Every Steven Spielberg movie ranked, from E.T. to Jaws to … Crystal Skull

With 34 films and counting under his belt, Steven Spielberg has proven himself one of Hollywood’s most quintessential storytellers. His films satisfy our popcorn-devouring urges, offering awe-inspiring ambition, spectacle, and a distinctive flair. But there’s always artistic merit amid the commercial value—even in his critical misfires, as this painstakingly exhaustive ranking of those 34 titles can attest.

Oh, who are we kidding? Assessing the filmography of one of this generation’s most entertaining directors is no chore. Read on for The A.V. Club’s definitive, iron-clad, don’t-you-dare-question-it ranking of all of Spielberg’s features, from his debut film, Duel, to his newest, The Fabelmans.

A divisive entry into the Indiana Jones movies, Crystal Skull is a hoot if you take on its own terms. Constructed as a way to jumpstart the franchise with a younger star, the film ended up halting that prospect for more than a decade. Indy (Harrison Ford) is back and so is his one true love Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen). They bicker a la Tracy and Hepburn, refusing to acknowledge their obvious connection. Complicating matters is their son (Shia LaBeouf) who goes by the unfortunate moniker of Mutt. The real scene-stealer, however, is Cate Blanchett as a Rosa Klebb-inspired villain in a campy, over-the-top performance that plays well into the film’s ludicrous plot. The less said about the titular mysterious artifacts—or the nuked refrigerator—the better. Spielberg, working from a story by George Lucas, keeps the action snappy with well-choreographed car chases and fights. The snakes, scorpions, quicksands—basically everyone’s phobias—are back too. It’s big, dumb action done with reasonably sophisticated flair. [Murtada Elfadl]

Sidestepping the long-headed alien corpse of Crystal Skull, The Terminal manages to avoid last place here despite being a hokey, overly sentimental film that feels flimsy compared to Spielberg’s larger filmography. Loosely based on a true story, the movie follows Viktor Navorski, a traveler from the fake country of Krakozhia, who becomes stranded in JFK Airport when a coup in his homeland prevents him from either returning or entering the United States. Tom Hanks, in his third of five collaborations with Spielberg, valiantly attempts to squeeze every bit of charm he can from the script, while battling an unwieldy, nondescript Eastern European accent. Stanley Tucci appears as a weakly conceived airport official hellbent on booting Navorski from the place (for no real reason), and Catherine Zeta-Jones is an equally paper-thin flight attendant/love interest. The Terminal is too cutesy and flippant in its handling of the often brutal plight of refugees, but isn’t nearly funny enough to be a great comedy. Ironically, it’s the type of movie you’d only ever watch on a plane. [Matthew Huff]

Arguably, the prevalent nostalgia for the ’80s, even by those who weren’t alive to experience it, could be credited to Spielberg, as Hollywood has continuously adjusted its bike gears in an attempt to keep up with the course set by Amblin. In his adaptation of Ernest Cline’s novel Ready Player One, Spielberg stepped into his own footprint for a Willy Wonka-inspired smorgasbord that is both a celebration and a condemnation of the way pop culture has been rendered into transactional escapism while leaving the real world stagnant. Whether that message actually gets across is a larger discussion, but there’s no denying the thrill of seeing Spielberg re-create scenes from Kubrick’s The Shining or deliver an epic battle between every character you grew up loving, all held together by likable performances from Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Lena Waithe, and more. [Richard Newby]

Hook is, like so many 1990s blockbusters that became basic cable staples through years of reruns, enjoying a bit of a renaissance on the 2020s internet, as viewers who grew up watching the film over and over have begun to declare it a misunderstood classic. But that rising tide does not stop years of accepted opinion that Spielberg’s story of a latter-day Peter Pan’s (Robin Williams) effort to recapture his old magic is one of the few truly bad entries in his filmography. So, is Hook a work of under-appreciated charm and joy, or a memorable misfire from one of our finest directors? Somehow, it’s both, in a way that only Spielberg could accommodate. Yes, Hook is a messy, nostalgia-driven idea that never quite becomes a story in its own right, but it’s also full of flourishes which remind you that a brilliant visual mind is somehow behind it all. Even Spielberg’s messes are at worst interesting and at best kind of delightful. And we need look no further than Hook for proof. [Matthew Jackson]

