According to Screencraft, there are six essential elements to a Christmas film: nostalgia, magic, family, atmosphere, hope, and redemption. These can all be easily applied to festive classics we know and love, such as the iconic It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), the joyous Elf (2003), and the British household staple Nativity! (2009).

Even so, there has been debate upon debate about whether certain films can be entered into the yuletide Hall of Fame, the most prominent of these being Die Hard (1988). One film that should be considered but seems to fly under the radar is Steven Spielberg’s 2002 crime caper and comedy-drama Catch Me If You Can.

Released on Christmas Day, the film is based on the true story of how teenager Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) successfully pulled off confidence schemes worth millions of dollars by impersonating a pilot, a doctor and a lawyer, all whilst evading the clutches of FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks).

Doesn’t sound very Christmassy, right? Wrong!

Spielberg’s caper immediately establishes the film’s sense of nostalgia through its period setting of the 1960s. We are transported back in time to when banks didn’t have high-tech security, Pan Am was the kingpin of American air travel, and Frank’s ugly orange knitted vest was considered fashionable. These are all nostalgic for the people who grew up in and around the 1960s, and that group would have been the target audience for this film back in 2002.

The film’s sense of nostalgia still holds up today. There is a scene in which Frank, in the midst of his pilot con, goes to the cinema to watch the iconic James Bond film of the era Dr. No (1962), then it cuts to him having a suit measured. What name does he give the tailor? Ian Fleming, the author of James Bond.

In a way, it’s magic. Which is, of course, a key ingredient of a Christmas film.

Whilst the magic isn’t depicted in the stereotypical manner of wizards and fairy dust, Frank is represented as an immoral magician, right from the moment he steps into his classroom in a new school and hoodwinks his class into thinking he is the substitute teacher. We buy into the grand scale of Frank’s ongoing mastery of disguise and sleight of hand, and it makes for entertaining viewing even if certain elements of the true story have been widely disputed.

As with most Spielberg films, one of the central themes is a broken home and the effects it has on the children involved. If anything screams “Christmas film” it’s the idea of family and themes of reconciliation and repairing broken relationships.

We are introduced to the tight-knit Abagnale family, with Frank Sr. (Christopher Walken) receiving an award as his wife Paula (Nathalie Baye) and son Frank watch on in admiration. We then cut to a scene in which Frank watches his parents dancing by the family Christmas tree, as Frank Sr. recounts the story of how he and Paula met. From here, the idyllic family life takes a turn when Frank Sr.’s tax problems and Paula’s affair ultimately lead to their divorce. Upon being forced to choose which parent to live with, Frank rebels by running away from upstate New York to the City, thus kickstarting his career as a high-stakes con artist.

Throughout the film, we see Frank meeting up with his father, hoping that the money he has made will convince his parents to reconcile and make their living situation go back to the way it was. Frank Sr. resists this idea, having moved on and accepted what happened. This upsets Frank, who plunges deeper and deeper into his scams.

The film’s heartbreaking climactic moment comes years later, as Carl tells Frank that his father has died whilst they are flying back to the US. Distraught, Frank escapes the plane and finds the house of his mother, who has a new family. This prompts Frank to finally stop running and to surrender to Carl and the FBI.

In the climax, Frank sees his mother’s new family on Christmas Day, where there are fairy lights and a tree just like the one in the start of film. He looks on through the window, excluded from the life he used to have and desperately longed to have back. The beautiful tones of Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song” underpin the emotional weight of the scene, with the warmth of the classic song heavily contrasting Frank being left out in the cold.

Christmas Eve itself is a recurring motif throughout the film. Frank calls Carl to provoke him to send a team to chase him and apologise for their last encounter. Carl sees through this, realising that Frank has nobody to talk to. A few years later, Frank calls Carl on that day to tell him that he wants a truce, as he is getting married. Carl declines, saying that he will be caught and put in prison. Their final interaction on this day comes when Carl tracks Frank down to Montrichard, where his father met his mother on Christmas Eve. Frank is subsequently arrested by French police.

Hope is another seasonally relevant key theme throughout Catch Me If You Can, as Frank’s schemes are based upon his hope that the rewards will prompt his parents to get back together. The naivety of this notion makes the film’s climax all that more heartbreaking. Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance in this regard is phenomenal, as he is able to shape-shift from a cocky kid playing the part of an adult into an anxious young boy going through a traumatic change in his life when he is on the brink of adulthood. It is certainly a gamble to cast a 32 year-old as a 16 year-old, but it paid off. Spielberg is able to utilise the actor’s talents to convey this loss of childlike hope over time, presenting a type of coming-of-age we often see in Christmas films like Elf and Meet Me In St. Louis.

At the end of the film, after Frank is sentenced to 12 years in prison, Carl offers him an opportunity for redemption, as he realises that Frank’s conning skills can be utilised to help the FBI detect fraud. Frank accepts serving the rest of his sentence by working at the FBI, but finds that an office job is incredibly tedious. Frank prepares to impersonate a pilot one last time, but Carl finds him in the airport, saying nobody is chasing him. He tries to question Carl about his family, as Carl reveals that he is the father in a broken home, with a daughter not much younger than Frank himself. At that moment, we think Frank is going to go through with the con, but he appears back at the FBI and the film ends with him and Carl discussing one of the cons in great depth. This is a bright, feel-good ending reminiscent of any number of great Christmas films, and one that arguably ties their father-son-like relationship together, revealing to us a found family staple of a deeply unconventional nature but a wholly Christmas one nonetheless.

Written by Grace Laidler

Follow Grace Laidler on Twitter: @gracewillhuntin

Follow me on X (Twitter) – @poor_and_clean

10. Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

Starring the incredible Aubrey Plaza, and loveable goofs Mark Duplass and Jake Johnson, Safety Not Guaranteed is a heart-warming time travel jape. While it has big names attached – including director Colin Trevorrow, who went on to steer the wheel of the Jurassic World franchise, it has a real indie charm.

It begins with an intriguing want-ad in a local Washington newspaper. Jeff (Jake Johnson), a journalist at a different paper, assembles a motley crew to investigate. While everything is set up for us to believe Kenneth (Mark Duplass) is a weirdo, and delusional at the very least, he isn’t and the film’s beauty lies in how deftly it draws the viewer to his side.

It has heart, humour and Jake Johnson. I’m not sure you need much else in a film.

9. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Review

As a rule, I don’t do superheroes. DC, Marvel, I don’t really care, they’re all the same, aren’t they?

