Meet the Team

Steven Spielberg (Director/Producer) is one of the world's most successful and influential filmmakers, and is currently chairman of Amblin Partners, a corporate descendent of DreamWorks, SKG, which he co-founded in 1994.

Among a host of career accolades, he is a three-time Academy Award winner, a Kennedy Center Honoree, a recipient of the Irving G. Thalberg Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 from President Barack Obama.

Spielberg is the top-grossing director of all time, having helmed such blockbusters as Jaws, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, the Indiana Jones franchise and Jurassic Park. He took home his first two Oscars—Best Director and Best Picture—for the internationally lauded Schindler’s List, which received a total of seven Oscars. The film was also named the Best Picture of 1993 by many of the major critics’ organizations, in addition to winning seven BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globe Awards, both including Best Picture and Director. Spielberg also won the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award for his work on the film.

Spielberg won his third Academy Award—Best Director—for the World War II drama Saving Private Ryan, which was the highest-grossing release (domestically) of 1998. It was also one of the year’s most honored films, earning four additional Oscars, as well as two Golden Globe Awards, for Best Picture— Drama and Best Director, and numerous critics’ groups awards in the same categories. Spielberg also won another DGA Award and shared a Producers Guild of America (PGA) Award with the film’s other producers. That same year, the PGA also presented Spielberg with the prestigious Milestone Award for his historic contribution to the motion picture industry.

He has also earned Academy Award nominations for Best Director for The Fabelmans, West Side Story, Lincoln, Munich, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Additionally, he earned DGA Award nominations for those films, as well as Amistad, Empire of the Sun, The Color Purple and Jaws. With thirteen to date, Spielberg has been honored by his peers with more DGA Award nominations than any other director. In 2000, he received the DGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He is also the recipient of the Irving G. Thalberg Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Hollywood Foreign Press’s Cecil B. DeMille Award, the Kennedy Center Honor and numerous other career tributes.

In 2012, Spielberg directed Lincoln, based in part on author Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals. The film garnered 12 Academy Award nominations, winning two Oscars, for Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis’s portrayal of the iconic 16th President and for Best Production Design.

Spielberg’s 2015 dramatic thriller Bridge of Spies, starring Tom Hanks, received six Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, with Mark Rylance winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. That same year, he was also an executive producer on Jurassic World, which earned over $1.6 billion worldwide. Directed by Colin Trevorrow and starring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, it was the fourth film in the Jurassic series. A follow-up to the blockbuster, Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, directed by J.A. Bayona, was released in 2018, with a sixth film, Jurassic World Dominion, released in 2022.

Spielberg directed and produced the 2017 drama The Post, starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks. The film earned two Academy Award nominations, one for Best Picture, as well as Meryl Streep’s 21st nod for Best Actress. He also directed the 2018 film Ready Player One, based the science fiction novel by Ernest Cline, which became an instant blockbuster and would go on to earn over $580m worldwide.

He directed the 2021 reimagining of West Side Story, which earned seven Academy Award nominations including Best Picture.

Most recently, Spielberg directed The Fabelmans, a semi-autobiographical film that he co-wrote with his long-time collaborator Tony Kushner, which earned seven Academy Award nominations including Best Director and Best Picture.

Spielberg’s career began with the 1968 short film, Amblin', which led to him becoming the youngest director ever signed to a long-term studio deal. He directed episodes of such TV shows as Night Gallery, Marcus Welby, M.D., and Columbo, and gained special attention for his 1971 telefilm, Duel. Three years later, he made his feature film directorial debut on The Sugarland Express, from a screenplay he co-wrote. His next film was Jaws, which was the first film to break the $100 million mark at the box office.

In 1984, Spielberg formed his own production company, Amblin Entertainment. Under the Amblin Entertainment banner, he served as producer or executive producer on such hits as Gremlins, The Goonies, the Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, An American Tail, Twister, the Zorro duology and the Men in Black films.