Spielberg has cited Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life as a consistent inspiration and example in his work; though Always is actually a remake of Victor Fleming’s A Guy Named Joe, it ranks today as one of Spielberg’s most consistently Capra-esque movies. The story of a firefighting pilot (Richard Dreyfuss) who’s drafted post-death as a kind of spiritual inspiration for a fellow aviator who also happens to be falling in love with the pilot’s lost love (a radiant Holly Hunter), Always is a strange and often clashing merger of 1940s and 1980s filmmaking sensibilities. Over the course of two hours Spielberg blends daring rescues, unabashedly screwball comedy, and melodramatic romance into a single film. The results are mixed despite impressive visuals and great work from Hunter and co-star John Goodman. Time has been kind to the film, though, if for no other reason than its standing as proof that Spielberg would have been right at home directing in Hollywood’s Golden Age alongside Capra himself. [Matthew Jackson]

An often-forgotten movie in Spielberg’s canon is his 1979 action-comedy 1941, written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. The film follows hysterical (in more ways than one) Californians (played by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd) as they prepare for a Japanese invasion after Pearl Harbor. 1941 skims the surface of what Spielberg will later be known for—war epics, fluid camera movements, and snapshots of American life. The burgeoning filmmaker begins to flex that he can do it all, even if that means in this case mixing war and comedy. While it’s not critically or commercially as successful as many (okay, most) of his later films, a Spielberg first draft is still notable for its fleeting moments of mastery. [Dana Elle Salzberg]

The Sugarland Express is a film full of important firsts for Spielberg. It’s his first theatrical feature, his first film with composer John Williams, and perhaps most importantly, his first movie about a fractured family trying to mend itself. Based on a true story, the film follows a troubled married couple (Goldie Hawn and William Atherton) who kidnap a Texas State Trooper (Michael Sacks) and force him to drive them to their baby son’s foster home. It’s full of Spielbergian longing, a sense of fighting to reclaim a past that may never have existed but could still exist again if the world weren’t so harsh. Though it can’t approach the magic of his later films, watching The Sugarland Express now is an exercise in constantly identifying moments of promise, and flashes of the director’s soon-to-be legendary visual brilliance, attention to detail, and sense of humor. [Matthew Jackson]

While Spielberg pulled off two masterpieces in 1993 with Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List, he couldn’t manage the same feat in 1997 with Amistad and The Lost World. The two sets of films actually end up as interesting foils to each other. Amistad is well-made, but Spielberg’s depiction of the slave trade doesn’t carry the same weight as his depiction of the Holocaust in Schindler’s List, in part because the legal drama surrounding the former is a bit stuffy. There’s also an undeniable distance, despite the vast empathy on display, from the subject matter. Undeniably, the true standout of Amistad is Djimon Hounsou, whose portrayal of Joseph Cinque became a career-making performance and whose emotional delivery stole scenes away from Anthony Hopkins, Morgan Freeman, and Matthew McConaughey. It also must be said that costume designer Ruth E. Carter, best known for her collaborations with Spike Lee at the time, makes a noteworthy contribution to the look of the film that has left a lasting impression. [Richard Newby]

Who could’ve imagined that the animalistic screams emitted from the wreckage of a truck would become the stuff of nightmares? The bones of Jaws are right here in this little TV movie, adapted from a Richard Matheson short story that is far better than it has any right to be for a filmmaker just cutting his teeth on feature films. Spielberg manages to make a simple story of a man being pursued by a sinister tractor trailer into a white-knuckle experience that showcases of his eye for framing, perspective, sound design, and slightly tilted Americana. Anchored by a wonderfully committed performance from an everyman Dennis Weaver, Spielberg crafts a blue-collar monster movie that could be silly in lesser hands. Here it’s presented with the kind of grounding and high-caliber filmmaking that makes it a ’70s genre classic. Like much of his career that followed, Duel showed that Spielberg didn’t need to be a master at original ideas, just original execution. [Richard Newby]

