Dame Emma Thomas, Lady Nolan (born 9 December 1971) is a British film producer. She has produced all of the feature films directed by her husband Christopher Nolan, which have grossed more than $6 billion worldwide and are regarded as some of the greatest films of their respective decades.

She received the Academy Award, BAFTA and Critics' Choice Movie Award for producing Nolan's biographical thriller Oppenheimer (2023), becoming the first British woman to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Thomas received a damehood in 2024 for her contributions to film.

Emma Thomas was born on 9 December 1971 in London. Her father worked in the Civil Service, and she spent part of her childhood living in the Middle East. She originally intended to follow her father into the civil service field after completing her education. Thomas studied ancient history at University College London (UCL). She lived in the same residence hall as filmmaker Christopher Nolan (her boyfriend and future husband), whom she met when she was 18 during their first week at university.

Nolan introduced Thomas to the UCL Union's Film Society, where they arranged feature film screenings in 35mm and used the proceeds to produce newsreels and short films. Thomas credits Nolan and the Film Society for sparking her interest in filmmaking, and would provide refreshments for the crew members of her partner's short films. Upon her graduation from university, she had a "very awkward" conversation with her father in which he tried unsuccessfully to persuade her into working in the Civil Service.

While attending UCL, Thomas completed an unpaid internship with Working Title Films and worked as a runner and a receptionist. After earning her bachelor's degree in ancient history in 1993, she was promoted to a production coordinator for the studio. The first film that she produced was the short feature Doodlebug (1997), which depicts a man anxiously trying to kill a bug-like creature in his flat. She and Nolan created the work on 16mm film during their time at university.

After plans to create a full-length feature, Larry Mahoney, were scrapped, Thomas produced her first feature, Following (1998), with Nolan and Jeremy Theobald, who stars as an unemployed young writer who follows strangers in London in hopes of receiving material for his first novel, but is drawn into a criminal underworld where he fails to keep his distance. The film was conceived on a production budget of around £3,000 (equivalent to £6,668 in 2023) and was filmed on weekends over the course of a year, with scenes being rehearsed extensively to preserve film stock. Following was positively received by film critics and won several awards at various film festivals.

Thomas pitched Nolan's screenplay for their breakthrough film Memento (2000), which follows a man with anterograde amnesia who uses photographs, notes and tattoos to hunt his wife's murderer, to Aaron Ryder of Newmarket Films, who lauded the script. The film was given a budget of $4.5 million (equivalent to $8,200,000 in 2024) and was distributed by Newmarket to 500 theatres in the United States after it was rejected by other studios, who feared that it would not attract a wide audience. Thomas was credited as an associate producer of Memento, which received critical acclaim and several accolades, including two nominations at the 74th Academy Awards. Six critics listed it as one of the best films of the 2000s. She also assisted director Stephen Frears during the production of High Fidelity (2000).

On 27 February 2001, Thomas and Nolan founded the production company Syncopy Inc. She co-produced the psychological thriller Insomnia (2002), after filmmaker Steven Soderbergh recommended Nolan to Warner Bros. to direct a remake of the 1997 Norwegian thriller of the same name. The film follows two Los Angeles detectives who were sent to investigate the murder of a teenager in a northern Alaskan town. It received positive reviews from critics and grossed $113 million against a budget of $43 million.