Ten years later, Spielberg partnered with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen to form the original DreamWorks Studios. The studio enjoyed both critical and commercial successes, including three consecutive Best Picture Academy Award winners: American Beauty, Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind. In its history, DreamWorks also produced or co-produced a wide range of features, including the Transformers blockbusters; Clint Eastwood’s World War II dramas Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, the latter earning a Best Picture Oscar nomination; Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers and The Ring, to name only a few. Under the DreamWorks banner, Spielberg also directed such films as War of the Worlds, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can and A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

Spielberg founded Amblin Partners in 2015 with investment partners Reliance Entertainment, Entertainment One, Alibaba Pictures, Participant Media and Universal Pictures. The company’s recent theatrical releases include 1917, which won three Academy Awards and grossed $385m at the global box office, and Green Book, which won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and grossed more than $320m worldwide.

Spielberg has not limited his success to the big screen. He was an executive producer on the long-running Emmy-winning NBC TV drama E.R. On the heels of their experience on Saving Private Ryan, he and Tom Hanks teamed to executive produce the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, based on Stephen Ambrose’s book about a U.S. Army unit in Europe in World War II.

Among its many awards, the project won both Emmy and Golden Globe Awards for Outstanding Miniseries. He and Hanks then reunited to executive produce the acclaimed 2010 HBO miniseries The Pacific, this time focusing on the Marines in WWII’s Pacific theatre. The Pacific won eight Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Miniseries. A third series, Masters of the Air, is currently in post-production for Apple TV+.

Among the shows Spielberg also executive produced were the Emmy-winning Syfy Channel miniseries Taken, the TNT miniseries Into the West, the Showtime series The United States of Tara, NBC’s Smash, TNT’s Falling Skies, as well as CBS’ Under the Dome and Extant. He was also an executive producer on the HBO Films’ movie All the Way, starring Emmy winner Bryan Cranston, and the Netflix docuseries Five Came Back. Amblin Television was a producer of FX’s The Americans, which earned four Emmy wins, including two wins for Margo Martindale for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. The series also won Peabody Awards in 2015 and 2019, and was a perennial recipient of the AFI Award for TV Program of the Year.

Spielberg has devoted much of his time and resources to many philanthropic causes.  He formed The Righteous Persons Foundation by using all his profits from the release of Schindler’s List, and soon thereafter founded the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, which in 2006 became the USC Shoah Foundation—The Institute for Visual History and Education. The Institute has recorded more than 55,000 video testimonies with survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides, and is dedicated to making the testimonies a compelling voice for education and action.

In 2021, Spielberg and Kate Capshaw formally launched The Hearthland Foundation, a philanthropic fund to help build a more just, equitable, and connected America. Inspired by the words of the poet Langston Hughes, “O, let America be America again—The land that never has been yet—And yet must be,” Hearthland is founded on the belief that creating a better shared future for our country calls for relationships that cross divides and the moral imagination for what is possible. To that end, the foundation has three overlapping areas of focus: building a shared democracy; telling an honest and generative narrative about this country; and fostering a culture of accompaniment.

Jeff Small is CEO of Amblin Partners. He is responsible for all operations of the company, while helping shape the overall corporate strategy alongside Chairman Steven Spielberg. Jeff joined the company as president and chief operating officer in 2006 under its previous name, DreamWorks Studios, and was promoted to his current post as CEO in 2019 after serving as co-CEO since 2016.Prior to DreamWorks, he spent six years at Revolution Studios, starting as the company’s head of strategic planning and business development, then as CFO, and eventually, COO.

Prior to joining Revolution, Jeff spent several years with Universal Studios after beginning his career in the Walt Disney Motion Picture Group.

Jeff participates in USC Shoah Foundation’s Ambassadors for Humanity Gala leadership, and serves on the board of directors for the Weingart Center Association.

Jeff is a Stanford graduate, and a native of Marietta, Georgia.

Kristie Macosko Krieger is an Academy Award, Emmy Award, PGA Award and BAFTA Award-nominated producer whose working relationship with director Steven Spielberg spans over 20 years. She recently produced Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, an upcoming film centering on the complicated love story of Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre. Maestro received seven Academy Award nominations at the 2024 Oscars, including Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture, for which she received her fifth Oscar nomination.

Krieger also produced the Spielberg-directed film The Fabelmans, which earned seven Academy Award nominations including Best Picture.