In Spielberg’s filmography full of serious war dramas and sci-fi adventure epics, a feel-good children’s film about a 10-year-old visiting Giant Country is a bit of an outlier. Mark Rylance, in a feat of performance capture, plays the titular Big Friendly Giant (BFG) in the adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s novel. On paper, the project makes sense. A big-name director takes on a big-name project, and especially after Martin Scorsese’s success with Hugo, there was a blueprint for what a prestigious filmmaker could do with a children’s title. Unfortunately, in a quest to make the film more accessible, Spielberg sanded down some of Dahl’s darker plot points and what’s left is a fairly inoffensive, if uninteresting, offering. The BFG disappointed at the box office and remains one of Spielberg’s most forgettable films of the past 20 years. It’s fine, but certainly not something to write home (to your family of fleshlumpeaters) about. [Matthew Huff]

It’s easy to ignore The Lost World when the original Jurassic Park, a masterpiece of action and spectacle, is sitting right there. While it might rightfully sit on the lower end of Spielberg’s filmography, The Lost World does still carry merits of its own, especially in the wake of Colin Trevorrow’s disastrous but thankfully recently concluded trilogy. In light of the franchise’s steep nosedive in quality, hopefully audiences can look back on The Lost World with kinder eyes. While perhaps overlong and a bit scattershot, there are plenty of delights to be had. Jeff Goldblum reprises his role as Ian Malcolm, and he’s joined by the welcome addition of Julianne Moore as the shrewd scientist Dr. Sarah Harding. The story follows an expedition to another island overrun by dinosaurs, separate from the titular park of the original, and escalates into a thrilling set piece of the oversized reptiles clashing with a metropolitan area, the first—and best—time this concept was introduced in the series. [Brandon Kirby]

Robert Zemeckis never quite achieved what he seemingly intended from near-photo-real animation on the feature level, but Spielberg got the technology right by not trying to impersonate pure realism in his The Adventures Of Tintin. Spielberg’s Tintin occupies a middle-ground between Hergé’s cartoon characters and live action, allowing for characters like Captain Haddock and Thompson & Thomson to look like themselves in a more 3D world. To cope with the exposition-heavy initial story, Spielberg added elements from another Tintin book, The Crab With The Golden Claws, and created some new action sequences, like a “swordfight” with shipping cranes. Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis make a perfect Tintin and Haddock. The original books are so rich, and prior European films so much of a disappointment to the original author, that fans deserved a franchise. We only got the one, with a cliffhanger, but it captured the classic spirit correctly. [Luke Y. Thompson]

The problem with Indiana Jones sequels is that Raiders Of The Lost Ark is simply perfect, so it’s hard to recapture the original film’s invigorating energy. Temple Of Doom tried to compensate for this by swinging in a very different direction, and as a result Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade feels like a return to the familiar and comforting—with an added dose of star power in the form of Sean Connery as Henry Jones Sr. While Connery’s presence certainly infuses a crackling new chemistry opposite Harrison Ford, it’s hard for even longtime fans of the film to shake the sense that we’re watching an echo of Raiders. It never rings quite as true or as resonant as its predecessor, but that doesn’t stop the film’s propulsive and satisfying sense of fun, proving that even Spielberg imitating himself is better than a lot of other directors imitating Spielberg. [Matthew Jackson]

Every so often, Spielberg goes small, telling simpler stories about regular—and actual—people doing extraordinary things. Lincoln comes to mind, if that can be considered small, as do Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal, The Post, and Bridge Of Spies, which rates as a surprisingly tense and evocative Cold War thriller. Beautifully shot and superbly scripted (by Ethan and Joel Coen, as well as Matt Charman), it casts Tom Hanks as real-life American lawyer James B. Donovan, who’s called upon to defend a KGB agent (Mark Rylance), and then to negotiate a prison swap in order to bring home a downed American pilot (Austin Stowell). The scenes between Hanks and Rylance (who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the role) quietly sizzle, and just try not to bite your nails during the riveting last 20 minutes of the film. [Ian Spelling]