I grew up in a strange era where Val Kilmer was Batman and Lois Lane was a Desperate Housewife and the genre just never really hooked me. Then along came Miles Morales and I fell hard. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a visually stunning and standout offering in (what I and seemingly I alone feel is) a saturated market.

The Spider-verse animation is just incredible – unusual and unique. The film is brimming with detail and flashes of brilliance. I could watch it 100 times (100 more times) and notice something new with each viewing. The characters are larger than life yet somehow completely grounded and believable, and who knew the match up of Nicholas Cage and John Mulaney is what we needed in our lives? The soundtrack is perfect and the message behind it is so important.

The first time my kid saw it, she said, ‘oh so I could be spiderman’ and for that reason alone it deserves a mention in my Best Films of All Time.

Recommended for you: Spider-Man Movies Ranked

Film gets me where I live like little else and has done ever since I was a teenager. It’s almost impossible to pick just 10 films to stand in for over a century of my favourite form of artistic expression, so what follows are a combination of groundbreaking, ageless films and the most personally impactful cinematic works for me, today. 

Follow me on X (Twitter) – @SSPThinksFilm

10. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Review

This one’s a twofer. I love animation and I love superhero movies, and Spider-Verse is one of the finest examples of both to release in the last decade.

After being bitten by a radioactive spider, awkward teen Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is thrust into inter-dimensional superherodom when his universe’s Spider-Man is killed in action. Miles must overcome self-doubt and team up with the many very different spider-people from other realities to stop his, and all other worlds, from being destroyed. 

Animation is cinema, it has the potential to visualise anything you can imagine, and while I could have picked any number of films from Studio Ghibli, Laika, Disney or Pixar, nothing else was as revolutionary and influential to the medium’s aesthetic than Sony Picture Animation’s Spider-Verse in recent years. This didn’t look or feel quite like anything else, a living comic book packed with pleasing details and gags referring back to print mediums and constant movement and dynamism. 

Few adaptations of popular characters manage to sum up their very essence with a single perfect phrase, but this film distils it all with “anybody can wear the mask”. So many superhero movies get the basics fundamentally wrong, but this gets it just so right – Spider-Man has always had incredible powers but struggled to balance his superhero responsibilities with everyday ones, and the same goes if you’re a dual heritage teenager, a cartoon pig or a black-and-white detective voiced by Nicolas Cage.

Recommended for you: Spider-Man Movies Ranked

9. The Wizard of Oz (1939)

The titanic cultural influence of the MGM fantasy musical The Wizard of Oz is often criminally overlooked. Musicals speak to me as a form of extroverted expression I could never hope to take part in myself, but Oz also stands for the whole fantasy genre.

This rough adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s children’s fantasy novel follows young Dorothy Gale (instant star Judy Garland), a Kansas dreamer who is swept away to the magical land of Oz by a tornado where she is persecuted by the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton, still terrifying) as she quests to find her way home.

It wasn’t just the way film musicals were staged for decades it inspired, either. Next time you watch Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy and see the orc armies marching past the gates of Mordor, think about how similar the blocking and the aesthetic is to the patrols outside the Wicked Witch’s castle.  Speaking of the Wicked Witch, you know the classic green-skinned, warty-nosed, pointy-chinned default look for such characters at Halloween? That comes from this film as well. And Margaret Hamilton’s all-timer of a baddie performance in contrast to the uncomplicated good of Dorothy and her companions is still one to behold. 

The “it was all a dream, or was it?” story structure is clichéd now, but this helped start it all. Startling Technicolor fantasy is kept entirely separate from sepia reality (the moment one world becomes the other still takes your breath away), but there is always that playful, winking final scene for you to hope that Dorothy perhaps has further adventures on her horizon. 

Originally inspired by the James Bond series, the Indiana Jones franchise has become an all-time great in its own right, the heights of the five film collection being almost incomparable for their thrills and chills.

In this edition of Ranked, we at The Film Magazine looking at all five Indiana Jones films released between 1981 and 2023 to judge which are the best and which are the worst based on artistic merit, overall influence and cultural significance.

Follow @thefilmagazine on Twitter.

5. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

The issue with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull isn’t its ancient alien mythology, it’s that it doesn’t present this mythology with any of the respect that the previous three Indiana Jones movies did with their bible-leaning myths and pursuit of biblical artefacts.

Rarely if ever does the task of uncovering clues seem important, despite how these brief moments are by far the highlights of the film and the backbone of the earlier trilogy, and the mythology is so poorly explained that little is known as to why the characters are even pursuing their discovery at all, especially when it proves to be of so much risk to their lives.

Unlike in all four of the other films, there’s not a moment people can uniformly agree upon as being great either. Everything seems shot on green screen, the CG effects are so ever-present they’re distracting, and the series abandons its tightrope walk between realistic and absurd to jump head first into human-eating ants, sword fights taking place across moving vehicles, and Shia LaBeouf swinging from vines in the rainforest like a monkey. Indy even survives a nuclear blast.

The cast is the biggest it has ever been – Shia LaBeouf, Ray Winstone, John Hurt and a particularly cartoonish Cate Blanchett chief among the new additions – which takes a lot of attention away from the character we’ve all come to see. Again, this is disappointing given that Harrison Ford is typically charismatic and remains watchable even through the plethora of uninspired dross this film throws at him.

When it’s bad, it’s garbage. When it’s good it’s almost Indiana Jones. It’s hard to believe that Steven Spielberg directed this.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
Director: James Mangold
Screenwriters: Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, David Koepp
Starring: Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Ethann Isidore, Antonio Banderas, Boyd Holbrook, Shaunette Renée Wilson, Mads Mikkelsen, John Rhys-Davies

What does an 80-year-old globe-trotting archaeologist with experience of the occult, religious phenomena, ancient aliens and fighting Nazis have left to fear? Time.

42 years have passed since Harrison Ford first donned the fedora and stepped onto our screens as Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). If you were to go back 42 years from the release of that first adventure, you’d be in 1939, months away from the Nazis invading Poland and plunging the world into its 2nd World War. He may not move quite like he once did, but his eyes still glimmer the same. Harrison Ford is still Indiana Jones.

