


































See Also
See Again
© Getty Images
0 / 35 Fotos
'The Fabelmans' (2022)
- In Spielberg's most personal work of his entire career, 'The Fabelmans' tells the story of a young man growing up in post-World War II era Arizona who aspires to become a filmmaker but who discovers a shattering family secret which he must navigate through the power of films.
© NL Beeld
1 / 35 Fotos
'The Fabelmans' (2022)
- Spielberg won the Golden Globe for both Best Director and Best Picture - Drama. The film was also nominated for Best Screenplay (Tony Kushner, Steven Spielberg) and Best Score (John Williams), and star Michelle Williams earned a Best Actress nod for her role.
© Getty Images
2 / 35 Fotos
'West Side Story' (2021)
- In 2021, Steven Spielberg's version of 'West Side Story' hit the big screen. An adaptation of the 1957 stage musical of the same name, the film premiered 60 years after the first feature-length version, itself a massive hit.
© NL Beeld
3 / 35 Fotos
'West Side Story' (2021)
- The film was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Steven Spielberg. Ariana DeBose took home the prize for Best Supporting Actress for playing Anita—a role that previously earned Rita Moreno the same honor.
© NL Beeld
4 / 35 Fotos
'Ready Player One' (2018) - The virtual reality fantasy became the biggest money-spinning Steven Spielberg release in the US in the last decade, according to reports in Screen Rant.
© NL Beeld
5 / 35 Fotos
'Ready Player One' (2018) - The film depicts a dystopian future in 2044. Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) prefers the virtual reality universe of the OASIS game to the real world. When the creator of OASIS dies, players must uncover the key to a diabolical puzzle in order to collect the creator's vast fortune.
© NL Beeld
6 / 35 Fotos
'The Post' (2017) - Nominated for Best Picture and Best Actress (Meryl Streep) at the 90th Academy Awards, the acclaimed feature film revolves around the press, power, and politics.
© NL Beeld
7 / 35 Fotos
'The Post' (2017) - Streep's character is the first female publisher of The Washington Post, a newspaper in crisis and getting ready for a stock market launch in order to strengthen its economic stability. Meanwhile, the paper is planning to expose a White House scandal by publishing classified documents pertaining to America's involvement in the Vietnam War. The paper could collapse under the pressure from both creditors and the government.
© NL Beeld
8 / 35 Fotos
'Lincoln' (2012)
- A biopic on a grand scale, 'Lincoln' was another huge Hollywood success. The film was Oscar nominated in 12 different categories in 2013. Daniel Day-Lewis was named Best Actor for his iconic portrayal as the 16th President of the United States of America.
© NL Beeld
9 / 35 Fotos
'Lincoln' (2012)
- The film takes place during the American Civil War, which resulted in victory for the Union Army. While concerned about the outcome of the conflict, Lincoln was waging another battle with Washington, attempting to amend the Constitution in order to abolish slavery.
© NL Beeld
10 / 35 Fotos
The 'Indiana Jones' franchise - The action-adventure film series starring Harrison Ford with Spielberg at the helm began in 1981 with 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.' Three more movies followed, the most recent being 'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' (2023), where Spielberg served as an executive producer.
© NL Beeld
11 / 35 Fotos
The 'Indiana Jones' franchise - The escapades of the crafty, risk-taking archaeologist were back again. The film was released in 2023, with Ford reprising his heroic role.
© NL Beeld
12 / 35 Fotos
'Jaws' (1975) - The film that catapulted Spielberg into Hollywood's stratosphere.
© NL Beeld
13 / 35 Fotos
'Jaws' (1975)
- In the film, a great white shark threatens bathers in the waters off the fictional Amity Island, prompting the local police chief to take to a boat with a marine biologist and a professional angler to hunt the shark down.
