Best 10 Films of Steven Spielberg

Spielberg has directed 49 films, but produced

a total of 125 projects in all, including television,

making him one of the most influential in film history.

1. Schindler's List (1993) No. 6 on the IMDB 250, 7 Oscars®, including best picture, director 72 awards overall
2. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)  Two Oscars®, cinematography and sound effects 12 awards overall
3. Minority Report (2002) 2 Oscar® nominations, 16 awards overall (Acad. of SF-fantasy films gave it picture, director, screenplay, and supporting actress, Broadcast Film Critics gave it director)
4. E.T.: The Extra-terrestrial (1982) 4 Oscars®, 42 awards overall
5. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) No. 22 on the IMDB 250, 4 Oscars®, 22 awards overall "why does it always have to be snakes?"
6. Munich (2005) No Oscars (5 nominations, incl. picture, director), 7 awards overall
7. Saving Private Ryan (1998) No. 43 on the IMDB 250, 5 Oscars® (director, editing, cinematography, sound, sound effects) 57 awards overall
8. Catch Me If You Can (2002) 2 Oscar nominations, 11 awards overall
9. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) No. 107 on the IMDB 250 (one Oscar®, sound effects) 5 awards overall  "we named the dog Indiana"
10. Empire of the Sun (1987) 6 Oscar® nominations, no wins; 11 awards overall Based on the autobiographical novel by J.G. Ballard; these events happened to him as a child in Shanghai when WW2 broke out
11. Jurassic Park (1993) 3 Oscars® (Sound effects, sound, visual effects) 22 awards overall "..but when a ride breaks down at Disneyland, the pirates of the caribbean don't go out killing tourists" (that's a different film series..)
12. The Color Purple (1985) 11 Oscar® nominations, no wins (tied with Scorsese's Gangs of New York for winless total nominations) 11 awards overall

[That's 26 Oscars®, 288 awards total for just these 12 films. Add another 3 Oscars® and 12 awards for Jaws (1975),  which is #117 on the IMDB 250 - and 1 Oscar®, 5 awards for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 6 awards for Amistad, 12 more for A.I. Artificial Intelligence, and the total is 30 Oscars® and 323 awards. Steven himself has won 121 awards, including two Oscars®, both for directing: Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List - plus the honorary Irving Thalberg Award. Spielberg is listed as director on 49 film titles at IMDB.]

And as producer

• Band of Brothers (tv miniseries, 2001) He and Tom Hanks spent 100m est. on this series
• Into the West (tv miniseries, 2005)
• Back to the Future (1985) (the entire trilogy)
• Poltergeist (1982, dir. Tobe Hooper)

He was also producer on 125 titles overall, including the True Grit remake, The Lovely Bones, Men in Black, and Shrek. For my money, Band of Brothers was the best project Spielberg had a hand in, and is the best miniseries and war film of all time, ten hours total.

I guess, from looking at my rankings, that I prefer the science fiction films to reality, though I placed Schindler's List at the top. These are really hard to rank, whenever I see Catch Me If You Can, I want to move it higher again, but what do I move down? I guess E.T. and Raiders are just crowd-pleasers, like Jaws, but they do seem perfect in what they attempted, while I found Jaws a little fake-looking and not as credible, also predictable (and almost laughable at times). I never knew what the heck was coming next in Raiders, and if not for some total silliness (ie, the men on the ship all cheering when Indy was climbing onto the sub, and he waves at them - nothing like a 'low profile' for spies), it could have been the perfect adventure film.

I think with Close Encounters, the version to see is the one with Spielberg's preferred ending, I think that's the Special Edition, instead of 'Director's Cut', the term Ridley Scott used for the 2nd version of Blade Runner. [The 'Director's Cut' versions of Apocalpyse Now and The Last Emperor each added nearly an hour to the running time; this just added maybe 10 minutes] Close Encounters was mind-boggling to me (and there are no "bad guys", something it shares with 2001: A Space Odyssey), and over 500 military personnel online have sworn that the story is true (but at a different location), and that the government gave it to Spielberg because they knew he could make aliens palatable to a panic-prone public.

Raiders of the Lost Ark was a George Lucas screenplay. After the financial failure of Spielberg's 1941, Lucas wanted to help is friend out with what he suspected would be a big winner, so he turned the project over to Spielberg to direct. The result was a terrific collaboration and a take on the old movie serials, which ran one reel (15 min.) each, ending with a cliched 'cliffhanger' or a chase, to be concluded next time in a new reel; these preceded the actual movie features in the early days and were quite popular at one point, the most famous being "The Perils of Pauline", who had far more than nine lives.