In 2023’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, it’s 1969 and the United States is about to land a man on the moon – a mission Indiana describes as ‘a pointless endeavour to a world of nothingness’. He’s characteristically grumpy, upset by his personal circumstances, and frustrated by being pushed into retirement from his work as a college professor. His joints are a little sore and he needs a break from the noises of modern life. When a voice from his past arrives asking questions of an ancient dial said to predict when and where fissures in time will occur, he is forced into an adventure for one more artefact. One that, of course, belongs in a museum…

The dial is believed to offer the opportunity of time travel to the person who correctly navigates it, though Indiana Jones is quick to dismiss that as “magic, not science”, adding the caveat that he has seen things he can’t explain. “Sometimes,” he says, “it’s not about what you believe, but about how hard you believe it.”

It is no coincidence that the ultimate MacGuffin of the 2023 version of Indiana Jones is time itself. Forty-plus years on from his debut, and in the twilight of his life, time is the greatest fear of all. The possibility that he might be able to control it is enticing, and the fear that someone else could wield it is potentially world-shifting. The latter is even more monumental when those chasing it are Nazis. “Why is it always Nazis?”

The Nazis, the MacGuffin, the title itself… it’s all very Indiana Jones, all very nostalgic. In this respect, Dial of Destiny is very in-keeping with the recent Hollywood trend of maximising Intellectual Property (IP) by restoring interest in the legacies of their most famous characters. It’s a shrewd streaming-era business move that attempts to bring eyes to the original films on Disney Plus almost as much as it aims to make its own money. And yet, while Dial of Destiny can certainly be seen through this lens, the film offers more than the neglectful offerings available elsewhere, incorporating legacy into its narrative not to simply celebrate an IP a studio wants to freshen up, but to offer a timely and important commentary on the preservation of old film techniques, to warn against the dissolving of film preservation, and to pay homage to the classic cinema that paved the way. Yes, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is a film about films.

The movie opens with a sequence directly ripped from the 2nd half of Buster Keaton’s monumental silent-era action-comedy The General (1926), complete with train surfing, bad guys shooting at other bad guys by accident, and water pumps proving to be inescapable obstacles. Almost 100 years on, it remains as exciting and effective as it ever was. We are subsequently launched into a first act in which Jones is woefully underestimated, a sure comment on how the current era of studio filmmaking underestimates the masters. Dial of Destiny of course pays tribute to the films within its own franchise, and specifically the moments that made us fall in love with it, but it’s in Indiana’s supporting characters Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and Teddy (Ethann Isidore) that the message of the film is truly illuminated.

Helena and Teddy each undergo character arcs that transition them from heartless capitalists looking for a quick buck and a quick exit to loving people willing to risk it all for those who risked it for them, an early line from Waller-Bridge dismissing theft with the claim, “that’s capitalism”, being fantastically juxtaposed by a later act of kindness. In the face of time-pursuing Nazis, they develop into a poignant mirror to the Nazi villains led by Mads Mikkelsen’s Jürgen Voller, a group defined in this movie not by their racist ideologies but by their fierce dedication to exploiting the past for personal gain. They pursue the dial so they can change the past, their intention to restore Nazi dominance, just as the studios use their ownership of artefacts of cinema to revisit the past and create new avenues of revenue to re-establish their dominance with, or politicians revisit past colonialist ideologies and psychological techniques in an attempt to seize power and control over the populace – even if that might be of detriment to everyone, including themselves.

Indiana is, as a result, a beacon of hope. A hero we look to as a means to restore our faith that filmmaking can be more than exploitative nonsense. Just as Top Gun: Maverick reassured us in 2022 of how better action films can be made away from the CGI norm of the 21st century, and how the old masters still have important contributions to offer, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny attempts to reassure us that good filmmaking ought not to suffer at the hands of exploitative business practices. It isn’t as well-made – its heavy reliance on computer generated imagery a better-than-expected 8 out of 10 but still not as whirlwind nor revolutionary as its 2022 brethren, and so much of the film is very dark (likely too dark for a family watching on Disney Plus to enjoy during the day time) – but if there was a hero to remind us of why we need movie stars and why we need movies, Indiana Jones is the one. A film franchise built on the back of paying homage to filmmakers from eras gone by, brought back to remind us of the power of the filmmaker even in a corporate world looking to constantly rinse every property of its last drop of quality and appeal. It feels right.

And why always Nazis? Homage to the rest of the franchise, sure. But also because they’re the ultimate representatives of strict and damaging ideological practices. And mostly, because we’re still fighting them in real life. This is 2023, and the far right is more prevalent than it has been for decades – they’re still here.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Helena is perhaps the best of the new additions to the cast, her character being everything you’d want from a well-travelled, brave and intelligent archaeologist but without any of the objectification or perfectionisms of previous women heroes in male-dominated franchises. She is positioned within the narrative as a relative, a parent figure, a fish out of water, but never an object. She is cunning but she is also excitable. She is, simply, a well-written character, and a fulcrum around whom many of the film’s biggest character developments occur.

The writing team of Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, David Koepp and director James Mangold must be commended for the depth of their allegories and the consistency of their message. And Mangold must, as the first director of an Indiana Jones movie that isn’t the legendary Steven Spielberg, be praised for ensuring so many of these allegorical elements, character arcs and titbits of excitement and interest remain present in his completed vision. There are moments where Mangold lets the action go for a little too long, and others where he abandons absolute realism in a way you couldn’t foresee early-era Spielberg doing, but this looks and feels every bit as much an Indiana Jones film as the others, while expertly navigating its new territory. The collective work of Mangold and the screenwriting trio isn’t perfect, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny isn’t a perfect film, but it is good. And it is Indiana Jones.

Reassuringly scored by the old master John Williams, and starring a suitably sparky Harrison Ford, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny feels in many ways like a last hurrah for those who got so many of us into the magic of the movies. It pays homage to the history of American cinema, to the origins of the Indiana Jones franchise, to the very idea of cinema itself in the streaming age. And as Indiana Jones himself suffers from being too attached to the past, from being shunted to the edges of society and let go by the culture he lives within, we are poignantly shown just how much we need him, and how much we should cherish him.

There are some who will say that Indiana Jones belongs in the past. That he’s too old, that the ideas are overplayed. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny proves that those people are wrong.

Score: 18/24

Recommended for you: Indiana Jones Movies Ranked

Jurassic Park (1993)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenwriters: Michael Crichton, David Koepp
Starring: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Ariana Richards, Joseph Mazzello, Wayne Knight, Samuel L. Jackson

Jurassic Park stomped onto the big screen thirty years ago and became an instant classic, loved by adults and children alike. It was the highest-grossing film of all time until Titanic cruised into the top spot four years later. Jurassic Park’s setting, humour, John Williams score, all-star cast, and larger-than-life characters made it an unforgettable story. One that boasts the rare accolade of being better than the book it’s based on.

