At the time of writing, Disclosure Day is a fairly recent release, and Steven Spielberg is a name people are talking about a bit more than usual. That
At the time of writing, Disclosure Day is a fairly recent release, and Steven Spielberg is a name people are talking about a bit more than usual. That’s to say, no one ever really forgets about Spielberg, but a up-to-date film from one of the best filmmakers still working today is something of a large deal. And, about a week and a half into June, some of Steven Spielberg’s best movies have their respective anniversaries, which speaks to how much he’s dominated plenty of summer movie seasons. Not that all his great films are blockbusters, but plenty of them are, all while also being able to count themselves among the very best blockbusters in cinema history.
What about his perfect movies, though? There are quite a few. He has directed more 10/10 movies than the enormous majority of filmmakers out there, perhaps being as good as the likes of Martin Scorsese and Stanley Kubrick in that regard. If something isn’t below, it could be because it’s “merely” really good, instead of unambiguously – and universally regarded as – a masterpiece. These Steven Spielberg movies really are the best of the best, and can probably even count themselves among the all-time greatest films ever made.
6
‘Saving Private Ryan’ (1998)
Soldiers in the lead-up to the Normandy invasion during World War II in Saving Private Ryan (1998)Image via DreamWorks Pictures
Saving Private Ryan is one of two great World War II movies Steven Spielberg directed in the 1990s, with both of them giving him his two Best Director Oscar wins. Technically, Saving Private Ryan is the more straightforward of the two, but it is an epic in the conventional sense, being close to three hours all up and going quite large in terms of production and the film’s overall scale. It begins with a veteran recalling the war, not quite beginning with the famed Normandy sequence, but that does serve as the commencement of the main stretch of the movie. And it’s as impressive and harrowing a sequence as pretty much everybody says it is.
After that point, it’s indeed about saving Private Ryan, with the mission involving going into enemy territory to get Ryan and take him home, since his three brothers have all died in combat. Like Spielberg’s other World War II film of the 1990s, Saving Private Ryan does want to highlight an act of heroism among a great deal of violence and misery, with this being a bold approach that Spielberg ultimately makes work. It is possible to feel the anti-war sentiment here while also finding the film potentially inspiring and certainly moving.
5
‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ (1981)
One of the purest and most satisfying action movies ever made, it really says something about the quality of Steven Spielberg’s filmography that there might well be four movies of his even better than Raiders of the Lost Ark. Honestly, it comes down to personal preference, and you could probably put his top-tier stuff in any order, and it wouldn’t be too difficult to justify/explain said ordering. Also, most directors would probably kill to have their best movie be as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark, while Spielberg’s all nonchalant over here, going, “Yeah, Raiders of the Lost Ark is ONE of my best movies.”
No, he’s probably not cocky enough to say something like that outright. But if he did say that, it’d be fair enough. Raiders of the Lost Ark is the first – and best – of the Indiana Jones movies, being about an archaeologist who goes on a globe-trotting adventure as he races forces from the Nazi regime (in the years before the outbreak of World War II) to find the Ark of the Covenant first. Honorable mentions can be given out to both The Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade, which are pretty great sequels, but Raiders of the Lost Ark is the closest to all-out masterpiece territory of the original/1980s Indiana Jones trilogy. It’s entertaining, endlessly rewatchable, and effortlessly mass-appeal.
Henry Thomas as Elliott and E.T. watch the UFO land in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.Image via Universal Pictures
There’s an argument to be made that E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is part of a thematic trilogy that also includes Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the recent Disclosure Day. All of them are movies about aliens interacting with humans, with a particular focus on how learning about aliens affects one person in particular (well, there are kind of two main characters in Disclosure Day, but their ties to the aliens are ultimately focused on the most). With E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, an alien – named E.T. – is given more of a focus than any of the extra-terrestrials in Spielberg’s other movies about aliens, and the central lively here is between that alien and a boy named Elliott.
