Raiders of the Lost Ark, but Jaws and Saving Private Ryan come pretty close. Schindler’s List is one of those movies that I’ve always meant to watch but never have.
I decided I would pick just one, rather than the next to last option, and boy was this difficult. Spielberg has made a few turkeys, but many great films. I like the thing Charlton Heston said about him in Heston’s autobiography. Heston compared Spielberg to Cecil B. DeMille, saying they both had their finger on the pulse of what Americans would go to see.
I finally decided on Jaws. Favorite doesn’t necessarily mean “the best”. He made this movie when he was only twenty-six. No matter how many times I’ve seen it it scares me. With this movie you knew the guy had talent, and would only get better in the future. So when he made those “greater” films, it was only to be expected.
Schindler’s List was superb. Raiders of the Lost Ark a wonderful romp. Jurassic Park was also scary, but by then special effects had advanced so much you couldn’t compare it to Jaws
I decided to pick the one that I enjoyed the most the first time I saw it, and that would have to be Jaws, with a full 10 out of 10 as a movie going experience. If I were to pick one I’d rather see again today, I would go with Schindler’s List, which I would have given a strong 9 the time I first saw it. I saw both at the time of their initial release.
I kinda can’t help but feel sorry for the person who doesn’t like ANY of those listed.
I chose I couldn’t possibly pick just one. If that weren’t an option I would have chosen Close Encounters. Or Raiders. Or Munich. Or AI. Or Catch Me If You Can. Or Minority Report. Or ET. Or Jaws. Or Sugarland Express. I even liked 1941 and Always. Close Encounters means a lot to me though.
I saw the episode of Night Gallery when it aired. I saw Duel when it first aired on TV, and once I learned who directed both of them I knew he was special. Years later I saw Duel in the theater. Except for the somewhat TVish production values, it held up as a big screen scare.
The only ones I have not seen besides the shorts are Empire of the Sun, Hook and Schindler’s List (I know, I know).
Wow, a real-life example of why the Oxford comma is a really good idea. The first time I read this, I thought you meant that Hook and Amistad were his two student films.
I picked Raiders, though there are several that are just barely behind it.
I have to say that E.T. is really special to me. I know it gets dogged on a lot nowadays–people think it hasn’t aged well, and there are the unrelenting comments about the guns replaced by walkie-talkies (when I purchased the DVD, it included BOTH versions: the new one and the old one, guns and all.). But I was 10 years old when E.T. came out, making me the same age as Elliot, and that movie captured my imagination like nothing else (except, perhaps, Star Wars). The kids act like real kids, the depiction of suburbia is spot on, and there are many magical moments throughout the film. I even read the novelization (and it’s sequel) when I was young. It’s still my favorite “kid movie.”
Good thing they weren’t, or he wouldn’t have graduated.
I’m definitely in the minority here as I think there are many, many more turkeys here than cinema gold. However, he has done half a dozen great movies-- of these I’ll pick Schindler’s List.
Can’t choose between Raiders and Jaws. CE3K and Schindler’s are on the next tier down, though both would be masterpieces for a lesser director. I give most of the credit for Jurassic Park and Saving Private Ryan to his technical staff, particularly Stan Winston and Dale Dye. Their work was fantastic; the rest of both movies, not so much. Not to say that, for example, Tom Hanks’s performance was bad—I felt he was quite good—it’s just that both of those movies are memorable for the effects.
His endings were a lot more tolerable when I was younger, and I blame him more than Abrams for the last 30 minutes of Super 8.
Empire of the Sun is a really underrated treat for its cinematography. I found the protagonist annoying, but the film’s just so damn pretty that his performance was easy to forgive. Need to re-see it. (Along with 1941, to see if it’s still the hot mess I remember; I remember Belushi stealing every scene he was in.)
I need to see Duel, Amistad, and the first half of AI.
I don’t think I can do it. It would be between three of them:
ET - it was the greatest movie of my childhood, and it will always be the most special to me. But as an adult, I can recognize that its not his best to me.
Schindler’s List - one of the best films made by anyone, IMO, but not exactly an entertaining film, if you know what I mean.