John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) has built a wildlife park with a difference. Its inhabitants are bona fide dinosaurs. After an incident with a park ‘attraction’, Hammond needs the safety of the park verified. So, before its grand public opening, he invites respected experts in the field, Dr Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Dr Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and Dr Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) to have a look around. Oh, and his grandchildren naturally. Immediately, things go wrong. It turns out you can control a T-rex about as well as you can a hurricane.

Casting the much-beloved Richard Attenborough as John Hammond was an inspired choice. Hammond is a man seemingly passionate about furthering science and it’s easy to believe that this is his only goal when you look into the kind, open face of the iconic actor. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Hammond is obsessed rather than passionate, to the degree that he would risk his own grandchildren’s lives. He is a man so full of ego and the idea of his own legacy that he is blind to his failings.

The three experts, Drs Grant, Sattler, and Malcolm, are the driving force of the plot. Their childlike wonder reflecting our same reactions. Grant’s interactions with the children (Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazzello) is where a lot of the humour comes from, and Malcolm’s complete incredulity at what is happening is the injection of scepticism that pushes Hammond and the scientists into making more ridiculous decisions. Ellie Sattler is an icon. Whip smart, defending feminism, rocking sensible hiking boots, and willing to go elbow deep in triceratops turd in the pursuit of answers. An icon.

Jurassic Park is not a film about dinosaurs, it’s about these characters and what they come to represent thematically. It is a film about human hubris, about our species’ need to conquer and control. Then it is a film about resolve and humility in the face of mistake and human error. It is a film where nature’s awesome power wins as all the humans can do is retreat hastily into the sunset.

While the T-rex is a formidable foe, and the iconic logo of the franchise, the velociraptors are also worthy adversaries for this ensemble of plucky human characters. A herd of clever girls, if you will. The intrigue lay so heavily with these animals that it is the raptors who play major parts in four of the five subsequent films. Director Steven Spielberg and author Michael Crichton weren’t so interested in an accurate depiction of a velociraptor – Jurassic Park’s popularity means that the cultural version of them seems so much more likely than the feathery death turkeys they most probably were.

Given how iconic such creatures remain after three decades, it remains noteworthy to acknowledge how dinosaurs are only seen on screen for fourteen minutes of Jurassic Park’s runtime. This is a suspense-building technique that director Steven Spielberg perfected in Jaws. The dinos are always waiting just off screen, which adds a delicious level of anticipation and one hell of a punch when they do take centre stage. Furthering this impact is how the animatronics and CGI have aged just as well as the core message. Those one-hundred and thirteen dinosaur-free minutes also help the film adhere to the PG rating that allowed it to become a family favourite.

While Jurassic Park birthed some pretty terrible films, the original remains a must-see. It left a generation of viewers certain that they could explain chaos theory with a drip of water and confident that if they stood perfectly still, they would never be eaten by a T-rex*. In today’s climate when human action is causing catastrophic ripples through the natural world, and billionaires play fast and loose with the planet’s resources, there are many themes in Jurassic Park that continue to resonate as clearly as a metal ladle clanging on the tiled floor of a velociraptor-strewn kitchen.

Jurassic Park’s descendants lack the magic of the original, which is a cliché-avoiding, character-driven, genre-defining rampage. It is iconic moment after iconic moment.

Score: 24/24

*Tyrannosaurs actually had impeccable eyesight so official advice for bumping into a T-rex is to run. Fast.

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s multiverse-spanning film Everything Everywhere All at Once has become the first movie in history to win three acting awards as well as Best Picture at the Oscars. Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan were each honoured at the 95th Academy Awards.

Hosted by popular television host Jimmy Kimmel, live from the Dolby^® Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday 12th March 2023, the 95th Oscars honoured what the ten thousand-plus members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences collectively selected as the greatest achievements in filmmaking from 2022.

The outstanding achievement of the night came from A24’s surprise critical and commercial hit Everything Everywhere All at Once, which took home 7 Academy Awards including Best Picture. The film’s popular directorial duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, known collectively as Daniels, won the Oscars for Original Screenplay and Directing.

The Oscars telecast was much-changed from the productions of the past few years, producers Ricky Kershner and Glenn Weiss abandoning the self-aware comedy bits of 2022 and the pot-holes of the dialled back 2021 broadcast in favour of a more earnest, celebratory Oscars. Host Jimmy Kimmel’s opening speech was one littered with celebratory facts on the most-nominated, the eldest-nominated and so on, with the additional voiceover host announcing each winner’s personal journey to the podium ahead of each acceptance speech. Barring a few comedy segments that didn’t quite land, and a few filmmakers being played off before getting their chance to speak, the broadcast was akin to the classic Oscars ceremonies: filled with memorable moments and reminders as to the importance of cinema.

Live performances on the night included a sombre rendition of “Calling All Angels” by Lenny Kravitz for the In Memoriam segment of the show, a piece that was introduced by a tearful John Travolta who had been chosen to honour his Grease co-star Olivia Newton-John (1948-2022). All five Original Song nominees also performed, including Lady Gaga who had originally withdrawn from the opportunity. Gaga’s performance was dialled back, especially in comparison to other recent appearances at the Oscars, but moving nonetheless.

Audience favourite Brendan Fraser was also announced as an Oscar-winner for Actor In a Leading Role. The actor, whose personal story of abuse is well publicised, was teary-eyed and thankful during his acceptance speech, honouring those he believed made it possible for him to win.

