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Whether your a film fan or not you know the name Spielberg, and with that comes so many meanings. You think action, adventure, Oscars, John Williams and above all else heart. All of the films created by Spielberg have a tonne of the heartfelt stuff at their centre.
Steven Spielberg was a very determined and very lucky young man when he wondered onto the Universal lot on a studio tour and basically never left. His first made-for-TV movies were noticed by critics and he was given the chance to make a small thriller about a shark.....Know the one?
With the release of Jaws when he was just 27 years old, Spielberg became one of the best known and highly anticipated of film Directors. He has since made so many classic movies you can't count them on 2 hands. He has also won 2 Oscars for Best Director. Here is my list of my top Steven Spielberg movies.
Running Time: 2 Hours 45 mins
Genre: War/Drama
Director: Steven Spielberg
Stars: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore
Considered by many to be the greatest War film of all time, the opening 25 minutes on the beach of Normandy is one of the most realistic and harrowing portrayals of war ever committed to film. I find this film very difficult to watch due to this realism, nevertheless it is an amazing piece of work. Hanks' Cpt. Miller and his small group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose remaining brothers have all been killed in action. This won Spielberg his second Oscar for Best Director.
Running Time: 3 Hours 15 mins
Genre: Biography/War/Drama
Director: Steven Spielberg
Stars: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley
Perhaps the greatest film of his career Spielberg said "This is the first movie with a message I have ever attempted. It's a very simple message - that something like this should never happen again." Close to his heart due to it's serious look at the treatment of Jews during WW2. Neeson plays a German businessman who becomes increasingly involved in helping his Jewish workers after seeing their horrendous persecution by the Nazis especially Fiennes hateful Amon Goeth. A long but superb picture earning Spielberg his first Oscar.
Running Time: 2 Hours 20 mins
Genre: Biography/Crime/Drama
Director: Steven Spielberg
Stars: Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christopher Walken
However fantastical this tale may seem it is actually the true story of Frank Abagnale Jr. who made notoriety conning millions of dollars worth of cheques as a Pan Am Pilot, Doctor and Legal Prosecutor all before the age of 19. DiCaprio plays the young con artist who you cannot help but like who is chased across the country by Spielberg regular Tom Hanks as Detective Carl Hanratty. An interesting film with what appears to be a rather superficial tone on sight but which actually has many depths namely the relationship between Abagnale and his disappointing yet idolised father (Walken) and Hanratty.
07 - The Terminal (2004)
Running Time: 2 Hours 05 mins
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Director: Steven Spielberg
Stars: Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta Jones, Stanley Tucci
Collaborating again with good friend Hanks the two have created a heart-warming film about a visiting immigrant who finds himself stranded at JFK Airport after his country goes to war and it is no longer a country recognised by the U.S. Hilarity ensues as Hanks' Viktor Navorski learns to live in the Airport and his gentle and friendly nature earns him many friends throughout the staff. This is a much better film than it seems, not his biggest hit but a really lovely film for a rainy afternoon.
06 - The Color Purple (1985)
Running Time: 2 Hours 35 mins
Genre: Drama
Director: Steven Spielberg
Stars: Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Oprah Winfrey
During a college English Lit course I read The Color Purple, on learning it was a Spielberg film I immediately bought the film. I was spellbound by the performances I witnessed. Goldberg is committed to this performance down to her very bones and what makes this so spectacular is that it was her first film and she is now known as a successful comedienne. But her Celie a young girl suffering the indignity of being impregnated by her father twice and then having her babies taken away. Then sold to a truly awful man (Glover) who makes her life a misery is genuinely moving.
05 - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
Running Time: 1 Hour 55 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Director: Steven Spielberg
Stars: Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Jonathan Ke Quan
Raiders of the Lost Ark is always the film that fans and critics alike recognise however for me this is the best film in the series. Adventure and action just like the first but much funnier and Kate Capshaw makes a hilarious sidekick to Ford's rugged architect. Searching for a mystical stone and stumbling across a secret cult this has Indy in a lot of scrapes. And don't forget it also features Data from The Goonies (1985) must be why there are so many booby-traps about (sorry).
04 - Jaws (1975)
Running Time: 2 Hours
Genre: Thriller/Adventure
Director: Steven Spielberg
Stars: Roy Sheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss
This is undoubtedly the most important film of Spielberg's career, it put him on the map, gave him the freedom with the studios and also became the highest grossing movie of all time changing movie distribution in the process. However it was a nightmare shoot with a mechanical shark (Bruce) crucial to the film, that would not work in the water. It all worked out though with Scheider's scared of water police chief almost single handedly saving a sea-side resort town from a huge great white shark. He has the help of a alcohol fuelled fisherman and a young scientist, they are way out of their league.
03 - Hook (1991)
Running Time: 2 Hours 20 mins
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure/Family
Director: Steven Spielberg
Stars: Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, Julia Roberts
With the passing of the great Robin Williams recently this, one of his many great family films has been shown on many TV channels. As a child this story of a grown up Peter Pan (Williams) who has no memory of his former life but is forced to remember when his old nemesis Captain Hook (Hoffman) kidnaps his children captivated me. I cannot count how many times I have seen it, the adventure, the cast and the score (trusty John Williams) enthralled again and again. Watch this and bring out your inner child.
Running Time: 2 Hours 05 mins
Genre: Adventure/Fantasy/Thriller
Director: Steven Spielberg
Stars: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum
He created the summer blockbuster with Jaws and he topped himself with this Sci-fi hit. Neil and Dern's palaeontologists and Goldblum's mathematician are invited to preview a theme park on an isolated island by rich businessman John Hammond (the great late Richard Attenborough). The difference with this park being that instead of rides there are scientifically cloned dinosaurs behind electric fences. When the power goes down and the decidedly viscous dinos get loose it becomes a fight for survival.
Running Time: 1 Hour 55 mins
Genre: Fantasy/Family
Director: Steven Spielberg
Stars: Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, Peter Coyote
Another of my childhood favourites this is Spielberg's ultimate family film. It tells the story of Elliot a young boy reeling from his parents divorce who finds an alien in his garden and after discovering his friendly nature decides to keep him. Introducing a young Drew Barrymore and the cutest alien ever seen on film this story of friendship has stood the test of time and still to this day makes me cry like a baby at the films final scene. The most infectious of all his films this can be watched repeatedly, I should know.
This was a hard list to make, there are just so many great Spielberg movies, how can you honestly make a definitive list. I believe there is a Spielberg movie for every mood with so many great films you'll never get bored and they are so enjoyable you will watch them again and again. Spielberg is one Director responsible for my great love of movies and for such an exciting childhood, he inspired my imagination and I will be forever grateful.
Let me know what you think of the list and what Director's moulded your childhood.
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