War of the Worlds - one of my very favorite movies
And then, with Jaws and Raiders (which hasn’t aged all that well) and The Color Purple…
Just can’t do it
Jaws for me and by a comfortable margin. I think it might be his most complete and consistent effort. But then again, I have never seen Schindler’s List.
The Raiders films ( well, the first one ) are fun, but a bit slight. Several others are quite good like the excellent CEot3K, but are marred a bit by the trademark Spielberg gloppy ending. Minority Report intrigues me, as it is potentially very dark and un-Spielbergian, but I just can’t decide if I trust Spielberg’s sensibilities enough to accept that was his intent :D.
But despite his sometimes over-the-top sentimentality, you gotta admit the guy has a heck of a lot of talent. Most of his films have something about them worth watching.
However I do admit to hating on E.T.. No sir, don’t like it.
I voted Schindler’s list because, while I like the other movies on the list that I’ve seen, none of them seemed to be as helped by the direction as that one.
Jurassic Park would be right behind that, in that he made unrealistic CGI seem real. Normally that sort of stuff fails on repeat viewings, but this one didn’t.
I was so tempted to pick 1941. Just to piss everyone off.
Raiders of the Lost Ark by a nose.
His GREATEST film is Schindler’s List, but it isn’t my* favourite*.
I selected Duel because it was the first movie of his I saw, it terrified me as a kid, and has aged fairly well, even though there are a few large plot holes.
It is similar to Jaws in that the shark was such a problem they had to minimize its screen time. Duel’s antagonist is a truck driver who the audience never sees.
I really like Duel for many reasons, the largest is that it’s the first movie that wasn’t meant for kids that I remember having an impact on me. No Wizard of Oz flying monkeys for me. This was a real guy driving a real truck. When I went on vacation as a child, we usually drove everywhere… and I remember if we passed a truck that passed us that we passed again, I thought to myself… uh oh, this could end up as a duel!
I won’t give the movie away, but some of the things in the movie are laughable now, like the speed limits that Dennis Weaver is driving on the way to his big business meeting. Whipping around the deserted highways at 45 mph is enough to get anyone excited.
My choice really came down to three movies. In chronological order, they were: Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. I almost immediately eliminated Jaws, as, goddamned good as it is, it’s the weakest of the three. And then it came down to Indy vs. E.T., and damn, that was a tough choice! On the one hand, I emphatically believe that Raiders is the best action movie ever filmed; on the other hand, E.T. is a heartbreakingly sweet and honest piece of filmmaking, as magical as movies can get (well, it and The Wizard of Oz), and is Spielberg’s most personal and heartfelt film to date.
The deciding factor for me was that Raiders, as a story, is more George Lucas’ baby than it is Spielberg’s, and E.T. is, well, see above. So I went with E.T..
And for the record, my top five are:
[ol]
[li]E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial[/li][li]Raiders of the Lost Ark[/li][li]Jaws[/li][li]Jurassic Park[/li][li]Schindler’s List (his second-most-personal work)[/li][/ol]
Now for the $64,000 question: Will Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull get even one vote?
The Color Purple, simply because it had so much going against it. It was a hard book to turn into a movie, both in subject matter and style of writing. Spielberg had not proved himself as a serious director, and none of the leads was a proven actor–Oprha Winfrey, Danny Glover and Whoopi Goldberg were not thought of as serious actors at the time.
Yet almost everyone was nominated for an Oscar except Spielberg. How does a film get nominated for 11 Oscars and not have one for the director? WHO did the Academy think put the damn movie together? It holds the record for Oscar nominations of a Spielberg film
Schindler’s List had 12 nominations and Saving Private Ryan is tied with The Color Purple at 11.
This was a difficult choice. There were quite a few very good movies on this list.
But in the end I chose “Schindler’s List”. When I saw that movie I had such a deep emotional reaction I cried for hours.
It looks like I’m not the only one who picked Raiders here. That thing came out when I was 10 and I thought the rollicking adventure story was great, a few years later I found out that it was an homage to the pulp serials from the 30s and 40s and that added my appreication for it.
Other movies are really good and I think Raiders gets the nod from me by just a hair.
Toss up between Jaws, Raiders and Saving Private Ryan w/ Duel right behind.
In the end I went with Jaws though, both for what it did to me when it first came out and in the probably dozen times I’ve seen it since.