© Getty Images
14 / 35 Fotos
'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' (1977) - This is one of the filmmaker's best-loved films, and garnered his first Academy Award nomination for Best Director. Richard Dreyfuss and François Truffaut co-star in this tale of UFOs and unworldly beings, Spielberg's first film to explore an alien theme, a subject he would expand upon enormously with 'E.T. the Extraterrestrial' (1982).
© NL Beeld
15 / 35 Fotos
'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' (1977) - Homeowner Roy Neary lives in a small American town. When sensing the arrival of extraterrestrials, he sees his behavior change drastically.
© NL Beeld
16 / 35 Fotos
'E.T. the Extraterrestrial' (1982) - The film is one of the most successful thus far in the director's career. It generated a whopping US$792.9 million, according to Box Office Mojo.
© NL Beeld
17 / 35 Fotos
'E.T. the Extraterrestrial' (1982) - Elliot leads a normal life until he meets a strange creature. Mistakenly left on Earth by his fellow aliens, E.T. becomes friends with the boy, who protects him from hostile humans.
© NL Beeld
18 / 35 Fotos
'War of the Worlds' (2005) - One of Spielberg's most underrated films, yet made competently and tenaciously to recreate a terrifying and apocalyptic atmosphere few directors have managed to achieve.
© NL Beeld
19 / 35 Fotos
'War of the Worlds' (2005) - Tom Cruise plays Ray Ferrier who, together with his children, witnesses the emergence of a gigantic alien machine, which rises from the ground and proceeds to incinerate every living thing it comes across. It's the beginning of an attack to colonize Earth.
© NL Beeld
20 / 35 Fotos
The 'Jurassic Park' franchise - Spielberg again caught the imagination of the public with this hugely successful series of dinosaur films, launched in 1993, that became a phenomenon at the box office and proved a landmark in the history of cinema's special effects industry.
© NL Beeld
21 / 35 Fotos
The 'Jurassic Park' franchise
- The first in the series is centered on a fictional island off Costa Rica, Isla Nublar. Billionaire John Hammond and a team of geneticists working for his company create a theme park where cloned dinosaurs roam.
© Getty Images
22 / 35 Fotos
'Schindler's List' (1993) - Shot in black and white and with a running time of over three hours, Spielberg's wartime masterpiece won seven Oscars, among them Best Film and Best Director.
© NL Beeld
23 / 35 Fotos
'Schindler's List' (1993) - It chronicles the remarkable story of Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), an opportunistic, black-market trader well connected with top officials in the Nazi regime. Despite his personal flaws, Schindler manages to halt the transportation of more than a thousand Jews to concentration camps and certain death.
© NL Beeld
24 / 35 Fotos
'Saving Private Ryan' (1998) - Garnering public and critical acclaim, Spielberg's other Second World War drama won five Oscars, for Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Effects Editing, and Best Film Editing.
© NL Beeld
25 / 35 Fotos
'Saving Private Ryan' (1998) - The story takes place in 1944, in Normandy. Captain Miller, the portrayal of which garnered Tom Hanks an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, is assigned the task of leading a group of soldiers from the Second Battalion to find and bring home James Ryan, the youngest of four siblings, three of whom have already been killed in combat.
© NL Beeld
26 / 35 Fotos
'The Color Purple' (1985) - Displaying a more sensitive side, Spielberg made this terrific drama which charts the difficult life led by a black woman, from childhood to adulthood, in the southern United States. The film received 11 Oscar nominations including Best Actress for Whoopi Goldberg, in her film debut.
© NL Beeld
27 / 35 Fotos
'The Color Purple' (1985) - The film tells the story of Celie (Goldberg), a woman who is raped by her father and who becomes the mother of two children. Later separated from her offspring and her sister, the only person in the world who loves her, Celie is handed over to Mister (Danny Glover), who mistreats her as a slave and a "partner."
© NL Beeld
28 / 35 Fotos
'Munich' (2005)
- Based on real events, the story takes place in September 1972 during the Olympic Games in Munich, when a terrorist attack on the Olympic village was broadcast to the entire world. A Palestinian group called Black September broke into rooms housing members of the Israeli Olympic team, killing some and taking the rest hostage.
