All 34 Steven Spielberg Movies, Ranked

Steven Spielberg movies run the gamut from lively blockbusters like the Indiana Jones series to more contemplative, grownup fare like Munich and Lincoln. His filmography is formidable: Over five decades, Spielberg has become the world’s most commercially successful director while also winning two best director Oscars. This year is the 50th anniversary of Spielberg’s first gigantic mainstream success, Jaws, a smash hit that changed Hollywood forever. Which seems like a fitting occasion to take a look back at all of Spielberg’s films, and do what only comes naturally to us content producers these days: rank them.

But first, I set a few parameters. Spielberg’s segment of the Twilight Zone movie was out, because it’s pretty brief, not very good, and that movie is awfully tainted by tragedy. I am also omitting Spielberg’s made-for-TV movies that didn’t get a theatrical release—so Duel is in, but Savage and Something Evil didn’t make the cut. Which left me with 34 feature films, which I recently spent many hours watching or rewatching in chronological order.

It was a long endeavor, but proved worthwhile. What most struck me while examining the Spielberg canon in full is how different many of his movies look through the prism of his most recent film, 2022’s semi-memoir The Fabelmans, in which a somewhat standard Baby Boomer upbringing in the mid-century suburbs of Arizona and California is knocked off course by depression and divorce. A more thorough knowledge of the director’s origins complicates Spielberg’s signature awe and whimsy, giving a keener understanding of his fascination with war and family and the obscure things creeping at the edges of life. That, and being decades older than I was when I first watched many of these movies, had the most significant impact on the rankings below. With that, on to the list.

34. 1941 (1979)

Genre: War, Comedy
Notable cast: Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi, John Candy
MPA rating: PG

Perhaps Spielberg’s only genuinely terrible movie. A labored, laugh-less slapstick farce set in the mad days of post-Pearl Harbor Los Angeles, 1941 is also the director’s lone attempt at pure comedy. He fails miserably, delivering one boisterous, senseless scene after another. Talented folks like Dan Akroyd, John Candy, Ned Beatty, and Nancy Allen are put to waste, while the supposed charms of John Belushi begin to grate near immediately. Crass and downright stupid, 1941 would be the nadir of any decent director’s career. On Spielberg’s resumé, it’s shocking.

33. Hook (1991)

Genre: Fantasy-adventure
Notable cast: Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, Julia Roberts
MPA rating: PG

A mostly joyless movie that Spielberg himself has all but disavowed. One can see the appeal of the premise: America’s great dream-weaver takes a crack at Peter Pan with the lend a hand of Robin Williams, an actor adept at both silliness and seriousness. The results, though, are muddled and ugly. Hook begins with some wonder, but that’s quickly scotched when we travel to Neverland, a collection of coldly impressive, ornate sets that house a preening Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman, having fun doing a Jeremy Irons impression) and a bunch of Lost Boys badly updated to fit the cool-kid ’90s. I know this movie has its fans—particularly among adults who were just the right age when it came out in theaters—but 30-odd years later, Hook plays as pointless, half-invested folly.

32. The BFG (2016)

Genre: Fantasy-adventure
Notable cast: Mark Rylance, Ruby Barnhill, Penelope Wilton
MPA rating: PG