Teddy Schwarzman

Teddy Schwarzman was born in 1979 in New York City, to Stephen A. Schwarzman, a co-founder, chairman, and CEO of The Blackstone Group, and Ellen Katz (née Philips), a trustee of Northwestern University and the Mount Sinai Medical Center. His sister is a writer and podcaster, Zibby Owens. His family is Jewish. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in English before completing a J.D. degree from the Duke University School of Law.

Schwarzman was a corporate lawyer at Skadden, a New York-based firm, where he specialized in real estate and corporate restructuring. He left Skadden to work in the film industry; his first job was as a personal assistant on The Other Woman, which was produced in 2009 and released in 2010. He later said of the experience: "It was one of those situations that you had to prove that you actually want to be in this business." He went on to work for John Sloss's film advisory company, Cinetic Media, where he was involved in raising funds to produce the 2011 films Bernie and The Loneliest Planet.

Schwarzman left Cinetic in 2011 to found his own production company, Black Bear Pictures, of which he is the CEO. There, the first film he produced was At Any Price (2012), followed by the 2013 films Broken City, A.C.O.D., and All Is Lost. His fifth film was The Imitation Game, a 2014 biopic about Alan Turing. He acquired the screenplay after a competition with 30 other interested producers. The Imitation Game was nominated for eight Academy Awards and nine BAFTA Awards. Schwarzman was nominated in the Best Picture category from both institutions. ]. Since then, Black Bear and Schwarzman have been behind Academy Award nominees Mudbound, Nyad, and Sing Sing.

Schwarzman received his second Best Picture Academy Award nomination for the 2025 film Train Dreams, which Black Bear produced and fully financed, selling it to Netflix after its Sundance world premiere. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards and four Film Independent Spirit Awards, winning Spirit Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Cinematography. It was named one of the ten best films of 2025 by the American Film Institute and the National Board of Review.

Schwarzman married Ellen Marie Zajac, a New York City lawyer whom he met at Duke, in November 2007 in Montego Bay, Jamaica. They have three children and live in Los Angeles, California.