"Spielberg" redirects here. For other uses, see Spielberg (disambiguation)
Steven Allan Spielberg ( ; born December 18, 1946) is an American 💻 film director, producer and screenwriter. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he 💻 is the most commercially successful director in history.[1] He is the recipient of many accolades, including three Academy Awards, two 💻 BAFTA Awards, and four Directors Guild of America Awards, as well as the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1995, the 💻 Kennedy Center Honor in 2006, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2009 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2024. 💻 Seven of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically 💻 or aesthetically significant".[2][3]
Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona.[4] He moved to California and studied 💻 film in college. After directing several episodes for television, including Night Gallery and Columbo, he directed the television film Duel 💻 (1971), which later received an international theatrical release. He made his theatrical film debut with The Sugarland Express (1974) and 💻 became a household name with the 1975 summer blockbuster Jaws. He directed more box office successes with Close Encounters of 💻 the Third Kind (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and the original Indiana Jones trilogy (1981–89). He subsequently explored drama in 💻 The Color Purple (1985) and Empire of the Sun (1987).
In 1993, Spielberg directed back-to-back blockbuster hits with the science fiction 💻 thriller Jurassic Park, the highest-grossing film ever at the time, and the Holocaust drama Schindler's List, which has often been 💻 listed as one of the greatest films ever made. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for the latter 💻 and the 1998 World War II epic Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg has since directed the science fiction films A.I. Artificial 💻 Intelligence (2001), Minority Report (2002), and War of the Worlds (2005); the adventure films The Adventures of Tintin (2011) and 💻 Ready Player One (2024); the historical dramas Amistad (1997), Munich (2005), War Horse (2011), Lincoln (2012), Bridge of Spies (2024) 💻 and The Post (2024); the musical West Side Story (2024); and the semi-autobiographical drama The Fabelmans (2024).
Spielberg co-founded Amblin Entertainment 💻 and DreamWorks, and he has served as a producer for many successful films and television series, among them Poltergeist (1982), 💻 Gremlins (1984), Back to the Future (1985), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Band of Brothers (1999). He has had 💻 a long collaboration with the composer John Williams, with whom he has worked for all but five of his feature 💻 films.[5][6] Several of Spielberg's works are considered among the greatest films in history, and some are among the highest-grossing films 💻 ever.[7] In 2013, Time listed him as one of the 100 most influential people,[8] and in 2024, Spielberg was the 💻 recipient of the first ever TIME100 Impact Award in the U.S.[9] Reviewing Close Encounters, Pauline Kael called the young Spielberg 💻 "a magician in the age of movies."[10]