Jerome Leonard Bruckheimer is an American film and television producer. He has been active in the genres of action, drama, comedy, fantasy, horror and science fiction. After working in advertising out of college, Bruckheimer moved into film production in the 1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, he partnered with fellow producer Don Simpson. Bruckheimer and Simpson's partnership continued until Simpson's death in 1996. Bruckheimer has produced films including Flashdance, Days of Thunder, The Rock, Crimson Tide, Dangerous Minds, Con Air, Armageddon, Enemy of the State, Pearl Harbor, Black Hawk Down, as well as the Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun, Bad Boys, Pirates of the Caribbean and National Treasure franchises.
At the helm of his self-titled production company, he has produced films that have been produced in association with and distributed by numerous film studios such as Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures and Disney, while his television works have been co-produced by Warner Bros. Television and CBS Studios. In July 2003, Bruckheimer was honored by Variety as the first in Hollywood history to produce the first and second highest-grossing films of a single weekend: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and Bad Boys II. In 2023, Top Gun: Maverick earned him his first nomination for Best Picture at the 95th Academy Awards. He was nominated again in the same category thanks to F1 (2025).
His best known television series are television dramas CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, CSI: Cyber, Without a Trace, Cold Case, Lucifer and reality competition series The Amazing Race, which would spawn a franchise with international versions. For the latter, he won ten Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2003, three of his television productions—CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Without a Trace and CSI: Miami—ranked among the top ten in the US ratings, making him the first producer to achieve this.
Bruckheimer is also the co-founder (with David Bonderman) and majority owner of the Seattle Kraken, the 2021 expansion team of the National Hockey League.