Only Steven Spielberg could see the life-sized puppets in Nick Stafford’s stage production of War Horse and envision their cinematic potential. On paper, the theatrical and film versions of this tale of a boy following his beloved horse into World War I couldn’t look more different. But Spielberg uses the power of intimate close-ups and sweeping action, not to mention his go-to composer, John Williams, to elevate human and equine characters alike into another of his good, old-fashioned big-screen adventures. There’s a pleasingly pure-hearted turn from newcomer Jeremy Irvine in his feature film debut as Albert, but equal weight is given to his co-star Joey, a horse who, thanks to his capable director and screenwriters Lee Hall and Richard Curtis, has more gravitas than Black Beauty and more personality than Secretariat. The against-all-odds bond between Albert and Joey rivals E.T., while the stunningly rendered trench warfare recalls Saving Private Ryan. The result is remembered as a winning match of filmmaker and material. [Jack Smart]

How fitting that Spielberg’s completion of Stanley Kubrick’s final project came out in 2001, since it serves as a dark mirror to the master’s movie of the same name. Where A Space Odyssey envisions the ultimate evolution of humanity with an alien assist, A.I. envisions mankind’s complete extinction, supplanted by living technology. In an ending widely misunderstood to be overly sentimental, the last emotion gets experienced by robot child David (Haley Joel Osment) for one night only, as mechs of the future puzzle over such historical trivia. David’s emotions render him a perceived threat initially, but eventually just a curiosity along the way to purging such things completely. Throughout David’s journey, humans use robots for physical, visceral thrills, showing a similar lack of vision to their predecessors who ruined the ecosystem. A mother’s love may make this metaphorical Pinocchio want to be a real boy, but Spielberg and Kubrick dare suggest that in the longer arc of history, he’d be better off otherwise. Spielberg’s customary tear-jerking serves as misdirection here, keeping you from staring too long into the abyss. [Luke Y. Thompson]

The Color Purple is now a classic with a special place in many households, a staple to be watched over and over. In 1985 it was a bold move from Spielberg to take on Alice Walker’s beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. But you can see why he was attracted to it; it’s a truly American story with a visceral emotional core. In her screen debut, Whoopi Goldberg imbues Celie with devastating innocence even as the character endures unthinkable abuse and adversity. In another screen debut, the one and only Oprah Winfrey—“All my life I had to fight”—offers a resilient yet wrenching portrait of a life in oppression. Both performances are indelibly memorable. The movie’s strength lies in taking this gut-wrenching story and permeating it with joy and hope. It’s a Spielberg trademark: you might be crying your eyes out but you’re wildly entertained. [Murtada Elfadl]

Steven Spielberg’s pedigree as a documentarian of pivotal childhood moments may have reached its apotheosis—at least regarding ones that actually happened—in Empire Of The Sun, his woefully underappreciated 1987 adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. Then just 12 years old, Christian Bale made an explosive breakthrough as Jim, an upper-middle-class schoolboy who gets separated from his parents during Japan’s World War II occupation of Shanghai. Both paying tribute to Spielberg’s childhood favorite film, The Bridge On The River Kwai, and playfully recontextualizing its encampment dramas from the perspective of an adolescent, Spielberg captures the terror, the freedom, and eventually, the enlightenment that comes from being confronted by the complexities of the adult world. Bale is extraordinary in the main role as audiences watch an acting powerhouse be born, but Spielberg’s treatment of this material showcased how the filmmaker himself continued to come of age. [Todd Gilchrist]

You wouldn’t necessarily expect the director responsible for E.T. to be the best person to realize Philip K. Dick’s paranoid vision of a future where PreCrime cop John Anderton (Tom Cruise) arrests murderers before they kill, only to become the suspect in a pending homicide. But Spielberg’s effortless penchant for executing character-first thrills and tension turns out to be right at home in this gritty sci-fi noir. Minority Report is full of moral dilemmas and hair’s-breadth escapes, anchored by a riveting “man on the run” performance from Cruise. This underrated summer 2002 blockbuster further solidifies Spielberg as arguably the best action movie director alive. [Phil Pirrello]

