Harvey Weinstein

The diamond cutter's son from Flushing grew up in Electchester, a union housing co-op in Queens, where his father Max cut stones and his mother Miriam kept the household. He went to John Bowne High School and then to the University at Buffalo, enrolling in 1969 and leaving four years later without a degree, because the business he had started was more interesting than the classes. The business was rock concerts. With his younger brother Bob and a partner named Corky Burger, he booked Frank Sinatra, the Who and the Rolling Stones into Buffalo through most of the 1970s. In 1979 the brothers put the profits into a film distribution company and named it Miramax, after Miriam and Max.

Miramax made the American independent film a business. Sex, Lies, and Videotape in 1989 turned it into the most successful independent studio in the country. Pulp Fiction followed in 1994, then The English Patient and Shakespeare in Love, which took Best Picture in March 1999 and gave Weinstein an Academy Award of his own. Disney bought the company for 80 million dollars in 1993. He and Bob left in 2005 to start The Weinstein Company. What he industrialized was the Oscar campaign, the year-round courting of voters that every awards contender now runs.

On October 5, 2017, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey published in the New York Times what much of the industry had known and not said. Ronan Farrow followed in The New Yorker on October 10. The two publications shared the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Farrow also documented the counter-operation: private intelligence firms, among them the Israeli company Black Cube, retained to build files on the women and on the reporters. Weinstein was fired from his own company on October 8 and expelled from the Academy that month. By the end of October more than 80 women had made allegations against him, among them Ashley Judd, Rose McGowan, Rosanna Arquette and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Tarana Burke had been using the words Me Too since 2006, on Myspace, to reach survivors of sexual violence. In October 2017 it became a hashtag, then a movement in dozens of countries, and the Weinstein prosecutions became the test of whether any of it would hold up in a courtroom. The answer is partial. Los Angeles convicted him in 2022. New York convicted him in 2020, saw that verdict overturned on appeal, and convicted him again at a retrial in 2025. Two juries deadlocked on a third woman's allegation, and in June 2026 Manhattan prosecutors dropped the charge rather than try it a fourth time. Neither sentence is currently final.

Harvey Weinstein's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• Sex, Lies, and Videotape film
  The release that made Miramax the most successful independent studio in America 1989
• Pulp Fiction film
  Miramax's first blockbuster 1994
• Shakespeare in Love film
  Best Picture at the March 1999 ceremony, and Weinstein's own Academy Award 1998
• The October 2017 investigations other
  Kantor and Twohey in the New York Times, Farrow in The New Yorker. They shared the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. 2017
• People v. Weinstein (Los Angeles County) case
  Guilty on three of seven counts, December 19, 2022. Sentenced to 16 years on February 23, 2023. 2022
• People v. Weinstein (New York Court of Appeals) case
  The April 25, 2024 decision vacating the 2020 conviction and ordering a retrial 2024

• 1979 aged ~27 Founds Miramax with his brother Bob Named for their parents, Miriam and Max. The seed money came from promoting rock concerts in Buffalo.
• 1993 aged ~41 Disney buys Miramax for 80 million dollars The brothers stayed on to run it, and left in 2005 to start The Weinstein Company.
• March 21, 1999 aged 47 Shakespeare in Love wins Best Picture Weinstein collected an Academy Award as one of its producers.
• October 5, 2017 aged 65 Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey publish in the New York Times Ronan Farrow followed in The New Yorker on October 10. The two publications shared the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.
• October 8, 2017 aged 65 Fired from The Weinstein Company The Academy expelled him later that month. France, Britain and the University at Buffalo revoked his honors.
• May 25, 2018 aged 66 Arrested in Manhattan and charged Released after 1 million dollars in bail was posted, with a monitor and a surrendered passport.
• February 24, 2020 aged 67 Convicted in New York on two of five counts Sentenced to 23 years on March 11, 2020. The jury acquitted him of predatory sexual assault.
• December 19, 2022 aged 70 Convicted in Los Angeles on three of seven counts Sentenced to 16 years on February 23, 2023, to be served separately from any New York term.
• April 25, 2024 aged 72 The New York Court of Appeals overturns the 2020 conviction The court held that the trial judge should not have admitted testimony about uncharged conduct. It ordered a retrial, not an acquittal.
• June 11, 2025 aged 73 Convicted again at the New York retrial Guilty on one count of a criminal sexual act, not guilty on another, and no verdict on a third. Prosecutors dropped that last charge on June 25, 2026.

• Meryl Streep b. 1949
  Most nominated actor in Oscar history, renowned for her chameleon-like ability to inhabit diverse roles. worked with
• Jeffrey Epstein 1953–2019
  Financier and convicted sex offender whose 2008 plea deal became a national scandal. parallel prosecution
• Oprah Winfrey b. 1954
  Media executive and talk show host who built a multimedia empire and became one of the most influential women in the world. spoke on the reckoning