The winners of the 95th Oscars 2023:

Best Picture – Everything Everywhere All at Once
All Quiet On the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
The Fabelmans
Tár
Top Gun: Maverick
Triangle of Sadness
Women Talking

Animated Feature Film – Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Puss In Boots: The Last Wish
The Sea Beast
Turning Red

Documentary (Feature) – Navalny
All That Breathes
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Fire of Love
A House Made of Splinters

International Feature Film – All Quiet On the Western Front (Germany)
Argentina, 1985 (Argentina)
Close (Belgium)
EO (Poland)
The Quiet Girl (Ireland)

Directing – Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Steven Spielberg (The Fabelmans)
Todd Field (Tár)
Ruben Östlund (Triangle of Sadness)

Cinematography – James Friend (All Quiet On the Western Front)
Darius Khondji (Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths)
Mandy Walker (Elvis)
Roger Deakins (Empire of Light)
Florian Hoffmeister (Tár)

Film Editing – Paul Rogers (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
Mikkel E.G. Nielsen (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Matt Villa, Jonathan Redmond (Elvis)
Monika Willi (Tár)
Eddie Hamilton (Top Gun: Maverick)

Actress in a Leading Role – Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
Cate Blanchett (Tár)
Ana De Armas (Blonde)
Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie)
Michelle Williams (The Fabelmans)

Actor in a Leading Role – Brendan Fraser (The Whale)
Austin Butler (Elvis)
Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Paul Mescal (Aftersun)
Bill Nighy (Living)

Actress in a Supporting Role – Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)
Hong Chau (The Whale)
Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once)

Actor in a Supporting Role – Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
Brendan Gleeson (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Brian Tyree Henry (Causeway)
Judd Hirsch (The Fabelmans)
Barry Keoghan (The Banshees of Inisherin)

Production Design – All Quiet On the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
Babylon
Elvis
The Fabelmans

Costume Design – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Babylon
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

Makeup and Hairstyling – The Whale
All Quiet On the Western Front
The Batman
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Elvis

Visual Effects – Avatar: The Way of Water
All Quiet On the Western Front
The Batman
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Top Gun: Maverick

Writing (Adapted Screenplay) – Sarah Polley (Women Talking)
Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson, Ian Stokell (All Quiet On the Western Front)
Rian Johnson (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery)
Kazuo Ishiguro (Living)
Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, Christopher McQuarrie (Top Gun: Maverick)

Writing (Original Screenplay) – Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner (The Fabelmans)
Todd Field (Tár)
Ruben Östlund (Triangle of Sadness)

Music (Original Score) – Volker Bertelmann (All Quiet On the Western Front)
Justin Hurwitz (Babylon)
Carter Burwell (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Son Lux (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
John Williams (The Fabelmans)

Music (Original Song) – “Naatu Naatu” (RRR)
“Applause” (Tell It Like a Woman)
“Hold My Hand” (Top Gun: Maverick)
“Lift Me Up” (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)
“This Is a Life” (Everything Everywhere All at Once)

Sound Mixing – Top Gun: Maverick
All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Batman
Elvis

Short Film (Animated) – The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
The Flying Sailor
Ice Merchants
My Year of Dicks
An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I think I Believe It

Documentary Short Film – The Elephant Whisperers
Haulout
How Do You Measure a Year?
The Martha Mitchell Effect
Stranger At the Gate

Short Film (Live Action) – An Irish Goodbye
Ivalu
Le Pupille
Night Ride
The Red Suitcase

On 18 February 2023, the Directors Guild of America hosted the 75th rendition of its annual awards show in Los Angeles. Presented by Judd Apatow and introduced by Lesli Linka Glatter, the ceremony brought various sectors of the American film and television industries together to celebrate directorial achievements from 2022.

Historically, the director-driven ceremony has found itself dwarfed in popularity by the Academy Awards, whose 95th instalment will take place on March 13 2023. However, the DGAs remain a prestigious ceremony that have often predicted the big winners of its Academy counterpart. 

This year’s ceremony includes a few meaningful winners. In the stacked list for Theatrical Feature Film, Everything Everywhere All at Once’s The Daniels came out on top, beating Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick), Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin), Todd Field (Tár), and Steven Spielberg (The Fabelmans). As well as being newcomers to the DGA Awards, the Daniels are notably distinct in their win as dual-directors.

Following her sweeping victories at the British Independent Film Awards, Charlotte Wells has continued in a similar vein, winning Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First-Time Theatrical Film for Aftersun.  Establishing itself as a firm critical favourite, Aftersun has the potential to enjoy similar success in future ceremonies, including the Oscars, where it holds various nominations. 

Another critical darling has arisen within the documentary genre, with Fire of Love’s Sara Dosa awarded Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary. Distributed by National Geographic, the French-Canadian production follows two daring volcanologists, Katia and Maurice Krafft. With its awe-inspiring subject matter and gorgeous archival footage, Fire of Love appears to be a standout within its genre category, with DGA awards success continuing this trend.  

Beyond cinema, the Awards ceremony has historically branched out and comprised a variety of industries, mediums, and recognitions.

The comprehensive list of winners at the 75th Directors Guild of America Awards (2023):

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film – Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick)
Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Steven Spielberg (The Fabelmans)
Todd Field (Tár)

Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First-Time Theatrical Film – Charlotte Wells (Aftersun)
Alice Diop (Saint Omer)
John Patton Ford (Emily the Criminal)
Audrey Diwan (Happening)
Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović – Murina

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary – Sara Dosa (Fire of Love)
Matthew Heineman (Retrograde)
Laura Poitras (All the Beauty and the Bloodshed)
Daniel Roher (Navalny)
Shaunak Sen (All That Breathes)

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Series – Sam Levinson (Euphoria) for “Stand Still Like a Hummingbird”
Jason Bateman (Ozark) for “A Hard Way To Go” 
Vince Gilligan (Better Call Saul) for “Waterworks” 
Aoife McArdle (Severance) for “Hide and Seek”
Ben Stiller (Severance) for “The We We Are” 

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy Series – Bill Hader (Barry) for “710N”
Tim Burton (Wednesday) for “Wednesday’s Child is Full of Woe” (Netflix)
Amy Sherman-Palladino (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) for “How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?”
Christopher Storer (The Bear) for “Review”
Mike White (The White Lotus) for “BYG” 

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television and Limited Series – Helen Shaver (Station Eleven) for “Who’s There”
Eric Appel (Weird: The Al Yankovic Story) 
Deborah Chow (Obi-Wan Kenobi)
Jeremy Podeswa (Station Eleven) for “Unbroken Circle”
Tom Verica (Inventing Anna) for “The Devil Wore Anna” 

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Liz Patrick (Saturday Night Live) for “Jack Harlow”
Paul G. Casey (Real Time with Bill Maher) for “#2010”
Jim Hoskinson (The Late Show with Stephen Colbert) for “#1333”
David Paul Meyer (The Daily Show with Trevor Noah) for “Brandi Carlile Discusses Her New Deluxe Album and Performs ‘You and Me on the Rock'”
Paul Pennolino (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver) for “Afghanistan”