Steven Spielberg’s most famous “double-dip” year remains the one-two punch of 1993 with Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List. But 2005 has to rank second in his canon: the $600-million-plus summer gross of the science-fiction action film War Of The Worlds followed by Munich. The latter is a tense yet meditative unpacking of the Israeli government’s secret, years-long campaign of retribution against armed militant group Black September, and operatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization, for the kidnapping and assassination of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics. The first of four successful collaborations between Spielberg and writer Tony Kushner (credited here alongside Eric Roth), Munich was initially derided by some as naive and attacked by critics—its hard-edged brilliance misunderstood or misconstrued by those seeking it to be something other than what it is. A superbly crafted study of ethical slide, Munich was never meant to be a thriller. Instead, it’s a punishing excavation of the moral contortions and self-justification involved in adopting monstrous behavior, and perhaps becoming a monster, in order to fight monsters. [Brent Simon]

Catch Me If You Can, which arrived on the heels of Spielberg’s 2002 summer hit Minority Report, starred Leonardo DiCaprio as a dashing young forger, fraudster, and conman extraordinaire, and Tom Hanks as the dogged FBI agent on his tail. But the biographical crime drama, laced with ribbons of lightheartedness, seemingly lacked a big narrative hook. While industry insiders wondered if audiences would turn out, Spielberg injected a lively watchability into the film’s criminal schemes. And years before he would more directly confront the weight of his own broken home with The Fabelmans, Catch Me If You Can derived much of its emotional punching power from the wayward protagonist’s ongoing desire to please his father (Christopher Walken). The result was a box office tally of $352 million (compared to $358 million for Minority Report), and yet another confirmation of Spielberg’s prowess as a master storyteller. [Brent Simon]

Lincoln is one of the best examples of Spielberg’s ability to balance past and present, and to reflect on modern-day issues by rendering figures from history with essential humanity. An in-depth political thriller depicting the impossible task facing the 16th U.S. president in the aftermath of the Civil War, this Tony Kushner-penned adaptation of a Doris Kearns Goodwin biography doubles as a passionate plea for maintaining democratic ideals. Under Spielberg’s direction, Oscar-winner Daniel Day-Lewis both upholds and subverts our impression of this trailblazing politician, embodying Abraham Lincoln’s calculated confidence opposite a doubtful White House staff and resistant Congress. Best of all is the general brilliance of Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln. Here is a grown woman, nay, a first lady of the United States of America—“Madam President, if you please,” as she says—delivering what is essentially a temper tantrum, venting enough marital frustrations to blow poor Abe’s beard off. Spielberg is a director who knows when to reign actors in or let them swing for the fences. [Jack Smart]

War Of The Worlds earns points for its incredibly bleak and genuinely frightening portrayal of an alien invasion and impending apocalypse. Audiences likely weren’t expecting at the time how dark and unnerving Spielberg’s remake of the campy, classic 1953 sci-fi flick would be. With the invaders crashing down and evaporating citizens into a cloud of ash, the early scenes of people running for their lives covered in soot eerily evoked real world imagery from the 9/11 tragedy. In hindsight, the 2005 film ranks as one of the most effective post-9/11 movies, all the more surprising considering it’s a blockbuster starring Tom Cruise. The actor plays a dad desperately trying to take his two children to the safety of their mother’s home, farther away from the world-ending destruction around them. Playing the daughter is an especially memorable young Dakota Fanning, known for her spine-chilling screams throughout. With War Of The Worlds, Spielberg delivered in equal parts an awe-inspiring scale of destruction and intimately claustrophobic moments of suspense. [Brandon Kirby]

What’s more American than Spielberg directing Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks in a movie about the moral quandary of the Watergate era? But more than a story about how a few journalists got it right, The Post is a movie about process: how a team at a top newspaper comes together to break a story that they know will change history. It is also a film about making a decision—to publish or not to publish—and all the ramifications and complications that come with such a call. Holding that key is Streep’s Katharine Graham, swathed in flowing caftans and a perfect updo, looking the part of a society maven and Washington D.C. insider. Streep’s task is to reveal how she goes about making that decision. To tell a story about how one woman makes one enormous choice, you need an actor the audience can watch as they simply think. Streep comes equipped with trademark gestural acting, adds a dash of intellect and wit, and we are enthralled. [Murtada Elfadl]

