STEVE GOLIN / CHAIR, PROPAGANDA FILMS

In 15 years as chairman and co-founder of Hollywood-based Propaganda Films, Steve Golin, 42, has taken the PolyGram-owned company from a video and commercial production house to a major Hollywood player, with “The Game” just out and multi-picture deals with Jane Campion (“The Piano,” “Portrait of a Lady”) and Neil LaBute (“In the Company of Men”).

AND THE WINNER IS: “This year the big studios have all the big Oscar contenders, as opposed to last year. But putting out all these big movies in the summer against each other was a big mistake.”

NOMINEES: “I can’t wait to see ‘Titanic.’ Everyone is curious. I think they were smart--and lucky--that they didn’t come out in the summer. Now there’s so much interest that even if it doesn’t receive great reviews, it will do well. ‘L.A. Confidential’ I loved, and I hear ‘In & Out’ is terrific. I also can’t wait to see ‘Ice Storm’ and ‘Seven Years in Tibet.’ ”

TO BE CONTINUED: “You get tired of the sequel thing, the ‘Batmans’ and ‘Speeds.’ Still, I hope I’m in the business long enough that I have a film that winds up being a franchise. That can be a corporate bottom line. But I also have a feeling that can be a burden.”

FRENCH CONNECTIONS: “In France, they count the number of admissions to a movie, not the money. But here, if you’re the head of a studio, you just want a $100-million movie; it doesn’t even have to make money. You could make a lot of movies that earn $100 million and not make any money. Scary business.”

SOMEONE HAS TO DO IT: “Basically, my job is having dinner four nights a week with an agent, a writer or an actor. Everybody goes to the same restaurants--Morton’s, the Ivy, Orso, Chaya. I eat in one of those places four nights a week.”

THINKING SMALL: “We’re supposed to make three to four pictures a year, so we can care about them. For a big studio to do 25, you can’t care as much. I’d go out of my mind. A lot of movies are not anybody’s passion, and that’s pretty clear when you go to the theater.”

RELATIONSHIPS: “David Fincher started Propaganda with us. I’ve known him for 12 years and I know all the idiosyncratic things about him and he knows mine. Sometimes when you’re trying to hire someone, they’re charming and then you make a movie with them and say, ‘This is not the same person I hired.’ ”