Munich is better than given credit for; and it was a carefully researched project and a fair assessment of what likely happened in secret after the Munich Olympics. I liked the entire cast and it was like a realistic James Bond film.

Minority Report, from a story by author Philip K. Dick (Blade Runner), is a very underrated SF film. It has the added elements of crime and mystery, and also a good bit of action.

Other films worth seeing that he directed include Amistad (1997), A.I Artificial Intelligence (2001) (to complete Stanley Kubrick's last project, left unfinished at his death), and the War of the Worlds (2005) remake.

I probably should like The Color Purple more - it's very well done with terrific acting, but the story is pretty tough to bear, and it's one that I'll never rewatch. You can't say that about most of these, I've seen my top 9 at least twice each already, and Raiders, Minority, and Close Encounters about 5 times each, and Munich may catch up (3 times already in 5 years).

Even Spielberg's first wife, Amy Irving, produced the touching and artistic romance Crossing Delancey (1988), using money from their divorce settlement. If this was a Spielberg film, I'd have it about 8th on the list above, it's very good.

Top Ranked War Films on the Net

These are all the war films mentioned in our survey of top ranked films on the net.
We included all pure war films, documentaries, wartime films that don't involve action (A Canterbury Tale), and films whose drama or comedy is a result of war (Best Years of Our Lives, Dr. Strangelove, M*A*S*H). 74 films made the top 1000, but there are some great war films just outside of those, like the massive epic War and Peace from Russia, seven hrs long with over 250,000 extras.
© 2009, William L. Sinclair

1. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb [Kubrick, Stanley, 1964, UK] #17 (photo rt)
2. Apocalypse Now [Coppola, Francis, 1979, US] #25
3. Schindler's List [Spielberg, Steven, 1993, US] #27
4. Lawrence of Arabia [Lean, David, 1962, UK] #50 (photo top)
5. Paths of Glory [Kubrick, Stanley, 1957, US] #83
6. Bridge on the River Kwai, The [Lean, David, 1957, UK] #85
7. Ran [Kurosawa, Akira, 1985, France-Japan] #86
8. Best Years of Our Lives, The [Wyler, William, 1946, US] #102
9. Deer Hunter, The [Cimino, Michael, 1978, US] #110
10. Saving Private Ryan [Spielberg, Steven, 1998, US] #116

11. Shoah [Lanzmann, Claude, 1985, France] #119
12. Battle of Algiers, The [Pontecorvo, Gillo, 1966, Italy-Algiers] #132
13. Great Dictator, The [Chaplin, Charles, 1940, US] #138
14. Man Escaped, A [Bresson, Robert, 1956, France] #151
15. All Quiet on the Western Front [Milestone, Lewis, 1930, US] #165
16. Paisan [Rossellini, Roberto, 1946, Italy] #167
17. Spartacus [Kubrick, Stanley, 1960, US] #178
18. La Grande Illusion [Renoir, Jean, 1937, France] #199
19. Patton [Shaffner, Frank, 1970, US] #203
20. Full Metal Jacket [Kubrick, Stanley, 1987, US] #207

21. Napoléon [Gance, Abel, 1927, France] #232
22. Das Boot [Peterson, Wolfgang, 1981, Germany] #245
23. Throne of Blood [Kurosawa, Akira, 1957, Japan] #258
24. Army of Shadows [Melville, Jean-Pierre, 1969, France-Italy] #296
25. Great Escape, The [Sturges, John, 1963, US] #299
26. Forbidden Games [Clément, René, 1951, France] #307
27. Hotaru no Hakaa (Grave of the Fireflies, anime) [Takahata, Isao, 1988, Japan] #324
28. Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The [Powell, Michael/Emeric Pressburger, 1943, UK] #334
29. Letters from Iwo Jima [Eastwood, Clint, 2006, US] #339
30. Alexander Nevsky [Eisenstein, Sergei, 1938, USSR] #374
31. Mirror, The [Tarkovsky, Andrei, 1976, Russia] #382
32. M*A*S*H [Altman, Robert, 1970, US] #389
33. Rome, Open City [Rossellini, Roberto, 1945, Italy] #392
34. Platoon [Stone, Oliver, 1986, US] #397
35. Doctor Zhivago [Lean, David, 1965, US] #401
36. Beau Travail [Denis, Claire, 1998, France] #402
37. Chimes at Midnight [Welles, Orson, 1966, Spain-Switzerland] #405
38. Reds [Beatty, Warren, 1981, US] #429
39. Triumph of the Will [Riefenstahl, Leni, 1935, Germany] #455
40. Night and Fog [Resnais, Alain, 1955, France] #457