There’s a moment in The Fabelmans, Spielberg’s most autobiographical film, where a scene-stealing Judd Hirsch holds up his two fists. “Family ... art,” he thunders as Uncle Boris, “It’ll tear you in two.” Spielberg dared to funnel that internal struggle into the most intimate yet emotionally epic installment of his long career. The Fabelmans follows the director’s surrogate, Sammy Fabelman (Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord, then Gabriel LaBelle), chronicling both the ups and downs of childhood and the beginnings of his own artistic ambitions. Michelle Williams and Paul Dano, at the peak of their powers, play the lightly fictionalized parents to whom Spielberg dedicated this sophisticated and fascinatingly personal film. [Jack Smart]

When someone is the best at something, they make it look easy. Michael Phelps swimming, Serena Williams playing tennis … Steven Spielberg’s one-minute tracking shot in West Side Story. It follows Maria and the Sharks (dressed in shades of red) as they enter the dance at the gym, lifting the camera seamlessly over the Jets (in vibrant shades of blue) dancing, finding Riff in the middle of the 50-plus dancers, meeting Anybodys, having them get into a scuffle with a Jet, which tosses us back to Maria and the Sharks and a tense moment between rivals Riff and Barnardo, intercepted by Officer Krupke. The single shot, just 1/156th of the film, captures the themes, tension, and beauty in this superlative remake of a classic musical. Spielberg’s the best at the big stuff. He’s the best at the small stuff. And West Side Story is the best of both. [Dana Elle Salzberg]

Spielberg crafted an instant classic with Jurassic Park. Set on the fictional island of Isla Nublar, the 1993 film centered on a theme park populated by cloned dinosaurs. But when the prehistoric reptiles get loose and begin to run amok, a small group of visitors must somehow evade the vicious predators and escape off the isle. It’s come to be remembered as pure Spielbergian spectacle, a monster thriller that captured awe, wonderment, heart, heroics … and horror. Audiences were enthralled by a T-Rex chasing a jeep or raptors stalking two kids in a kitchen. And the movie’s cutting-edge technology and dazzling special effects still hold up today. The combination of Jurassic Park’s movie magic, majestic John Williams score, thought-provoking themes, and memorable performances (Jeff Goldblum masterfully hams it up as conspiracy theorist Ian Malcolm) further cemented Spielberg as a force of nature behind the camera. [Bryan Cairns]

It’s not a huge insight to note that Steven Spielberg’s parents’ divorce has been a running theme in his works, especially early on and mid-career. The lack of a loving, supportive father plays an almost specter-like character in many films. Yet it feels like it wasn’t until recently that viewers finally took note of a major part of his outstanding Jaws follow-up, 1977’s Close Encounters Of The Third Kind: it’s essentially about a checked-out dad leaving his wife and kids in a pretty damn selfish manner. Granted, it’s not every day people get invited aboard an alien craft, but Richard Dreyfuss’ Roy Neary sure bails on his family quickly after dragging them through an emotional wringer. But the fact he leaves them behind is overshadowed by a younger (he was barely 30!) Spielberg not so much blaming him as chasing a dream, almost literally. One of the few screenplays Spielberg himself has a writing credit on, Close Encounters is the kind of film that grows as you grow, taking on different shades as you watch and rewatch it throughout your life. It’s a deeply personal and spectacularly creative bit of filmmaking. [Don Lewis]

The 20-minute D-Day invasion from Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan is arguably a microcosm of his exceptional skillset as a filmmaker. He finds brief but resonant opportunities to punctuate the violence of this iconic sequence with the very emotional and human toll it takes on those who fight such battles so that we don’t have to. In an effort to put the audience at ground level with Tom Hanks’ Captain Miller, Spielberg and screenwriter Robert Rodat (with uncredited polishes from writers Scott Frank and Frank Darabont) seed early on the film’s approach to carnage and courage; Miller and his brave men struggle to survive the former as they are ordered to lead a search for Private Ryan that is fraught with ethically complicated questions of the latter. Spielberg landed a best director Oscar for Saving Private Ryan, which drags the audience by the heartstrings to the edge of their seats as he executes not just one of his greatest films, but also one of the most compelling war films ever made. [Phil Pirrello]

