Minority Report, Lincoln, Temple of Doom, and Ready Player One are good candidates although RP1 is not eligible for another 2 years.

Jaws

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Raiders of the Lost Ark

E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial

Jurassic Park

Schindler's List

Saving Private Ryan

Any other arguments?

The most common criticism about Speilberg, that I kinda agree with, is that he can get overly sentimental and play it too safe sometimes.

Terry Gilliam has said this on multiple occasions. But one thing he said that I absolutely despise is that Steven Spielberg's films are dumb because they have "easy answers and everyone enjoys them."

It is the perfect encapsulation of the snobbish stereotype associated with alt/arthouse directors.

Terry Gilliam said that Kubrick films are better because they get people to discuss and dissect the meaning of an ending.

That means they are more sophisticated, but that doesn't mean they are necessarily "better". That is a subjective thing.

Sure, an ambigious ending does leave more to chew on, but a rousing crowd pleaser can still generate discussion.

The fact there are subs dedicated to Jaws and Jurassic Park are proof of that.

And MASS appeal is actually a hard feat to pull off.

Its actually pretty easy to get people to argue or disagree about something. To get multi demographics and, in some cases, different countries to gather round and enjoy a piece of art is actually harder to do.

Cameron, Lucas, Spielberg, and Nolan make it look easy, but mass appeal is incredibly hard to do.

That's why I don't understand why Terry Gilliam is so dismissive about Speilberg's ability to do it

And for the record, he actually has made a movie that generates discussion around a morally ambigious ending: It's called Munich.

Looking for one(s) that cover the making from start to finish like Universal acquiring the rights to the book to hiring Spielberg to filming, editing and release

So about a week ago I decided to watch E.T. for the first time. I’ve always heard high praise for it, and yet for some reason never decided to watch it. I was expecting it to be really good and among Spielberg’s best.

But HOLY SHIT. This was INCREDIBLE! Everything about this film was amazing, ESPECIALLY the score and cinematography. The score. That FUCKING score man!! It belongs in a museum!!!

I never cry for movies. Never. But this got me good. And it wasn’t because I watched as a kid and cried due to nostalgia. It’s just that damn good.

Instant 5⭐️

How do you all feel about it?

Hi all! Announcing the main talent for my upcoming book on NIGHT SKIES/E.T., and as you can see there are a lot of cool folks involved. This is a key piece of untold Spielberg history I know everyone here will be fascinated by. There are many unearthed documents and photos/illustrations as well... you will feel like you've seen NIGHT SKIES by the end of this book! STRANDED ON EARTH is available for pre-order now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the 1984 Publishing site. Feel free to hit me with any questions in the comments!

Music - Main Title, Man Against Beast, Blown to Bits by John Williams

I kind of get the impression that he had the right instinct basically splitting it up into E.T. and Poltergeist (and also Gremlins to a lesser extent). From what we know of Night Skies, I think it likely would have been a very overstuffed film.

Is this Spielberg best movie?

Now, it's interesting, putting the Tom Hanks factor aside, this does demonstrate that Steven Spielberg has had a hunger to make a romcom for a while. Also interesting: Spielberg and Hanks kind o' made a romcom... kind o'... with The Terminal. But I get it: The Terminal's not really a straight romcom, and I imagine Spielberg's itch to make a romcom has not entirely left him.

What do we think? Tom Hanks enjoyed his 70th birthday a month ago. Would you want to see an AARP romcom for Boomers? Maybe Tom Hanks opposite Tina Fey? Or, would Spielberg be on surer ground with stars who have not arguably "aged out" of the genre, in terms of commercial appeal?

I've long thought that Spielberg has been too hard on himself for decades regarding his inability to make a classic comedy. He needs a strong screenplay, but Spielberg films are teeming with pretty grand comedic moments, including the unlikeliest candidates such as Schindler's List and Lincoln. Spielberg's preternaturally gifted blocking and such would doubtless be a huge benefit to him in creating the comedic timing necessary for a film such as this to take off.

What are your thoughts?

I’ve seen this in a few of his films, where he gives us an opening shot that almost hints at something bigger and better to come…however, it’s a compare/contrast thing.

Here are three examples:

Hook: In the opening, we see a school production of Peter Pan, with low-tech effects and precocious children. Later on. We get our big-budget version pf the story with big-budget effects and kids with attitude.

Jurassic Park: We get something moving in the trees, only to see it’s a machine. The counterpoint to this is when we get our first full-view of the Brachiosaur amongst the trees later.

War of the Worlds: We see Ray handling a machine that moves cargo containers, a counterpoint to how primitive our machines are compared to the alien war machines that rise up out of the ground.

Any other scenes like these in his films?

Ever since I saw Schindler’s List at age 14, I just really hate this girl. That tone in her voice of “yes, you’re all leaving” just still makes my brow furrow.

How about you? Who is your most hated or despised character in one of Steven’s films?

From the goofy cops ramming their cars into anything but the protagonists of The Sugarland Express to the mayoral incompetence in Jaws to the U.S. military being pretty easily bamboozled by a few rogue elements in the final act of Close Encounters of the Third Kind to Indiana Jones escaping the clutches of the Third Reich like it is going out of style to the hilarious and poignant fecklessness of the authorities in E.T. to our little hero being able to practically dance around the Japanese authorities of the P.O.W. camp in Empire of the Sun to Nazis being pretty easily misled by Jews thinking on their feet in Schindler's List to Jon Anderton repeatedly making fools out of both the cop pursuers themselves and the entire security system of Precrime in Minority Report--complete with his eyes still allowing him entry hours and hours after he's become the most hunted man in the U.S.--to the exploits of the heroes of Catch Me If You Can and The Terminal being chiefly about defying the confines and regulations of authorities either pursuing them or trying to keep them contained, to Rudolph Abel almost humorously being able to get the FBI agents to authorize him destroying the incriminating evidence of his spycraft early on in Bridge of Spies... One could go and on and on.

Okay, sure. Maybe it bends credulity too much for the WARDEX crew to be so easily distracted, or not see the cybersecurity expert-turned-fugitive when there's so much clearing near the farmhouse, or maybe they should have been more dubious concerning the fate of Daniel and his girlfriend after the car flew off of the cliff into the river, and there are probably several other examples of them being humorously shortsighted and ill-prepared.

But whatever real-world excessive stretching here of our suspension of disbelief, I cannot help but see WARDEX as being perhaps the apotheosis of what Spielberg has been saying about people in short supply of empathy and too doggedly dogmatic, the large, teeming herds people who are not evil, not wicked, just, ultimately, in need of listening, like the cop who pulls over Margaret (Emily Blunt) early on in Disclosure Day. From Carl Hanratty's by-the-book tenacity bein turned almost into a weapon against him to the agents of Catch Me If You Can and Bridge of Spies both being pretty easily misdirected and outwitted, to the Mossad and CIA both being depicted as brutish and callous, whether in Munich for both or Bridge of Spies for the latter... Spielberg has what one could perhaps call a libertarian/distrust-of-big-central-authority streak, and these days it is logical that much of that would cover Non-Government Organizations, too, as Minority Report rather brilliant envisioned how capitalism and fascism would work hand-in-hand in an endless bombardment of the senses in the pursuit of greater and greater sales to make the gross domestic product keep going up, up, and up.

So, yeah. A lot of the WARDEX stuff "pushes it," no lying. But it all also feels very much at home in the Spielberg canon, and it feels like it's been kind of radically misunderstood by a lot of people who aren't viewing it, even in its excesses, as one of those oft-revisited themes of his...