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Specials – Glenn Weiss for The 75th Annual Tony Awards
Ian Berger (The Daily Show with Trevor Noah Presents) for “Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse – Hungary for Democracy” 
Hamish Hamilton for “Super Bowl LVI halftime show”
James Merryman for “Norman Lear: 100 Years of Music and Laughter”
Marcus Raboy for “Mark Twain Prize 2022: Celebrating Jon Stewart”

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Reality Programs – Ben Simms (Running Wild with Bear Grylls) for “Florence Pugh in the Volcanic Rainforests of Costa Rica”
Joseph Guidry (The Big Brunch) for “Carb Loading Brunch”
Carrie Havel (The Go-Big Show) for “Only One Can Win”
Rich Kim (Lego Masters) for “Jurass-brick World” 
Michael Shea (FBOY Island) for “Do You Like Cats?” (HBO Max)

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Children’s Programs – Anne Renton (Best Foot Forward) for “Halloween” 
Tim Federle (Better Nate Than Ever) 
Bonnie Hunt (Amber Brown) for “I, Amber Brown”
Dean Israelite (Are You Afraid of the Dark?) for “The Tale of Room 13”
Michael Lembeck (Snow Day)

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials – Kim Gehrig for Apple’s “Accessibility” and “Run Baby Run”
Juan Cabral for John Lewis & Partners‘ “For All Life’s Moments” and Apple’s “Share the Joy”
Craig Gillespie for Apple’s “Hard Knocks”, Jimmy John’s’ “Problem”, and Nissan’s “Thrill Driver”
David Shane for Apple’s “Detectives”, ITVX’s “Smile”, and Procter & Gamble’s “Traffic Stop”
Ivan Zachariáš for Apple’s “Data Auction” and Upwork’s “This Is How We Work Now”

Lifetime Achievement Award in Television 
Robert Fishman

Frank Capra Achievement Award 
Mark Hansson

Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award 
Valdez Flagg

For more awards season coverage, follow @thefilmagazine on Twitter and Instagram.

Written by Kyle Boulton

You can support Kyle Boulton in the following places:

Instagram – @autechreandchill
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The Fabelmans (2022)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenwriters: Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner
Starring: Gabriel LaBelle, Mateo Zoryan, Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Judd Hirsch, Keeley Karsten, Alina Brace, Julia Butters, Birdie Borria, Sam Rechner, Chloe East, Oakes Fegley

Steven Spielberg’s rich and diverse filmmaking oeuvre has been analysed and dissected so many times over the past six decades that his work has been described as everything from conspiratorial to all-American, New Era to glamourised Hollywood, but one thing that has always been an undeniable stylistic trait of his work is how earnest his presentations are, and how hopeful his films feel. In his latest picture, The Fabelmans, Spielberg has (by his own admission) made his most personal film to date: a semi-autobiographical tale of his adolescence focused upon his family life and how he found his passion for cinema. The characters may have a different family name, and the narrative may not be entirely true to life, but in turning the glow of his optimistic lens towards himself, this all-time great American filmmaker has dreamt up perhaps the most direct sermon of his illustrious career, proudly declaring through the rose-tinted spectacles of Americana-drenched nostalgia that art matters.

The Fabelmans isn’t a tale exclusively about the pursuit of artistic realisation, and vitally it strays away from the cliché narratives of typical struggling artist pieces. Instead, Spielberg’s self-reflective film focuses a lot of its energy on its core family dynamic, bringing Spielberg’s own art into the fore in key moments that emphasise the importance of art, of cinema particularly, to find truth, to offer hope, to be cathartic.

The majority of moments in this film are presented less like obvious character triumphs and are instead delivered with hushed reward for those paying attention. One particular moment, in which a character requests that Sam (the Steven Spielberg of the family, played by Gabriel LaBelle) puts together a film as a gift for another character, comes to mean a tremendous amount, the very act of putting together still frames referred to as “a hobby” or “not real” by naysayers within the text but proven to be nonetheless vital and moving and important. When we most need love, compassion, and empathy, art is there – that is the message.

Cinema functions within the world written by Spielberg and long-time writing partner Tony Kushner as being capable of spectacle and awe, of installing trust, emphasising love, and finding that inch of truth that exists somewhere between our observable world and our own consciousness. It’s placed as importantly as that – being the source of truth in one moment, the fabrication of reality the next, discovering something in someone that nobody else could see just moments after – and in being so well emphasised it becomes in some ways the most truthful of all of Spielberg’s work even beyond the autobiographical aspects of the narrative and each of its characters. This great filmmaker, whom so many aspire to be, has long defended the theatrical experience, the preservation of film libraries, the continuation of traditional methods and the embrace of new ones; and of all the messages to be gleaned from The Fabelmans, it is apropos that cinema in all of its forms and all of its applications is shown to be so tremendously important to the human spirit, that cinema is worth thinking about as being more than simple entertainment.

To the Spielberg superfan and those with a deep knowledge and appreciation for the history of American cinema, The Fabelmans isn’t filled with the in-your-face massive story beats of Hollywood’s great chronicles and is therefore not the all-out “cinema is our saviour” movie that Spielberg’s previous work may suggest, even with so much narrative focus on the act of creating and the experience of watching cinema. Spielberg and Kushner have been vocal about the director seeking permission from his mother to make a movie about his youth, one his mother apparently declared she believed he had already been making for years, and evidence of that deep level of mutual respect is threaded throughout. The Fabelmans is about cinema, yes, but it is equally about family, more specifically an ode to the filmmaker’s mother. She is talented, quirky, beautiful and free, like Jessica Chastain’s character in The Tree of Life only more grounded than ethereal, though not without moments of apparent cinema magic. She’s played with an almost TransAtlanticism by Michelle Williams, seemingly with the intention to capture the wonderment Spielberg himself feels when remembering her. It’s a quite exceptional performance, one able to peer through the bravado and find something truthful and emotive, but she won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.

The same can be said of the film in a wider context.

The nostalgia of the piece, the soft colour palette and glowing lens, the romanticised slow-motion sequences, and some of the work from the in-film Spielberg’s camera, seem oddly at arm’s length from whatever truth this great filmmaker most holds dear. It’s a powerful piece, of that there is no doubt, but it can feel more like a professor using personal anecdotes to lecture upon the art and importance of cinema than any kind of transcendental experience guaranteed to be an audience-pleasing, perspective-shifting moment in time. Each character is viewed so sympathetically that when one is given comeuppance it feels odd and out of place, highlighting how the rest of the film seems reluctant to pursue the deepest questions about Spielberg’s relatives, to delve into the parts of himself that “autobiographical” may suggest. There are playful moments, self-depreciating in-jokes even, as well as honest self-evaluation, which make the tale endearing and Spielberg’s lifelong gift to each of us seem all the more important, but this is late-career Spielberg with his evidently lighter touch looking to massage meaning throughout his piece rather than get you off your seat with a train crash, the crack of a whip, or the stomp of a prehistoric creature. You likely won’t raise from your feet, clench the arms of your chair, or sit wide-eyed in awe. For better and for worse, this is deeply constructed Spielbergian cinema; “constructed” being the key word.