Spielberg spent part of 1993 in post-production on Jurassic Park, his popcorn masterpiece that would help familiarize audiences with the two most important acronyms in modern film: CGI and IP. Remarkably, Spielberg was approving shots of dinosaurs while also shooting Schindler’s List, a Holocaust drama of such magnitude that it has become an indispensable account of the Shoah. In Schindler’s List, Spielberg does not flinch from the horrors of the Holocaust. Nor does he succumb to them. Instead, with a rigor and lack of sentimentality that seem impossible given the subject matter and Spielberg’s deeply upsetting encounters with anti-Semitism in elementary school, the film tells the true story of Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), the German industrialist who saved more than 1,200 Jews by employing them in his factory in Nazi-occupied Poland. Neeson’s larger-than-life performance is matched by those of Ralph Fiennes as psychopathic Nazi commandant Amon Goeth and Ben Kingsley as Schindler’s Jewish accountant. This Oscar-winning Best Picture of 1994 is a towering achievement that feels mainlined directly from Spielberg’s soul. He also took home a Best Director Oscar for his efforts, officially graduating from mainstream maestro to one of Hollywood’s all-time great directors. [Mark Keizer]

Nearly five decades since its runaway popularity helped establish what a post-modern blockbuster would be, every frame of Jaws remains as effective as it was upon first viewing. There’s nary a misstep along the way, thanks to Spielberg’s preternatural abilities behind the camera (on just his second feature film!), especially when it comes to giving the audience a finely crafted, suspenseful build-up culminating in a good old-fashioned jolt of fear (or a nervous chuckle of relief). The film is certainly enhanced by its simple but still potent thematic points, a macho-vulnerable brio and keenly drawn character dynamics—Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfus, Robert Shaw, and Murray Hamilton all play at the top of their games here. But perhaps its most miraculous aspect is how its many now-mythic behind-the-scenes technical failings prompted Spielberg to funnel even more imagination into methods to make audiences feel what he couldn’t outright show them. And fortunately he had an ideal collaborator in composer John Williams, who ingeniously infused his score with dread. No matter how many times you’ve seen it, Jaws still has a ferocious bite. [Scott Huver]

Spielberg was at the absolute pinnacle of his craft when he made E.T., and it’s a near-perfect Hollywood concoction. Actually, it’s Spielberg at his most Spielbergian, checking every box: suburbia’s dark underbelly, childhood wonder, aliens arriving on Earth, scary government types, absentee parents, gorgeous cinematography, pulse-pounding action, compelling visual practical and effects, a wondrous score, and smart editing, and lots of heartfelt, tear-inducing schmaltz (as well as some not-too-subtle product placement). Best of all is the cast. Drew Barrymore, Henry Thomas, and Robert MacNaughton are thoroughly believable as the bickering, loving siblings Gertie, Elliot, and Michael Taylor, and Dee Wallace is perfect as their mom. Plus, Peter Coyote convincingly humanizes Keys, the villain who comes around just in time to help our heroes. More than 40 years later—40 years!—we’re still ooh-ing, aah-ing, laughing, crying, and happily phoning home. [Ian Spelling]

Only an artist as cinematically confident as Spielberg would dare, in the wake of the critical drubbing of 1941, return to the decade of the ’40s for his very next film. Of course, it didn’t hurt that he’d dreamed up the concept with fellow film nerd-turned-blockbuster maestro George Lucas, once again melding monomythic themes with imagery to the collective pop cultural consciousness: this time retro-pulp cliffhanger movie serials writ large. And who better to goose that low-brow but viscerally appealing genre with inventive, kinetic visual thrills and top-tier production values than Spielberg? He directs the Indiana Jones saga with swagger, essentially redefining the modern action film as part cinema, part rollercoaster ride. Funneled through the filmmaker’s legendary eye for wonder with an edge, every ingredient in Raiders Of The Lost Ark works like crazy: Harrison Ford ideally cast as the appropriately squared-jawed but refreshingly scruffy Indiana Jones winging it through every new pitfall; Karen Allen as the winningly feisty and tomboyish love interest; composer John Williams pumping rousing bombast into the epic score; a terrific McGuffin and one of the greatest irony-soaked final scenes of all time. Like Jaws before it, it’s not only Spielberg at his best; it is, in fact, a perfect film. [Scott Huver]