Some of the most recognisable scenes in movie history are the work of Steven Spielberg. When his name is spoken, pictures of a young child riding a bicycle over the moon or a small boat searching for a large shark come to mind. Generations of filmmakers have been influenced by and motivated by his work to present more expansive and thrilling stories while maintaining a personal tone. He pushes the boundaries of the medium and himself with his films while still turning to the great masters of cinema like John Ford, David Lean, and Alfred Hitchcock to learn more from their work. Spielberg has always been the ideal blend of traditional and contemporary Hollywood, combining both to create massive blockbusters that move you.
While it would be hard to state that Spielberg has produced a genuinely poor movie (as in entirely dull and unwatchable), he doesn’t always live up to our expectations. Every once in a while, anyone can hit a home run, but Mr. Spielberg can typically accomplish some solid base singles. Over the course of his extraordinary career, some of his movies have been hailed as classics, some have been duds, and some are warmly remembered by some but are rarely brought up by those who don’t adore them. We’re concentrating on those films today. They are all equally important; they are just not frequently given the recognition they deserve.
Bridge of Spies
The 2015 movie Bridge of Spies, starring Tom Hanks as a lawyer drawn into foreign affairs to negotiate a prisoner transfer between America and Russia during the Cold War, is on the other extreme of the espionage spectrum. He is a man completely out of his element who only follows his moral compass. Although it lacks the ambiguity of Munich, it has enough of tension. In his part as a man who we’re never quite sure is a spy, but who certainly seems like one, Mark Rylance is just terrific. The scenes in which he and Hanks are performing together transport you into this universe more effectively than any amount of set design or camera work ever could. Nevertheless, the settings and photography create a vast panorama around a unique narrative, infusing even the most unremarkable scene with tension and suspense.
Catch Me If You Can
Leonardo DiCaprio connives his way to millions of money in the comedy Catch Me If You Can by making people believe he’s more important than he is. Spielberg succeeds in making everything slicker and more classic Hollywood. In the hands of another director, this would be a darker tale about how coming from a damaged home can skew your sense of morality, which may be a more gratifying picture on an artistic or philosophical level. This story is theoretically accurate, but it never feels that way. Instead, Spielberg has created a flawless work of entertainment with the sole intention of transporting you on an adventure with Catch Me If You Can.
Duel
George Lucas reveals in the 2017 documentary Spielberg that the TV movie Duel from 1971 is what first got him interested in Spielberg as a director. Prior to that, Lucas thought his future best friend’s writing was a bit too cutesy and fluffy, but the television rendition of this Richard Matheson story completely blew him away. If you haven’t seen it, the story revolves around a man who is stalked by a tanker truck as he drives home from a business trip. Halloween (or Jaws) has arrived in the desert. The movie is steamy, heated, and brilliant. When necessary, the cinematography is fluid; otherwise, it is harsh. It’s a stunning instance of suspense that doesn’t seem to have been created for early 1970s television; rather, it has the air of a great painting on a big screen. If you ask anyone who has seen it if it’s worth seeing, they will probably berate you for not doing so already.
Empire of the Sun
Empire of the Sun, a World War II movie about an English youngster (played by Christian Bale) who is separated from his parents in Shanghai and must rely only on his wits to live, required Spielberg to grow up far too quickly. The magnitude of the scenes in this massive film will leave you speechless. His later historical dramas, like as Schindler’s List, Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, War Horse, and Lincoln, were in many ways developed on the set of this movie. The harsher story components may not hit as hard as the story requires since the movie is a touch too polished, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie. Once more, this is not secretly his best film or anything, but it merits a lot more discussion than it receives.
Munich
The powerful brutality that Spielberg is capable of capturing is rarely given enough credit. It’s simple to demonstrate blood spraying everywhere or limbs being severed and causing people to respond. It’s much more difficult to shock a crowd with a single gunshot, yet that’s exactly what he does in Munich. The spy movie, which was based on true events in which a squad of men hunted for and killed terrorists associated with the Munich Olympics in 1972, is icy, tight, and enraged. While some of it has the flash and glamour of classic Spielberg, the most of it is grimy, sweaty, and horrifying. This movie contains scenes of such unadulterated savagery that they will stay in your subconscious forever. It poses ethical issues that are never resolved. If you think Spielberg can’t produce a film with the same passion and brutality as, say, Tarantino or Scorsese, you haven’t seen Munich and you should.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Any Jurassic Park sequel would fall short of the first film’s standard of excellence. However, The Lost World: Jurassic Park has developed the undeserved reputation of being the quintessential example of how not to make a sequel. The Lost World functions as an intriguing departure from the original when compared to the schlock of Jurassic Park III and the abjectly bad (and false satire) Jurassic World flicks. The obvious course of action would have been to create another theme park and make it accessible to the general public (like Jurassic World), but instead, they chose a different course that ultimately involves humans encroaching on the territory of dinosaurs. Additionally, the T-Rex terrorising San Francisco is among the best monsters-on-the-loose fiction America has ever produced, and some of the action set pieces rival those in any monster movie.
The Post
The Post seems to have been made by a younger, more ambitious director who was looking to establish their reputation by showing guys bickering with one another in small, cramped quarters. It’s a short film about a newspaper criticising the US government and revealing the long-running lies regarding the Vietnam War. It’s precisely the kind of story on which an independent director could establish a successful career by focusing just on the dialogue and facial expressions. Instead, Spielberg skillfully intervened and created one of his most captivating films.
Even while it’s still about people yelling at one another, quarrelling, and battling their own demons, it moves you through the story with such assurance and steadiness that you feel as though you are an expert on the occasion, the setting, and the participants. You clutch your breath when Katherine Graham (Meryl Streep) has only a few seconds to decide whether to publish a story because he is so skilled at making sure you understand how high the stakes are. Only someone with Spielberg’s talent and expertise could make a pause in a conversation seem like the final moments before a nuclear weapon detonates.
The Sugarland Express
The Sugarland Express, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Goldie Hawn and William Atherton as two parents trying to reclaim their child while evading the law, was his first theatrically released feature picture. It explores an early instance of media sensationalising a topic to the point where everyday people turn out in large numbers to assist two persons who are, in essence, fugitives. It is based on a genuine story. It features a number of Spielberg’s signatures, like breath-taking skylines, quick editing, and enormous dolly views that convey a lot of information. The film is also scary, heartbreaking, and possibly the funniest Spielberg has ever produced. There are scenes and performances that will make you laugh out loud, demonstrating that Spielberg can manage humour despite the failure of 1941 (which still had some funny jokes). He should have created more comedies.
The Terminal
The Terminal is not nearly the movie you’d anticipate, while being based on a true story as well. Spielberg chose to produce a sweet and gentle romantic comedy instead of exploring this topic through a more philosophical lens. Viktor Navorski, played by Tom Hanks, is a character from a different country who is compelled to stay in an airport terminal because his nation’s government is no longer in place. He meets Catherine Zeta-character Jones’s Amelia Warren there when he is there. She travels a lot, and because of how frequently they cross paths, a romance begins to develop. The core to the movie is Viktor’s charisma and how he transforms the lives of others around him with his upbeat attitude, including Amelia by making her realise she deserves better than to be the other woman to a man who has no plans to leave his wife. Although it won’t alter your reality, it will continually make you grin during its duration, and occasionally that kind of escapism is very pleasant.
