Full disclosure here: Steven Spielberg is my favorite director.
Ever.
Sure, there’s Welles and Hitchcock and Ford and Peckinpah and even Woo.
But nothing brings the film lover and child out of me better than a great Spielberg movie, full of daddy issues and sun flares.
But when people think of Spielberg, they think of the Big Four: Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders and ET.
His movies still do amazingly well to this day (he’s the highest grossing director of all time), but these are the four films that he’s always identified with, especially to the generation of filmgoers who grew up with these on constant rotation in their dreams.
Here are the five best films that he’s made in a career that any filmmaker could be envious of.
EMPIRE OF THE SUN (1987)
Written by Tom Stoppard/Menno Meyjes (uncredited)
Based on book by JG Ballard
While Spielberg had dabbled in WWII before (Raiders had Nazis, his pilot episode of Amazing Stories and, of course, the mis-fire comedy 1941), Empire Of The Sun was his first serious foray into the second Great War. It’s the story of Jim (Christian Bale, long before he started wearing a cape and pointy ears), a young British boy whose family is interred in a concentration camp in Japan. Jim journey when he’s separated from his parents is harrowing and heart wrenching. Basie (John Malkovich) is his tour guide through growing up, for better or worse.
Empire Of The Sun is probably my favorite of Spielberg’s films. it may not be his absolute best (wait for it), but it’s one that I could watch over and over again. It’s a powerful film that is one of the harshest depictions of coming of age during wartime ever put to film this side of Grave Of The Fireflies.
Watch for Joe Pantoliano and Ben Stiller in early roles.
JURASSIC PARK (1993)
Written by Michael Crichton/David Koepp
Based on book by Michael Crichton
If ever a latter day Spielberg film felt like an early Spielberg film, this is it.
Jurassic Park is, of course, the story of dinosaurs run amuck on a small island. John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) invited Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) to his creation to see what they think about the safety of bringing paying customers to the island. Naturally, things go horribly, horribly wrong. They go so wrong that Samuel L Jackson can’t even make it through.
After Hook, many fans thought that Spielberg had lost his childlike vision.
He just seemed to go a bit too far with the crazy. He was trying too hard. The first few scenes of Jurassic Park, though, started to quell their fears. Then the first scene with the brachiosaurs filled the screen. Dr. Grant’s awe was our awe. Suddenly, we were all little boys dreaming of being archeologists again. We all believed that dinosaurs could live again.
Not only was the CGI just that good, but the story propelled us along in a way that made this outlandish premise seem completely believable.
This is one of the best action movies of the 90s.
SCHINDLER’S LIST (1993) / SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998)
SL written by Steven Zaillion. Based on book by Thomas Keneally.
SPR written by Robert Rodat
It may seem like cheating to put two movies in this slot, but I really count them as two sides of the same coin.
Spielberg had more to say about WWII than even he knew what to do with…and he managed to say it in these two films that are among the hardest films to watch emotionally.
Schindler’s List s quite possibly the best film ever made about the Holocaust. It centers around a German factory owner who did his very best to save as many Jews as he possibly could. Liam Neeson’s star-making performance as Oskar Schindler shows the man to be so cynical on the surface, but his heart breaks with every person he loses. And Ralph Fiennes as the Nazi officer who suspects Schindler is one of the most frightening portrayals of realistic evil ever put on screen. He can go from having sex with a woman to taking pot-shots at Jews out his window within seconds.
Saving Private Ryan, on the other hand, is a much more visceral experience. From the opening scene on Normandy Beach to the closing scene at the Battle of Ramelle Spielberg tries to give you a few breathers, but it’s no use. It’s so hard to catch that breath when, at any moment, a bullet could fly past your ear and hit your buddy in the head. It was the first film to truly put its audience in the middle of a war and yet still keep us emotionally involved in all of the characters. There’s a reason that it’s often voted the greatest war film ever made.
And to think that it’s really just about saving one man’s life so that his family doesn’t lose all of their sons.
AI: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (2001)
Written by Ian Watson/Steven Spielberg
Based on short story by Brian Aldiss
These next two are going to be my “controversial” choices. I’m fine with that.
AI is one of those films that’s almost hard to love. It’s the marriage of Stanley Kubrick, who died before production ever began, and Steven Spielberg. How could these to disparate filmmakers ever come together to make a coherent film? Well, there are some who think they didn’t. Those people, of course, would be wrong.
Kubrick’s sense of grandeur and overbearing dread meets Spielberg’s childlike wonder and fun in a rather uneasy matchup that ends up making some kind of weird perfect sense. It’s the story of David (Haley Joel Osment), an android brought home by Henry Seinton (Sam Robards) to test him out. He’s a new product made by the company he works for. His wife (Frances O’Connor) is skeptical at first, only seeing David as a cheap replacement for their son that died. Eventually, things happen that make David have to leave his family…but he spends the rest of the film trying to get back to his adopted mother, because only her love can make him real.
Yes, it’s a rather transparent rewriting of the legend of Pinocchio.
But who better than Spielberg to make this movie? It’s almost an experimental film that not everyone can wrap their minds around. It doesn’t help that it goes on a bit too long with an ending that almost only makes sense in dreams.
WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005)
Written by David Koepp/Josh Friedman
Based on book by HG Wells
Why would I ever choose a movie with Tom Cruise in it to be in my Top 5?
Because it was the first time I ever forgot that it was Tom Cruise. For once he wasn’t playing the hero. He just happened to be around when all of these things were happening. That’s what makes this movie that much more believable.
Ray Ferrier (Cruise) is a loser. His wife (Miranda Otto) left him because of this and his kids are pretty much of the same opinion, especially his teenage son (Justin Chatwin). During one of their visits the aliens come up from the ground. They’ve been here for a long, long time and they’re finally making their move, destroying everything in their path and disintegrating people at every turn. That’s not the worst thing that they do to people, though.
The reason that War Of The Worlds is here isn’t just that it’s a truly frightening alien-invasion movie. (I remember nearly breaking the armrest in the theatre.) It’s here because it’s one of the best 9/11 movies out there.
Think of the scene where Ray comes home covered in a grey dust. When he realizes that it’s what’s left of the people he saw hit by the alien’s weapons, the horror on his face is the horror of the people running from the collapsing buildings, realizing how many people were dying around them.
Tim Robbins’ character is not just paranoid of the aliens/terrorists, but he’s terrified of his own people/government. He’s a conspiracy theorist at their worst. Ray’s son runs off to join the army to fight the aliens, probably running to his own death.
Which, of course, brings us to that ending. It’s the one thing that derails this movie. It’s too clean. Too perfect.
For a much better viewing experience, stop watching about five minutes from the end.