© NL Beeld
29 / 35 Fotos
'Munich' (2005) - Eric Bana plays Avner, a young Israeli dismayed by what has happened. He is recruited by Mossad and is tasked with putting together a hit squad to hunt down the terrorists, who went on to kill the remaining hostages.
© NL Beeld
30 / 35 Fotos
'Catch Me If You Can' (2002) - Spielberg astonished audiences with a nimble, elegant, and highly entertaining comedy-drama, and a departure from his usual filmmaking style.
© NL Beeld
31 / 35 Fotos
'Catch Me If You Can' (2002) - Based on a true story, the film charts the career trajectory of Frank Abagnale Jr., played by an inspired Leonardo DiCaprio. Abagnale Jr. conned millions of dollars out of unsuspecting individuals by deception and deceit, disguising himself along the way in many different professional roles. Hot on his heels is FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), who uses all the means at his disposal to catch him, if he can!
© NL Beeld
32 / 35 Fotos
'A.I. Artificial Intelligence' (2001) - Spielberg's science fiction effort highlighted the possibility of creating machines with feelings. While fascinating, the film divided critics, and is little remembered by the movie-going public.
© NL Beeld
33 / 35 Fotos
'A.I. Artificial Intelligence' (2001)
- David (Haley Joel Osment) is a childlike android programmed to love. Sent to live with a couple, a series of unexpected circumstances hinders acceptance by his 'parents,' who do not fully embrace him as their son, or as an android. See also: Greatest sci-fi movie characters of all time, ranked
© NL Beeld
34 / 35 Fotos
© Getty Images
0 / 35 Fotos
'The Fabelmans' (2022)
- In Spielberg's most personal work of his entire career, 'The Fabelmans' tells the story of a young man growing up in post-World War II era Arizona who aspires to become a filmmaker but who discovers a shattering family secret which he must navigate through the power of films.
© NL Beeld
1 / 35 Fotos
'The Fabelmans' (2022)
- Spielberg won the Golden Globe for both Best Director and Best Picture - Drama. The film was also nominated for Best Screenplay (Tony Kushner, Steven Spielberg) and Best Score (John Williams), and star Michelle Williams earned a Best Actress nod for her role.
© Getty Images
2 / 35 Fotos
'West Side Story' (2021)
- In 2021, Steven Spielberg's version of 'West Side Story' hit the big screen. An adaptation of the 1957 stage musical of the same name, the film premiered 60 years after the first feature-length version, itself a massive hit.
© NL Beeld
3 / 35 Fotos
'West Side Story' (2021)
- The film was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Steven Spielberg. Ariana DeBose took home the prize for Best Supporting Actress for playing Anita—a role that previously earned Rita Moreno the same honor.
© NL Beeld
4 / 35 Fotos
'Ready Player One' (2018) - The virtual reality fantasy became the biggest money-spinning Steven Spielberg release in the US in the last decade, according to reports in Screen Rant.
© NL Beeld
5 / 35 Fotos
'Ready Player One' (2018) - The film depicts a dystopian future in 2044. Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) prefers the virtual reality universe of the OASIS game to the real world. When the creator of OASIS dies, players must uncover the key to a diabolical puzzle in order to collect the creator's vast fortune.
© NL Beeld
6 / 35 Fotos
'The Post' (2017) - Nominated for Best Picture and Best Actress (Meryl Streep) at the 90th Academy Awards, the acclaimed feature film revolves around the press, power, and politics.
© NL Beeld
7 / 35 Fotos
'The Post' (2017) - Streep's character is the first female publisher of The Washington Post, a newspaper in crisis and getting ready for a stock market launch in order to strengthen its economic stability. Meanwhile, the paper is planning to expose a White House scandal by publishing classified documents pertaining to America's involvement in the Vietnam War. The paper could collapse under the pressure from both creditors and the government.
