The movies of Steven Spielberg, summed up in 30 iconic shots

From Duel in 1971 to this year’s The BFG, Steven Spielberg has made 30 feature-length movies. This short video features one iconic scene from each one in chronological order. Interesting to note that Spielberg has used Janusz Kamiński as his director of photography for every film since Schindler’s List, a film that marked a new phase of his career. ¹

Some friends were playing a game recently: name your favorite Tom Cruise movie and your least favorite Tom Hanks movie.² I thought it would be fun to play a similar game with Spielberg standing in for Hanks but I can’t really think of who the other director would be… Who is the directorial equivalent of Tom Cruise? Respected, huge box office, but is more sizzle than substance. Michael Bay? James Cameron? Roland Emmerich? One of these guys?

1. Schindler’s List also occurs almost exactly halfway between the beginning of his career and the present, both time-wise and in film count.↩

2. Magnolia and The ‘Burbs, respectively, although I could be talked into A Few Good Men or Eyes Wide Shut for Cruise and The Money Pit for Hanks.↩

• Janusz Kaminski
• movies
• Steven Spielberg
• Tom Cruise
• Tom Hanks
• video