Beyond the credentials attributed to The Fabelmans by its awards season success and the compliments paid to it in this review, there’s a truth that ought to connect with everyone: “You do what your heart says you have to, ’cause you don’t owe anyone your life”. No matter who you are or what you love, there’s a lesson to be learned from watching The Fabelmans, there’s inspiration to be taken. Take the advice of one of the world’s most famous, most successful, and most respected filmmakers, and do what your heart says you have to. Nobody else has lived your experience, nobody else has your voice. Spielberg has shaped each of us, shaped cinema, shaped art, shaped our culture, through presenting stories his mother always felt were about himself and his family. You could too.

Score: 20/24

Spielberg’s long career has moved with the times and can roughly be divided into thematic eras, so to mark his sixth decade in feature filmmaking we have undertaken the monumental task of picking just one film for each 10 years he has worked professionally behind the camera, selecting the movies that best typify his filmmaking style at the time.

Dear reader, welcome to Six Decades of Spielberg. Cue the John Williams fanfare. 

1970s: Jaws (Birth of the Blockbuster Era)

Jaws Review

In the early 1970s, after proving himself by directing for television (including the pilot episode of ‘Columbo’), Steven Spielberg made the successful move to feature filmmaking in 1971 with taut chase movie Duel. Shortly thereafter he changed cinema forever.

The film that really put him on the map was Jaws, an adaptation of Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel that transcended a famously troubled production involving overruns, cast clashes and a broken shark to become one of the first films that could be considered a true summer blockbuster.

The popular seaside town of Amity Island is terrorised by a huge great white shark. Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) must team up with marine biologist Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw) to find and catch the creature to end its feeding frenzy.

As British critic Mark Kermode regularly alludes to in his radio appearances, this shark movie “isn’t really about a shark”. Behind the movie magic and exciting set pieces, this is really about families, community and humanity’s best and worst instincts. How many times, particularly in recent years, have we seen elected officials like Amity’s Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) show callous disregard for death tolls over economic concerns? How many times are the opinions of experts in a particular field dismissed over what your neighbour heard a rumour about? Just how far would you go to protect your family from any threat, up to and including a millions-of-years-old eating machine? 

With Jaws, Spielberg offers a steady build of tension and dread (the simple and terrifying John Williams theme helps no end), the well-timed implementation of horror movie conventions (classic jump scares and not showing the killer until absolutely necessary), and elegant three act storytelling. But, without top-notch character work, all that would count for nought; it’s the fully-rounded characters and their relationships that give this film its staying power.

Some of the issues on set were a blessing in disguise. Richard Dreyfuss clashing with Robert Shaw and Roy Scheider playing peacemaker added a genuine note to the dynamic of Hooper, Quint and Brody in the final act. The mechanical shark, nicknamed “Bruce” after Spielberg’s lawyer, did not perform well as soon as it was introduced to salt water and thus had to be shot around for 80% of the film, adding an air of mystery and unseen menace that may never have existed. 

Crowds turned up in droves, making Jaws the hit of the summer, breaking records at the time with a $7million opening weekend and eventually grossing $476million worldwide against a $9million budget, proving beyond doubt how big movies could be with the right hook, enough spectacle and a well-timed release.

Spielberg would see out the decade by releasing Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a quite different but almost as successful genre deconstruction again starring Dreyfuss. His career as a highly sought-after director had truly begun. 

1980s: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Family Upheaval Era)

The movie that gave Steven Spielberg’s production company Amblin its iconic logo of a boy and his alien on a bike silhouetted against the full moon completely epitomises his family filmmaking.

“Amblinesque” is a descriptor now when applied to such nostalgic properties as ‘Stranger Things’ because of movies like E.T. and the Spielberg-produced The Goonies, the memorable characters, effervescent tone, and timeless and universal themes of friendship in these stories having nurtured an entire generation who grew up in the 1980s.

Ten year-old Elliott (Henry Thomas) discovers an alien who has been accidentally left behind on Earth. Together with his brother and sister, he decides to help the alien to return home, all the while keeping “E.T.” hidden from his mother and sinister government authorities.

Only through a child’s uncynical eyes could this story be so magically and movingly told. Young Elliott, his journey, his heart and his heartbreak are the singularity around which everything else helplessly orbits. E.T. and Elliott form an empathic bond beyond an ordinary friendship, and before long E.T.’s actions are having a noticeable effect on his new friend’s behaviour and eventually his health, and both begin to rapidly decline as the alien’s link to his people grows weaker.

Spielberg is one of the greatest directors of children, and the performances of Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore (as his little sister Gertie) never feel anything less than natural, little touches like playing games on set and keeping the E.T. puppet moving between takes helping to keep the magic alive.

Some of Spielberg’s go-to genre storytelling tropes began here – distrust of government agencies; families with absent fathers; kids’ imaginations providing solace from trying circumstances – and all have rarely felt more poignant, each heightened by John Williams’ magical musical accompaniment.

Spielberg dipped into unusual and often upsetting family experiences in his stories throughout the 1980s, from siblings, parents and children torn apart by prejudice and war in The Colour Purple and Empire of the Sun to Indiana Jones’ complicated and resentful relationship with his dad in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

1990s: Saving Private Ryan (Trauma and Innovation Era)

The 1990s saw Spielberg make one of the all-time great crowd-pleasing blockbusters with Jurassic Park, but seemingly in counter-point to providing audiences with such pure escapism, he began to look inward, to self-reflect and analyse humanity’s relationship to historical trauma. This era was highlighted by the harrowing Schindler’s List, the powerful Amistad, and the relentlessly visceral Saving Private Ryan.

In 1944, a squad of US soldiers led by ex-teacher Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) is given a mission to find the last Ryan brother fighting in Normandy. They are to deliver condolences regarding the death of Ryan’s three siblings and orders to take compassionate leave on the grounds that the US government hopes to spare a mother from losing all of her sons in one fell swoop.