© NL Beeld
8 / 35 Fotos
'Lincoln' (2012)
- A biopic on a grand scale, 'Lincoln' was another huge Hollywood success. The film was Oscar nominated in 12 different categories in 2013. Daniel Day-Lewis was named Best Actor for his iconic portrayal as the 16th President of the United States of America.
© NL Beeld
9 / 35 Fotos
'Lincoln' (2012)
- The film takes place during the American Civil War, which resulted in victory for the Union Army. While concerned about the outcome of the conflict, Lincoln was waging another battle with Washington, attempting to amend the Constitution in order to abolish slavery.
© NL Beeld
10 / 35 Fotos
The 'Indiana Jones' franchise - The action-adventure film series starring Harrison Ford with Spielberg at the helm began in 1981 with 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.' Three more movies followed, the most recent being 'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' (2023), where Spielberg served as an executive producer.
© NL Beeld
11 / 35 Fotos
The 'Indiana Jones' franchise - The escapades of the crafty, risk-taking archaeologist were back again. The film was released in 2023, with Ford reprising his heroic role.
© NL Beeld
12 / 35 Fotos
'Jaws' (1975) - The film that catapulted Spielberg into Hollywood's stratosphere.
© NL Beeld
13 / 35 Fotos
'Jaws' (1975)
- In the film, a great white shark threatens bathers in the waters off the fictional Amity Island, prompting the local police chief to take to a boat with a marine biologist and a professional angler to hunt the shark down.
© Getty Images
14 / 35 Fotos
'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' (1977) - This is one of the filmmaker's best-loved films, and garnered his first Academy Award nomination for Best Director. Richard Dreyfuss and François Truffaut co-star in this tale of UFOs and unworldly beings, Spielberg's first film to explore an alien theme, a subject he would expand upon enormously with 'E.T. the Extraterrestrial' (1982).
© NL Beeld
15 / 35 Fotos
'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' (1977) - Homeowner Roy Neary lives in a small American town. When sensing the arrival of extraterrestrials, he sees his behavior change drastically.
© NL Beeld
16 / 35 Fotos
'E.T. the Extraterrestrial' (1982) - The film is one of the most successful thus far in the director's career. It generated a whopping US$792.9 million, according to Box Office Mojo.
© NL Beeld
17 / 35 Fotos
'E.T. the Extraterrestrial' (1982) - Elliot leads a normal life until he meets a strange creature. Mistakenly left on Earth by his fellow aliens, E.T. becomes friends with the boy, who protects him from hostile humans.
© NL Beeld
18 / 35 Fotos
'War of the Worlds' (2005) - One of Spielberg's most underrated films, yet made competently and tenaciously to recreate a terrifying and apocalyptic atmosphere few directors have managed to achieve.
© NL Beeld
19 / 35 Fotos
'War of the Worlds' (2005) - Tom Cruise plays Ray Ferrier who, together with his children, witnesses the emergence of a gigantic alien machine, which rises from the ground and proceeds to incinerate every living thing it comes across. It's the beginning of an attack to colonize Earth.
© NL Beeld
20 / 35 Fotos
The 'Jurassic Park' franchise - Spielberg again caught the imagination of the public with this hugely successful series of dinosaur films, launched in 1993, that became a phenomenon at the box office and proved a landmark in the history of cinema's special effects industry.
© NL Beeld
21 / 35 Fotos
The 'Jurassic Park' franchise
- The first in the series is centered on a fictional island off Costa Rica, Isla Nublar. Billionaire John Hammond and a team of geneticists working for his company create a theme park where cloned dinosaurs roam.
© Getty Images
22 / 35 Fotos
'Schindler's List' (1993) - Shot in black and white and with a running time of over three hours, Spielberg's wartime masterpiece won seven Oscars, among them Best Film and Best Director.
© NL Beeld
23 / 35 Fotos
'Schindler's List' (1993) - It chronicles the remarkable story of Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), an opportunistic, black-market trader well connected with top officials in the Nazi regime. Despite his personal flaws, Schindler manages to halt the transportation of more than a thousand Jews to concentration camps and certain death.
