Paramount Pictures Corporation, doing business as Paramount Pictures (or Paramount for short), is an American film production company for both theatrical and television films and series. The company is part of the Paramount Global Group. The company is one of the five major studios.

Paramount is the second-oldest film studio in America after Universal Studios (founded in 1912). It is the last major film studio still headquartered in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles.

The roots of Paramount go back to 1912 when Adolph Zukor founded the Famous Players Film Company. Zukor, who came from a Hungarian-Jewish family and was orphaned at an early age, emigrated to the USA in 1889 at the age of 16. After becoming successful with a fur trade, he invested in the so-called Nickelodeon cinemas and realized early on that films were particularly popular with working-class immigrants.

In 1916, the company merged with Jesse L. Lasky to form Famous Players-Lasky.

Over the next few years, a dozen other companies merged with Famous Players-Lasky, which soon opened up its own distribution channel by taking over the Artcraft and Paramount Publix Corporation cinema chains. Over the years, Paramount thus became the most powerful distribution company in the USA. In 1924, a real competitor appeared with the founding of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), which finally posted higher profits than Paramount in 1928.

The company was renamed Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation in 1927 and Paramount Publix Corporation in 1930.

Paramount Pictures was acquired by the conglomerate Gulf and Western Industries in 1966, which changed its name to Paramount Communications in 1989. In 1994, Paramount Communications was acquired by Viacom and continues to be responsible for the production and distribution of content for cinema and television.

Paramount's most commercially successful film franchises include Star Trek, Mission: Impossible and Transformers. In addition, the studio's library includes many individual films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Godfather, Play Me the Song of Death, Grease, Forrest Gump, Chinatown, Titanic and Saving Private James Ryan. (Source: Wikipedia)