41. Downfall [Hirschbiegel, Oliver, 2004, Germany] #484
42. Life is Beautiful [Begnini, Roberto, 1997, Italy] #494
43. English Patient, The [Minghella, Anthony, 1996, UK] #502
44. Canterbury Tale, A [Powell, Michael/Emeric Pressburger, 1944, UK] #537
45. Come and See [Klimov, Elem, 1985, Russia] #559
46. Listen to Britain [Jennings, Humphrey, 1941, UK] #563
47. Judgment at Nuremberg [Kramer, Stanley, 1961, US] #582
48. They Were Expendable [Ford, John, 1945, US] #596
49. Waltz with Bashir [Folman, Ari, 2008, Israel] #633
50. Stalag 17 [Wilder, Billy, 1953, US] #683
51. Persepolis [Paronnaud, Vincent & Satrapi, Marjane, 2007, France-US] #694
52. Hour of the Furnaces, The [Getino, Octavio & Fernando E. Solanas, 1968, Argentina] #721
53. Hurt Locker, The [Bigelow, Kathryn, 2008, US] #725
54. Damned, The [Visconti, Luchino, 1969, Italy-West Germany] #729
55. No End in Sight [Ferguson, Charles, 2007, US] #731
56. Ivan's Childhood [Tarkovsky, Andrei, 1962, Russia] #744
57. Kagemusha [Kurosawa, Akira, 1980, Japan] #756
58. Hôtel Terminus [Ophüls, Marcel, 1988, US] #760
59. Overlord [Cooper, Stuart, 1975, UK] #764

60. Thin Red Line, The [Malick, Terrence, 1998, US] #778
61. Glory [Zwick, Edward, 1989, US] #788
62. Fires Were Started [Jennings, Humphrey, 1943, UK] #801
63. Outskirts (Okraina) [Barnet, Boris, 1933, USSR] #804
64. Anatahan [von Sternberg, Josef, 1953, Japan] #807
65. Big Parade, The [Vidor, King, 1925, US] #808
66. Fog of War, The [Morris, Errol, 2003, US] #809
67. Fateless [Koltai, Lajos, 2005, Hungary-GY] #825
68. Hitler: A Film from Germany [Syberberg, Hans-Jürgen, 1977, West Germany] #858
69. Hidden Fortress, The [Kurosawa, Akira, 1958, Japan] #863
70. Round-Up, The (Szegénylegények) [Jancsó, Miklós, 1966, Hungary] #891
71. Seraphine [Provost, Martin, 2008, France-Belg] #896
72. Seven Women [Ford, John, 1966, US] #897
73. Europa [von Trier, Lars, 1991, Denmark] #932
74. Turtles Can Fly [Ghobadi, Bahman, 2004, Iran-Fr-Iraq] #983
75. End of St. Petersburg, The [Pudovkin, Vsevolod, 1927, USSR] #1019
76. Alexander [Stone, Oliver, 2004, US] #1042
77. Burmese Harp [Ichikawa, Kon, 1956, Japan] #1044
78. Paragraph 175 [Epstein, Rob & Friedman, Jeffrey, 2000, UK-US-Germany] #1066
79. War and Peace [Bondarchuk, Sergei, 1967, USSR] #1080 (photo rt)
80. Au Revoir, Les Enfants [Malle, Louis, 1987, France] #1086
81. Big Red One, The [Fuller, Samuel, 1980, US] #1134
82. Harakiri [Kobayashi, Masaki, 1962, Japan] #1140
83. Killing Fields [Joffé, Roland, 1984, US] #1141
84. Wings of Eagles, The [Ford, John, 1957, US] #1174
85. And the Ship Sails On [Fellini, Federico, 1983, Italy] #1178
86. Lessons of Darkness [Herzog, Werner, 1992, Germany] #1191
87. Arsenal [Dovzhenko, Alexander, 1928, USSR] #1205
88. Red and White [Jancsó, Miklós, 1967, Hungary-USSR] #1222
89. Empire of the Sun [Spielberg, Steven, 1987, US] #1235
90. Duellists, The [Scott, Ridley, 1977, UK] #1262
91. Kanal [Wajda, Andrzej, 1957, Poland] #1271
92. Time to Love and a Time to Die, A [Sirk, Douglas, 1958, US] #1276

Note: if you consider The Seven Samurai to be a war film, that would be #1 here (#7 overall); it's listed as action adventure at IMDB. To me, 'action' is not a genre, you can have action within war, crime, adventure, science fiction, even comedy (Ghostbusters) films - any if you think about it. At any rate, I'll save Seven Samurai for my adventure films post.