© NL Beeld
24 / 35 Fotos
'Saving Private Ryan' (1998) - Garnering public and critical acclaim, Spielberg's other Second World War drama won five Oscars, for Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Effects Editing, and Best Film Editing.
© NL Beeld
25 / 35 Fotos
'Saving Private Ryan' (1998) - The story takes place in 1944, in Normandy. Captain Miller, the portrayal of which garnered Tom Hanks an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, is assigned the task of leading a group of soldiers from the Second Battalion to find and bring home James Ryan, the youngest of four siblings, three of whom have already been killed in combat.
© NL Beeld
26 / 35 Fotos
'The Color Purple' (1985) - Displaying a more sensitive side, Spielberg made this terrific drama which charts the difficult life led by a black woman, from childhood to adulthood, in the southern United States. The film received 11 Oscar nominations including Best Actress for Whoopi Goldberg, in her film debut.
© NL Beeld
27 / 35 Fotos
'The Color Purple' (1985) - The film tells the story of Celie (Goldberg), a woman who is raped by her father and who becomes the mother of two children. Later separated from her offspring and her sister, the only person in the world who loves her, Celie is handed over to Mister (Danny Glover), who mistreats her as a slave and a "partner."
© NL Beeld
28 / 35 Fotos
'Munich' (2005)
- Based on real events, the story takes place in September 1972 during the Olympic Games in Munich, when a terrorist attack on the Olympic village was broadcast to the entire world. A Palestinian group called Black September broke into rooms housing members of the Israeli Olympic team, killing some and taking the rest hostage.
© NL Beeld
29 / 35 Fotos
'Munich' (2005) - Eric Bana plays Avner, a young Israeli dismayed by what has happened. He is recruited by Mossad and is tasked with putting together a hit squad to hunt down the terrorists, who went on to kill the remaining hostages.
© NL Beeld
30 / 35 Fotos
'Catch Me If You Can' (2002) - Spielberg astonished audiences with a nimble, elegant, and highly entertaining comedy-drama, and a departure from his usual filmmaking style.
© NL Beeld
31 / 35 Fotos
'Catch Me If You Can' (2002) - Based on a true story, the film charts the career trajectory of Frank Abagnale Jr., played by an inspired Leonardo DiCaprio. Abagnale Jr. conned millions of dollars out of unsuspecting individuals by deception and deceit, disguising himself along the way in many different professional roles. Hot on his heels is FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), who uses all the means at his disposal to catch him, if he can!
© NL Beeld
32 / 35 Fotos
'A.I. Artificial Intelligence' (2001) - Spielberg's science fiction effort highlighted the possibility of creating machines with feelings. While fascinating, the film divided critics, and is little remembered by the movie-going public.
© NL Beeld
33 / 35 Fotos
'A.I. Artificial Intelligence' (2001)
- David (Haley Joel Osment) is a childlike android programmed to love. Sent to live with a couple, a series of unexpected circumstances hinders acceptance by his 'parents,' who do not fully embrace him as their son, or as an android. See also: Greatest sci-fi movie characters of all time, ranked
© NL Beeld
34 / 35 Fotos
Director's cut: Steven Spielberg's essential movies
The iconic director and producer turns 78
© Getty Images
A filmmaking genius, Steven Spielberg is often regarded as one of the most important and popular directors of all time. From historical dramas to giant blockbusters, Spielberg has a knack for creating some of the highest-grossing films in the world.
His last masterpiece was the 'The Fabelmans' (2022), which was a favorite at the Academy Awards. Spielberg personally was nominated for Best Director, and the film also picked up six other nods for its cast and crew: Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay (which Spielberg shared with Tony Kushner), Best Lead Actress (Michelle Williams), Best Supporting Actor (Judd Hirsch), Best Production Design, and Best Original Score.
'The Fabelmans' is arguably one of Spielberg's greatest triumphs, and yet there are so many others to choose from. Click through to see a list of standout movies made by one of cinema's greatest exponents.
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