So long as kids don’t find E.T. too terrifying, this movie can rank among the greatest family films ever made, if it’s not literally the best live-action family movie ever made. Like, it’s a mighty contender for such a crown. The main story is technically as plain as a boy helping an alien find a way to contact his own kind so he can get back home, but then there’s so much more to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial that makes it special, including how thrilling it gets in its final act, how mighty the John Williams score is (even by his high standards), how moving the ending is, and how well it captures the feeling of being a kid; both the ups and downs.
3
‘Jurassic Park’ (1993)
A T. rex looking at a flare in the rain during a tense scene in the original Jurassic Park (1993)Image via Universal Pictures
Jurassic Park is almost too good, in the sense that it has basically shut out any competition, as far as other dinosaur movies are concerned (if “dinosaur film” can be considered a genre, or sub-genre). The movie concerns the soon-to-be-opened titular park, which has been funded by an entrepreneur who wants to bring dinosaurs back through scientific means. He does succeed, and the people who visit the park before it’s officially opened are initially impressed by what they see… but it’s also one of those “science pushed too far” stories, and so things don’t stay wonderful and fun for long.
There are still parts of Jurassic Park that are nail-biting either way, though, with the mix of beauty and terror really going far to making it all as memorable as it is.
At least, not wonderful/fun for the characters. Jurassic Park gets you to care about them, and then it puts them through hell, with said hell being a lot more fun to watch if you’re on the other side of the screen. There are still parts of Jurassic Park that are nail-biting either way, though, with the mix of beauty and terror really going far to making it all as memorable as it is. It’s about a theme park, and watching it does feel a bit like being on a two-hour roller-coaster, with all the ups and downs, but in a good way. And not in an “Oh, movies shouldn’t feel like theme parks” kind of way. There are good theme park-esque movies, and bad ones, with Jurassic Park being well and truly in the former camp.
2
‘Schindler’s List’ (1993)
Image via Universal Pictures
There is a heaviness to Schindler’s List that sets it apart from the other films here. Even Saving Private Ryan, for as grueling as it could be, does move at a good pace and proves intensely engaging throughout, even if it’s not full-on “entertainment” like Raiders of the Lost Ark or Jurassic Park. Schindler’s List, though, is a biographical drama that’s set during World War II, but without a focus on combat and a soldier’s experience with war the way Saving Private Ryan was. Schindler’s List, instead, focuses on Oskar Schindler and what he did during the Holocaust.
The film does walk a tough line, as it’s about an act of heroism during the Second World War, all the while also having to acknowledge the overwhelming horror of the situation in which the heroism occurred. Schindler’s List is unapologetic, as a tearjerker (and then some), but it’s not overly sentimental, nor does Spielberg handle the material at hand in a way that could run the risk of feeling exploitative or tacky. To date, it is the only Spielberg film to win Best Picture at the Oscars, and a deserving one, if there can only – or will ever only – be one.
1
‘Jaws’ (1975)
Image via Universal Pictures
If an already perfect movie can somehow be considered more perfect, then that’s Jaws. Jaws is beyond perfect, and maybe it shouldn’t even be here, since it’s more of an 11/10 than a 10/10. Spielberg directed it when he was still in his 20s (he was 28 when it came out), and it was his first all-out masterpiece, following remarkably mighty early efforts like Duel and the underrated The Sugarland Express… for what it’s worth, both of those actually scratch a similar itch, in terms of being tense road movies.
Jaws, on the other hand, takes to the seas, at least for its final act, which is one of the most relentless, thrilling, and extended climaxes in cinema history. Before then, Jaws is also a blast, as the building tension that comes from a series of shark attacks is undeniably good at pulling you in, while all the characters here are far more memorable – and, eventually, sympathetic – than what you might find in a more ordinary blockbuster. It’s got spectacle and excitement for sure, but also plenty by way of good storytelling, character development, and dialogue. In that sense, it’s kind of the perfect blockbuster the same way Jurassic Park is also about as good as it gets, when it comes to broad, crowd-pleasing, and impossible-to-fault cinema.
Jaws
Release Date
June 20, 1975
Runtime
124 minutes
Writers
Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb
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