Steven Spielberg’s 21st Century Movies Ranked

Spielberg’s best movie of the century so far is also his most controversial for the simple fact that it wasn’t initially perceived as even being his movie. Stanley Kubrick had been working on the project in one form or another since the 1970s, eventually handing it off to his friend a few years before his death in 1999; the misunderstanding was always overblown, with Spielberg once telling Variety’s Joe Leydon that “People pretend to think they know Stanley Kubrick, and think they know me, when most of them don’t know either of us. And what’s really funny about that is, all the parts of ‘A.I.’ that people assume were Stanley’s were mine. And all the parts of ‘A.I.’ that people accuse me of sweetening and softening and sentimentalizing were all Stanley’s.” If there’s little doubt that the emotional tenor of “A.I.” would have been different had the “2001” helmer directed it, there’s also no denying the profound emotional impact of Spielberg’s vision.

“Titanic” made Leonardo DiCaprio one of the biggest movie stars in the world, but “Catch Me If You Can” proved his doubters wrong for good. He was always more than a heartthrob, of course, but working with Spielberg showed a side of him that was new to many viewers — thanks in no small part to the push-pull dynamic between his Frank Abagnale and Tom Hanks’ FBI agent in this endlessly entertaining game of cat and mouse. How true any of it really was remains an open question 20 years later, but the quality of the film itself is not.

If it seems odd that Spielberg didn’t collaborate with Tom Cruise until 2002, at least the result was worth the wait. As thought-provoking as it is thrilling, this adaptation of the Philip K. Dick story remains an exemplar of the sci-fi genre — not to mention an uncomfortably prescient one.

Movies about the power of movies are as old as the movies themselves, but the sentiment feels different coming from Spielberg — is there a single filmmaker alive more synonymous with just that in the public imagination? Beginning with a little boy afraid to go to his first movie and ending with that same boy, now a young man, well on his way to making movies of his own, “The Fabelmans” is a love letter to cinema as only Spielberg could have made.

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves — or, in this case, at least a dozen. Vengeance never soothes the soul, but the higher-ups in “Munich” tell the Mossad operative doing their dirty work (Eric Bana) insist that it will make him, his family and Israel itself safer in the wake of the devastating Munich massacre of 1972. But will it actually? Every revenge movie worth its salt questions the very notion of revenge, but few do it as hauntingly as this.

A certain presidential administration’s endless attacks on the free press reminded many of us of just how essential the fourth estate is, and few recent movies have captured that essence quite like “The Post.” It helps that Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep — in what was somehow their first (and, to date, only) collaboration — represent an even more impressive topline than most Spielberg pictures, but the detail-oriented procedural vibe of this ripped-from-headlines drama was all the more involving for how meticulous it was.

The recent death of Mehran Karimi Nasseri, whose story inspired “The Terminal,” was probably the first time most people had thought of the movie in years. That’s a shame, as it’s an incredibly sweet — and sneakily great — dramedy in the classic Spielberg mold.

It may have failed at the box office, but Spielberg’s take on the landmark musical lived up to its source material and then some. Given that the original “West Side Story” is among the most revered musicals ever made, that’s no easy feat; it’s also little surprise that Spielberg of all people pulled it off despite this being his first (and, according to him, only) foray into the genre.

“Lincoln” will always be remembered for Daniel Day-Lewis’ penultimate performance, the one that brought him his third (and, if he stays retired, final) Academy Award for Best Actor, but this political procedural wouldn’t have worked nearly as well had the rest of the ensemble cast (including Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, and David Strathairn, among many others) not also been up to the task.

Is it sappy even by Spielberg’s standards? Yes. Is it moving nevertheless? Also yes. “War Horse” didn’t disabuse anyone of the notion that the world’s most famous filmmaker is a sentimentalist — quite the opposite, in fact — and though you can disagree as to whether that’s to the detriment of his work (sometimes yes, usually no) there’s little arguing that anyone else does saccharine quite so effectively.

Tom Hanks was the headliner once again, but it was Mark Rylance — a theater legend whose cinematic output was at that time fairly scarce — who garnered the most headlines, not to mention an Oscar. “Bridge of Spies” isn’t as cold as the war it depicts, but neither is it a standout among its director’s recent work.

The ending was a disappointment to anyone who didn’t know that H.G. Wells’ novel concluded in the same fashion, but this was still a faithful, engaging adaptation — and might even be a highlight of a lesser filmmaker’s body of work.

Kudos to the master for never straying far from his genre roots and doing more with Ernest Cline’s novel than anyone else could have, but it was still hard not to wish Spielberg had adapted something else instead.

Spielberg’s reverence for the source material — originally a comic book but since adapted for nearly every medium imaginable — is present in every frame, but The Adventures of Tintin is ultimately as much a trip to the uncanny valley as it is to memory lane. Strong box office and largely positive reviews showed that most were unbothered by the motion-capture aesthetic, but some of us just couldn’t get past it.

It made sense that Spielberg would reteam with Mark Rylance after directing him to an Oscar in “Bridge of Spies”; on paper, it even made sense that Rylance would play the eponymous big friendly giant. On the screen, however, this adaptation of Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s novel fell flat.

If word of a new (and presumably final) Indiana Jones movie came as welcome news despite the fact that Spielberg won’t be directing it, it’s probably because it means that “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” will no longer be the last entry in the series. The second-highest-grossing movie of 2008 was also Spielberg’s least memorable of the 21st century, with the fun of its ‘50s-pulp vibe offset by lame CGI and the introduction of an heir to Indy who (thankfully) never got his own spinoff.