Directors aren’t nearly as well-known as the stars of their movies. Most casual filmgoers don’t even know what the job of a director is. It’s a testament to the legendary status of Steven Spielberg that most of those filmgoers know who he is. Except for maybe Martin Scorsese or Quentin Tarantino, Spielberg is arguably the most famous filmmaker on the planet.
The reason for Spielberg’s lasting legacy is that he’s able to tell timeless stories that audiences keep coming back to over the course of decades. From Raiders of the Lost Ark, Spielberg has made a bunch of cinema classics that can be enjoyed again and again.
Duel (1971)
Spielberg’s directorial career was launched by the taut made-for-TV thriller Duel. The simplistic premise of a man being relentlessly pursued by a trucker paves the way for some fiercely effective thrills.
With a palpable sense of Hitchcockian tension, Spielberg doesn’t waste a second of Duel’s runtime. It’s no wonder Universal hired him to direct Jaws after he directed Duel.
Minority Report (2002)
A couple of decades after Ridley Scott used Minority Report.
The twisty, nail-biting cat-and-mouse pursuit of a future-predicting cop who gets a taste of his own medicine when he’s accused of an murder can be enjoyed over and over.
West Side Story (2021)
The runtime of Spielberg’s West Side Story is even longer than the already-demanding length of the 1961 original. But it’s so deeply engaging that the emotions land even more effectively in the remake than they did in the original classic.
Unlike the original, which more or less pointed a camera at the stage play, Spielberg moved his camera all over the place to bring the musical numbers of West Side Story to life.
Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
The second of three (soon to be four) follow-ups to Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones sequel by far. Its story of Indy reconnecting with his estranged father, played brilliantly by Sean Connery, makes it the most emotionally engaging one of the bunch.
Masterfully crafted action sequences like the Venice boat chase and the biplane shootout and the tank ambush will never get old. Last Crusade would’ve been a perfect ending to the series (and, for a while, it was).
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
The delightfully stylish crime caper Catch Me If You Can is one of Spielberg’s funniest movies. Its so-called protagonist is a con artist, but Frank Abagnale, Jr. is slightly more sympathetic than Leonardo DiCaprio’s other con man character, Jordan Belfort, because he cons banks and airlines instead of regular hard-working people.
Tom Hanks makes for a hilarious comedic foil as the stuffy FBI agent on his tail. Catch Me If You Can is a laugh-out-loud comedy and an engaging criminal biopic rolled into one, brought together with rapid-fire pacing.
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
At 169 minutes, Saving Private Ryan has one of Spielberg’s most taxing runtimes. But the director kicks off the movie so strongly in its opening scene that audiences are drawn to the edge of their seats and stay there until the end credits roll.
After the opening D-Day sequence, rewatchers are happy to go along for the ride. Tom Hanks anchors the movie as a relatable everyman. Captain Miller isn’t a fearless John Wayne-style war hero; he’s just a frightened schoolteacher, totally unprepared for the horrors of warfare.
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
One of several times that Spielberg broke the record for highest-grossing movie, he warmed hearts around the world with one of the most subversive alien visitor stories ever told. In 1982, The Thing – out of box office contention.
Four decades later, audiences are still delighted by the story of a lonely little boy who finds some much-needed companionship when an alien is stranded on Earth and needs his help.
Jurassic Park (1993)
After turning one monster movie premise into a timeless, record-breaking masterpiece in the 1970s with Jaws, Spielberg went and did it again with Jurassic Park in the 1990s. Not only does the groundbreaking CGI hold up; the storytelling and character arcs hold up, too.
From the T. rex’s escape to the velociraptors’ attack in the kitchen, there are countless iconic set-pieces that make Jurassic Park an infinitely rewatchable gem.
Jaws (1975)
Spielberg’s first big studio movie, Jaws, changed Hollywood forever. Every summer, studios bombard audiences with high-concept genre movies in the hopes of repeating Jaws’ success.
The Roy Scheider-starring thriller has inspired dozens of copycat killer shark movies, but none of them have come close to matching the Hitchcockian tension and emotional engagement of Spielberg’s 1975 masterpiece.
Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)
When George Lucas came to his friend with an idea for an archeologist-turned-explorer who goes on globetrotting adventures, Spielberg spied an opportunity to give American action cinema its own answer to the James Bond franchise.
Indiana Jones’ first adventure, Raiders of the Lost Ark, is a perfect movie. It mixes the pure escapism of the Bond franchise with an unmistakable dose of Spielbergian magic (and an ice-cool performance by Harrison Ford).