She produced the 2021 Academy Award-nominated film West Side Story, executive produced The Trial of the Chicago 7, which was written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, and executive produced Oslo, which stars Andrew Scott and Ruth Williams. Previously, Krieger produced the Spielberg-directed films Ready Player One, based on the best-selling book by Ernest Cline, and The Post, a drama inspired by The Washington Post’s first female publisher, Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep), and its driven editor, Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks). Krieger also served as executive producer of The BFG and produced the Academy Award-nominated film Bridge of Spies. Additional producing credits include Lincoln, War Horse, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Krieger serves on the Executive Committee of AMPAS’ Producers Branch, the PGA’s National Board of Directors, the Peabody Awards’ Board of Directors – West Coast, and as a member of the Board of Directors of Amblin Partners.

Krieger began her career with the USC Shoah Foundation, where she served as head of worldwide publicity. She joined the staff of DreamWorks Studios in 1997. She currently serves as part of the senior leadership team at Amblin Partners where she is involved with all aspects of Spielberg’s productions and helps guide the strategic direction of the company. Krieger, a graduate of UC Davis, resides in Los Angeles with her husband and son.

Chris Floyd is the co-COO and general counsel for Amblin Partners, the film and television company chaired by Steven Spielberg.

Floyd was a key member of the team that helped launch Amblin Partners in December 2015 from the former DreamWorks Studios. At Amblin Partners, he oversees international distribution, business and legal affairs, corporate legal, human resources, merchandising and ancillary licensing, and various other operations of the company.

During his tenure at DreamWorks Studios, Floyd served as general counsel and head of business affairs, having joined the company in 2007.

Prior to DreamWorks, Floyd was senior vice president of business affairs at Universal Pictures where he negotiated individual talent agreements, producer term deals and co-financing arrangements for the motion picture group. He also handled business affairs activities for the studio’s on-lot producers, including Tom Hanks and Imagine Entertainment.

Before joining Universal, Floyd was senior vice president of business affairs for Paramount Pictures and led the business affairs team acquiring films for Paramount Classics, the studio’s arthouse label.

Floyd began his law career as an entertainment litigation associate at Hill Wynne Troop & Meisinger, where he represented major entertainment corporations including Twentieth Century Fox and Sony Pictures. In 1993, he joined the feature legal affairs department of Walt Disney Motion Pictures before moving into business affairs in 1995.

Floyd is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

He is a graduate of Northwestern University and Georgetown University Law Center.

Chris Leotis is co-chief operating officer of Amblin Partners, a content creation company led by Steven Spielberg.

Leotis joined  Amblin Partners as CFO, from the LA Clippers where she had served as CFO. Prior to the Clippers, she held senior financial management positions at Otter Media, Concord Music and Fox Networks Group. She began her career in Dallas, Texas, at Bain & Company, followed by a position at Goldman Sachs. She then moved to Los Angeles and became a member of the acquisitions team at Colony Capital.

Leotis is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

She holds an MBA degree from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and BA degrees in business administration and economics from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

Holly Bario is president of production at Amblin Partners, where she oversees films released under the Amblin Entertainment and DreamWorks Pictures banners.

She joined the company, formerly known as DreamWorks Studios, in 2008 as an executive vice president of production. Under her leadership, the company has produced such films as The Help, The Girl on the Train, A Dog’s Purpose, and The House with a Clock in Its Walls, starring Jack Black and Cate Blanchett.

Prior to joining DreamWorks, Bario was executive vice president—production at Universal Pictures. She had been at the studio for over a decade as a production executive rising through the ranks as director of development, vice president and senior vice president of production.

While at Universal, Bario was responsible for shepherding some of their most successful comedies, including Bruce Almighty, Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Mamma Mia! She also oversaw both the first and second installments of the record setting hit action film series The Fast and the Furious.

Bario began her career with Universal Pictures in 1996, working for producer Marc Platt. She is a graduate of Emerson College.

Darryl Frank is President of Amblin Television, where he oversees all development, production and programming for the company. Frank works alongside longtime friend and business partner, Justin Falvey, and the two currently serve as executive producers on all Amblin Television productions.

Frank was an executive producer for all six seasons of the acclaimed series The Americans on FX, starring Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as KGB spies living in the US. The show was honored with four Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Peabody Awards, Critics Choice Award and was a perennial recipient of the AFI Award for TV Program of the Year. The drama completed its sixth and final season in 2018.