It is Saving Private Ryan that perhaps best epitomises Spielberg’s career trajectory throughout the 1990s, balancing as it does staggering technical innovation (today it is still one of the most frequently cited stylistic influences on just about every modern war film from Black Hawk Down to 1917), startling action set pieces on a massive canvas, and heartbreak very much grounded in the real world.

You’re not really given a moment to orientate yourself here, flashing straight back from sombre remembrance of the fallen right into the thick of war, and then it refuses to let up for almost 3 hours.

Spielberg and screenwriter Robert Rodat’s mastery of economic character expression drives unshowy performances from the film’s ensemble (particularly Hanks), and Janusz Kamiński’s immediate, painfully real cinematography combines with this for a pretty potent cocktail.

Ryan is one of the few movies it has been deemed OK for insecure manly men to openly cry at, but any viewer is put through the emotional wringer in one of the truly great war films that’s all about familial love and the heartbreakingly high cost of conflict.

2000s: Minority Report (Future Blockbuster Era)

Minority Report Review

Spielberg’s films remained big-budget and visually flashy at the turn of the millennium, but he also plunged into exploring massive science-fiction what-if scenarios in addition to continuing with his usual fascination with fractured family dynamics. All three of his cerebral sci-fis from the 2000s (A.I. Artificial Intelligence, War of the Worlds and Minority Report), made for around the same budget and loosely adapted from works of literature, could be considered blockbusters, but it is the latter that was the most successful project.

In a near-future Washington, we follow the early days of the Precrime Initiative that predicts every future perpetrator of a violent crime and allows the police to arrest them before blood is spilt. When Captain John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is accused of being about to murder a man he has never met, he goes on the run with one of Precrime’s psychic “precogs” and attempts to unravel the mystery of his upcoming crime and the shady origins of the institution he works for.

Like most of Spielberg’s work, Minority Report is grounded in family, in this case a family torn asunder and still processing unimaginable presumed loss. That’s the most heartbreaking part of Anderton’s story; his living with the cruel uncertainty over whether his son is alive or dead. Samantha Morton’s Agatha and her precog brothers were likewise taken from their parents and used for dark ends by sinister authorities. 

This is thrilling, intriguing stuff, with a gripping noir mystery plot that constantly wrong-foots you; a film that has no shortage of exciting futuristic set pieces – notably when Anderton hides in a grim apartment from spidery police drones, blinded as the clock ticks down to his newly transplanted eyes healing. 

Probably the best way to adapt Philip K Dick’s writing is to use just a single intriguing idea as a basis for a whole new story, and here Spielberg and his screenwriters expand on the core premise to create a terrifyingly plausible authoritarian future.

2010s: Lincoln (Popcorn and Prestige Era)

The technology-pushing The Adventures of Tintin and Ready Player One aside, the 2010s could be considered Steven Spielberg’s period of commitment to prestige filmmaking; telling powerful true stories of icons and world-shaping events. How can you tell you’re onto “Serious Spielberg” even before the film is released? Well, he’s normally photographed wearing a suit and tie on set, seemingly out of respect for the material and the people he is depicting on film.

The firmly mid-tier Spielberg movies War Horse, Bridge of Spies and The Post all have their memorable moments, but Lincoln stands high over them, even without the stovepipe hat.

One of Spielberg’s few straight biopics presents far from a simplistic view of Civil War-era America and the cloak-and-dagger strategies necessarily employed in the US House of Representatives. This film is not a sweeping decades-spanning epic cataloguing Abraham Lincoln’s (Daniel Day-Lewis’) eventful life, but a record of a messy, complicated time in a young country’s history, laser-focusing on just a few months in 1865 in the leadup to the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment.

The cast of this project is frankly the most ridiculously stacked of Spielberg’s career – Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, David Strathairn, James Spader, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Hal Holbrook… (take a breath)… John Hawkes, Jackie Earle Haley, Tim Blake Nelson, David Oyelowo, Colman Domingo, Jared Harris, Walton Goggins, Adam Driver…

This is a grounded, naturalistic historical political thriller almost to a fault. The Gettysburg Address isn’t even delivered in the film in full by the president himself but split between several soldiers who witnessed it being delivered years earlier. The most entertaining moments come from the speeches in the House and the underhanded tactics employed to influence key votes, but the more compelling scenes are the domestic lulls between the Lincolns at home.

Day-Lewis was rightly acclaimed not just for fully inhabiting a giant of history but for making him flawed and human every step of the journey, a seemingly mild-mannered but passionate and deeply intelligent man trying to achieve the impossible: to reunite and reform his country. 

2020s: West Side Story (Reminiscence and Nostalgia Era)

West Side Story Review

It might be too early to tell exactly what pattern this latest, perhaps last decade of Spielberg filmmaking will reveal, but from his first two films released in the 2020s he seems to be in a reflective, somewhat nostalgic frame of mind.

Spielberg has been very open about the heavily autobiographical nature of The Fabelmans, looking back on the experiences that made him the man and the artist he is, and midway through his seventh decade on Earth he finally turned his hand to one of his favourite genres: the musical.

West Side Story is the great modern re-telling of “Romeo and Juliet”, a love story across divides following Tony (Anson Elgort) of the Jets gang who falls for Maria (Rachel Zegler), the sister of the leader of the rival Sharks, their love having costly consequences for everyone in their orbit.

Spielberg had imbued his movies with musical flourishes in the past – 1941 and Temple of Doom both have their Broadway tribute scenes – but to choose your personal favourite musical to re-adapt and have compared to one of the most beloved musical films of all time was bold and no mistake.

Not content to simply re-stage the original in a modern filmmaking style, Spielberg and regular screenwriter Tony Kushner acknowledge the aspects of the stage show and original film that haven’t aged well and approach them differently, making the socio-political and racial angle more central to the story and giving the appropriate faces and voices their time in the spotlight, while never anachronistically taming the raging prejudices that were rife in the period the story is set in.

Spielberg’s favourite 1990s cinematographer Janusz Kamiński returns to give this reimagining of West Side Story an expressionistic flare, and the entire ensemble – particularly the supporting players Ariana DeBose and Mike Faist (as Anita and Riff respectively) – bring new dimensions and nuance to their characters in addition to belting out beloved songs with aplomb.

You don’t remake a classic unless you have a completely fresh take and are confident in your vision. Thankfully this is Steven Spielberg we’re talking about, and even with his nostalgia goggles on his artistic vision is seemingly without limit.

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