketing team said Searchlight’s adventurous choices and deep filmmaker relationships help the company weather business challenges. They stated that the studio trusts that audiences still want films that entertain, challenge, and provoke.