Most recently, Frank worked as a co-executive Producer on Amblin TV’s new limited series, Masters of the Air, for Apple TV+ – the third chapter in the Band of Brothers series and the platform’s most-watched series launch ever.  Additionally, Frank worked as an executive producer on HALO for Paramount+, Resident Alien for SyFY, Billy the Kid for MGM+, Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai for Max, and Tiny Toons Looniversity for Max and Cartoon Network.

Frank, along with Falvey, created and runs the Amblin Documentaries division of Amblin Partners which had three series (Big Vape, Encounters, and Life on our Planet) all premiere in the top ten on Netflix in 2023.  Also in the documentary space, Frank served as an executive producer on Emmy nominated Laurel Canyon, and San Francisco Sounds for MGM+, Emmy nominated Good Night Oppy for Prime Video, and Emmy winning documentaries Why We Hate for Discovery, and Five Came Back for Netflix.  Frank also produced Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, Mama’s Boy and a documentary on Faye Dunaway for HBO and is currently in production on a documentary chronicling the life of John Williams.

Frank, with Falvey, currently oversees seventeen Amblin TV projects (including both documentaries and scripted series) in various stages of production and release.

During his 29-year tenure at Amblin Television, Frank has executive produced The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor for Netflix, three seasons of Animaniacs for Hulu, three seasons of Roswell: New Mexico for the CW, two seasons of the NBC musical-drama series Smash starring Anjelica Huston, Debra Messing, and Katharine McPhee; three seasons of the CBS summer series Under the Dome; five seasons of the Noah Wyle TNT series Falling Skies; two seasons of the CBS series Extant starring Halle Berry; three seasons of the Showtime series The Borgias starring Jeremy Irons; and three seasons of The United States of Tara with Oscar-winning series creator Diablo Cody (Juno), and starring Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actress Toni Collette.

Frank also developed and served as executive producer on the NBC drama Las Vegas for all five seasons and 106 episodes. He also oversaw the development and production of Spin City starring Michael J. Fox for the entirety of its six-season run.

In the long-form arena, Frank has served as an Executive Producer of the HBO film All The Way, starring Bryan Cranston, which was nominated for eight Primetime Emmy’s, and was a co-executive producer on Into the West, a 12-hour limited series from executive producer Steven Spielberg. Into the West became the most Emmy-nominated program in 2006, with 16 nominations, as well as a Golden Globe nomination for Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television. Frank also served as the co-executive producer on Taken, the epic 20-hour miniseries for the SyFy Channel, which won the Emmy in 2002 for Best Mini-Series and was nominated in the same category for the Golden Globes.

Justin Falvey is the President of Amblin Television, overseeing all series development and long-form television programming for the company. Falvey works alongside longtime friend and business partner, Darryl Frank, and the two currently serve as executive producers on all Amblin Television productions.

Falvey was an executive producer on the acclaimed series The Americans on FX, starring Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, which has been honored with four Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Peabody Awards, Critics Choice Award and was a perennial recipient of the AFI Award for TV Program of the Year. The drama completed its sixth and final season in 2018.

Recently, Falvey worked as a co-executive producer on Amblin TV’s global hit, limited series, Masters of the Air, for Apple, the third chapter in the Band of Brothers trilogy and the platform’s most-watched series launch ever. Falvey is currently an executive producer on HALO for Paramount+, Resident Alien for SyFy, Billy the Kid for MGM+, Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai for Max, and Tiny Toons Looniversity for Max and Cartoon Network.

Falvey, alongside Frank, created and runs the Amblin Documentaries division of Amblin Partners. In the fall of 2023 Amblin Documentaries had three series (Life on our Planet, Big Vape, and Encounters) all premiere in Netflix’s top ten. Most recently, Falvey co-executive produced The Bloody Hundredth, an accompanying documentary to Apple’s Masters of the Air. Falvey also served as an executive producer on Emmy nominated Laurel Canyon, and San Francisco Sounds for MGM+, Emmy nominated Goodnight Oppy for Prime Video, and Emmy winning documentaries Why We Hate for Discovery, and Five Came Back for Netflix. Falvey also worked as a producer on Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, Mama’s Boy, and a documentary on Faye Dunaway for HBO, which is set to premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Falvey is currently in production on a documentary exploring the life of John Williams.

