Clayton Davis Thirty years ago, former Orion Classics heads Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Marcie Bloom created the independent arm of Sony Pictures Entertainment with full autonomy to produce, acquire and distribute films from cinema’s notable auteurs. In the decades since, Sony Pictures Classics has picked up 158 Oscar nominations and 37 statuettes (41 in total for films helmed by Barker and Bernard). It has also made history: Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000) earned 10 Oscar nominations, the most ever for a non-English-language movie, and went on to win four trophies, including foreign language film.