The five major studios in the Golden Era were Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, RKO, and Paramount Pictures. They were known in the entertainment business as “The Big Five,” or “The Studios.” Their practices and management were known as the studio system, and they held most of the power in Hollywood. That is, until 1948, when a Supreme Court ruling against Paramount declared the studio system a monopoly, which was against the law. That decision effectively ended the Golden Era of Hollywood.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Formed in 1924 as a combination of Metro Pictures Corporation, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation, and Louis B. Mayer Pictures, MGM became the predominant and most distinguished of the movie studios. With a hugely talented roster of stars, including Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly, and Greta Garbo, the studio produced glamorous and popular feature films that were profitable even during the Great Depression. These films included Gone with the Wind, Singing in the Rain, The Wizard of Oz, and Top Hat.

With television becoming more and more popular in the late 1950s, the studio began losing money. MGM was sold several times, and went through many changes over the next several decades. Purchased by Sony in 2004, the studio has returned to producing its own films, and a new era has begun for MGM and its mascot, Leo the Lion.

Warner Bros.

Founded in 1918 by four brothers, Harry, Jack, Albert, and Sam Warner, Warner Bros. studio began its rise to prominence with a series of movies starring a German shepherd named Rin Tin Tin. One of the Warner's biggest accomplishments was producing The Jazz Singer in 1927 starring Al Jolson. With that film, the era of “talkies” began, and motion pictures would never be the same.

In the early 1930s Warner Bros. produced many gangster movies starring such actors as James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. Later it moved to dramas and adaptations of bestsellers, starring A-list actors Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Humphrey Bogart, and Errol Flynn. It also purchased an animation studio in the mid-forties, and not long after, Bugs Bunny became a renowned Warner Bros. star. More recently, the studio has produced films for television, and cinematic blockbusters such as the Harry Potter films.

20th Century Fox

The studio came about as the result of a 1935 merger between Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures. With the merger, the studio signed Henry Fonda, Tyrone Power, Betty Grable, and then-seven-year-old Shirley Temple. Known for its musicals and other light entertainment, Fox became the third most profitable studio by the end of World War II.

By the 1960s, Fox was in trouble. A lavish and seriously over-budget Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor, coupled with the death of Marilyn Monroe, who was just beginning filming on Something's Got to Give, nearly shut down the studio. A series of cheap but popular movies brought Fox back from the brink, and it continues today with successful movies such as the Star Wars trilogies and X-Men.

RKO

Radio-Keith-Orpheum Pictures, known as RKO, was formed in 1928. One of the most important studios during the Golden Era, RKO introduced the world to films such as King Kong, Little Women, Citizen Kane, Tarzan, and It's a Wonderful Life. In 1948, a controlling interest in the studio was purchased by mogul and aviator Howard Hughes. As it turned out, Hughes' management style was not a good match for a motion picture studio, and the studio began to flounder. As a result, Hughes bought out all the other stockholders, and by 1954, RKO was the only studio with a single stockholder. A year after purchasing all of RKO's stock, Howard Hughes sold the company to General Tire and Rubber Company. By 1959, however, all of the remaining pictures had been released and the studio ceased production and distribution and was ultimately absorbed by Paramount Pictures.

Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures became the first successful feature film distribution company when it opened its doors in 1914. Thirteen years later, Paramount built its Hollywood studios, and today it is the only studio left in Hollywood proper that still occupies the same space it did in 1927. Douglas Fairbanks, Rudolph Valentino, Mary Pickford, and Gloria Swanson were just a few of Paramount's early movie stars. In 1928, the studio received the very first Best Picture Oscar for its film Wings, and has since produced more than 3,000 films. Among its classics are White Christmas, The Ten Commandments, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Beau Geste, Psycho, The War of the Worlds, Rosemary's Baby, and Love Story. More recent films include the Star Trek films, Ghost, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, and The First Wives Club.