Falvey, with Frank, is currently overseeing seventeen Amblin TV projects (including both documentaries and scripted series) in various stages of production and release.

During his 28-year tenure at Amblin, Falvey executive produced The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor for Netflix, three seasons of Animaniacs for Hulu, three seasons of Roswell: New Mexico for the CW, three seasons of the CBS summer series Under the Dome; five seasons of the Noah Wyle TNT series Falling Skies; two seasons of the NBC musical-drama series Smash starring Anjelica Huston, Debra Messing, and Katharine McPhee; two seasons of the CBS series Extant starring Halle Berry; three seasons of The United States of Tara with Oscar-winning series creator Diablo Cody (Juno) and starring Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actress Toni Collette; and three seasons of the acclaimed Showtime series, The Borgias, starring Jeremy Irons.

Falvey’s additional credits include five seasons of the drama Las Vegas, where he served as executive producer for all 106 episodes. Falvey also oversaw the production and development for NBC’s Freaks and Geeks, and Fox’s Undeclared. While at Amblin Television, Falvey is also responsible for the critically acclaimed FX series Rescue Me, which starred Dennis Leary and ran for six seasons.

In the long-form space, Falvey worked as an executive producer of the HBO film All The Way, starring Bryan Cranston, which was nominated for eight Primetime Emmy’s, and was a co-executive producer on Into the West, a 12-hour limited series from executive producer Steven Spielberg. Into the West was the most Emmy-nominated program in 2006, with 16 nominations, as well as a Golden Globe nomination for Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television. Additionally. Falvey served as a co-executive producer on Taken, the epic 20-hour miniseries for the SyFy Channel, which won the Emmy in 2002 for Best Mini-Series and was nominated in the same category for the Golden Globes.

Mark Graziano is the Executive Vice President of Post Production at Amblin Partners. He’s been with the Amblin Family since June 2002.

In addition to post, Mark oversees music as well as restorations of classic Spielberg films.

Graziano started in the mailroom at New Line Cinema in the 1990s, working his way up to Post Coordinator (Dumb & Dumber, The Mask, SE7EN), then Post Production Supervisor. His first supervisory role was on Boogie Nights for Paul Thomas Anderson, where he forged a rapport with the filmmaker. That led to supervising Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love before fate intervened and brought him to DreamWorks.

Graziano joined DreamWorks Studios as a staff Post Supervisor in the spring of 2002. Over the next four years, he supervised eight films (Old School, Anchorman) before being tapped to head the Post Production department in 2006. He has worked on 55 features as the head of post, including The Fabelmans, West Side Story, Ready Player One, Lincoln, Dreamgirls, Tropic Thunder, Transformers 1 & 2, Paranormal Activity, The Help, 1917, Real Steel, and Sweeny Todd to name a few.

Graziano is the industry co-chair for Exceptional Minds, a successful non-profit professional training academy and studio for students and professionals on the autism spectrum.

Additionally, he gives his time as a guest lecturer and mentor for the next generation of filmmakers coming out of his alma mater, The University of Texas.

He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, independent film Writer/Producer/Director, Brenna Graziano, and their two sons, Rex and Nash.

Graziano is also a die-hard fan of the Melvins.

Michelle Brattson is executive vice president of physical production at Amblin Partners since 2022, where she oversees early prep on the film development slate, through to prep and production of the films, including most recently Carry-On and The Thursday Murder Club. Michelle was a director of production for Netflix Original Studio Films from 2017-2022 where she managed productions including Hustle, Murder Mystery, Murder Mystery 2, Marriage Story, White Noise, and Hillbilly Elegy. Prior to Netflix, Michelle was senior vice president of physical production at Amblin Partners.

Before her in-house studio career Michelle spent fifteen years freelancing in production management on major studio films including Interstellar, Star Trek Into Darkness, Neighbors, Angels & Demons, Frost/Nixon, Charlie Wilson's War, and Lucky You. Michelle began her career in film development as an assistant and creative executive at New Regency.

Michelle is a member of the Producer’s Guild of America and a Women in Film mentor. Michelle holds a Masters in Producing from the USC School of Cinematic Arts’ Peter Stark Program and a BA in English from Dartmouth College. She is originally from New York, and resides in Los Angeles with her husband, son and dog.