Steven Spielberg‘s best movies vary in tone, form, scale and genre. But there’s something they all have: that uniquely Spielbergian magic that means whenever you watch a Spielberg movie — be it a frenetic crime caper about a runaway conman, a sundrenched thriller in which a shark terrorises the shores of New England, or a deeply felt Holocaust drama — you know exactly who was behind the camera.
It’s not just his distinct voice, nor his many billions of dollars, piles of awards and staggering pop cultural presence that make him a one-of-a-kind entity in Hollywood. It’s that you could trap yourself in an uncultured bubble for the entirety of your adult life, watch a sum total of a dozen films before you hit 30 and still know the name Spielberg — as football skeptics know Messi, and everyone has heard of Madonna. By that metric, and many others, he is in a filmmakers’ league of his own.
That he boasts such a reputation is at least in part owed to his prolific output since his feature breakout Jaws terrified everyone out of the water in 1975. Here, we’ve rounded up Steven Spielberg’s greatest hits — with an update to celebrate the release of Disclosure Day, the director’s big return to summer blockbuster mode.
15. The Terminal (2004)
Partly inspired by the true story of refugee Mehran Karimi Nasseri, who lived in Charles de Gaulle airport’s departure lounge for 18 years, Spielberg’s broadest comedy stars Tom Hanks as a traveller who winds up stuck in JFK when his country faces a military coup. That premise doesn’t exactly lend itself to a feel-good story, but the beauty of The Terminal lies in the gentle, warm exchanges between Hanks’ Viktor Navorski and the staff who become his unlikely neighbours. There’s an infectious faith in the kindness of strangers, and humanity’s ability to forge community just about anywhere — even in an airport. Haters gonna hate, but that’s just classic Spielberg.
14. Bridge of Spies (2015)
