Jaws. Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Raiders of the Lost Ark. E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial. Jurassic Park. Schindler’s List. Saving Private Ryan. War of the Worlds. Eight films, each one an undeniable masterpiece of its form or a standout of its particular genre. Each one a commercial and critical hit. All, in the end, connected by filmmaker Steven Spielberg, one of — if not, the most — most popular director of a singular era spanning five decades, not just a generational, one-of-one filmmaker, but even more, a multi-generational filmmaker (from Boomers to Gen A and likely beyond).
A complete collection of Spielberg’s cinematic works would span 35 feature-length films. beginning with 1971’s Duel, a TV-movie that was anything but the disposal movie-of-the week of the time, and through his latest film, Disclosure Day, a return to the science-fiction/alien visitation sub-genre Spielberg redefined with his follow-up to Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And that’s not including his short-lived TV work (e.g., Night Gallery, Name of the Game, and Columbo) that allowed Spielberg, an obsessive cineaste who started making films in high school. Even with a minimum of extras or rights issues, an upscaled box set would be a garguntuan undertaking, likely split into multiple parts, likely by decade, occupying entire bookshelves, and weighing somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 pounds, if not more.
“Steven Spielberg: The Spotlight Collection” is anything but a complete set — that’s probably a decade or two away (if at all) — but as it says on the tin, the 4K, steelbook box set, contains some of Spielberg’s most popular, well-regarded films mentioned in the first paragraph, roughly covering three decades, from 1977’s Jaws, Spieliberg’s adaptation of Peter Benchley’s airport novel that practically defined the word “blockbuster,” through 2005’s War of the Worlds, Spielberg’s adaptation of H.G. Wells’ 1898 anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist novel, remimagined for a post-9-11/Iraq War world, in Spielberg’s inimitable style.
After Jaws conquered the summer of 1975, outpacing competitors, terrifying beachgoers, and setting box-office records, Spielberg received the equivalent of a blank check to make whatever he wanted next. A sprawling, effects-heavy, thematically layered effort, Close Encounters of the Third Kind competed with George Lucas’s Star Wars for the box-office crown (spoiler alert: Star Wars handily won that battle), but it confirmed Spielberg as an incredibly talented, creative filmmaker with the rare blend of commercial and artistic impulses, delivering spectacle on a scale and scope so expansive that it left his contemporaries in varying stages of awe, wonder, and envy, justifiably so given the magnitude of Spielberg’s accomplishment. And Spielberg was only just getting started.
A career as long and prolific as Spielberg’s has had its share of misfires, but they won’t be found here. Conspiciously absent from the box set, Spielberg’s next effort, 1941, his first period film and his last attemtp at comedy, didn’t fail commercially, but scathing reviews convinced Spielberg, this time working with his lifelong friend and producing partner, George Lucas, to team up on a big-budget pastiche of ‘30s-‘40s-era serials/cliffhangers. Spielberg refound his footing as a blockbuster director, Harrison Ford cemented his movie star status, and the perfect period adventure film was born. None of the sequels — nor its many imitators — captured the cinematic magic found in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
A return to the science-fiction genre, albeit with a more kid-friendly approach, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial returned Spielberg to the sunny suburbia of his youth. In telling an all-ages story of intergalactic friendship, Spielberg occasionally slipped into the unearned or manipulative sentimentality that would become an ongoing issue later in his career, but at least here, he kept it sufficiently in check. The connection the title character, E.T., makes with his human counterpart, Elliot (Henry Thomas), struck audiences at a deeply emotional, profound level. In concluding with a bittersweet, likely final goodbye to an interspecies friendship, it reversed Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Neary’s departure: Elliot and E.T. return to their respective homes and families, the empathetic experience bettering them as individuals in the process.
Although the box set focuses on Spielberg’s most popular, commercial films (e.g., Jurassic Park, as impersonal a blockbuster as any in Spielberg’s filmography), it also includes Schindler’s List, the Holocaust drama Spielberg considers his best, and which won him the first of two Academy Awards for Best Director. It’s also his most difficult, least commercial film, and thus, his most essential. For all of its technical craft and polish or Spielberg’s then-controversial decision to shoot Schindler’s List in black-and-white, there’s no denying its confrontational, provocative power. It’s a reminder both of humanity lost, and humanity regained, of the inherent dangers in “othering,” in creating purely ideological distinctions (race, religion, gender) that can lead to the genocide or attempted genocide of any entire people.
Arriving in movie theaters only five years later, Saving Private Ryan, revisits World War II, this time from the position of the Allies and the D-Day Normany invasion. Unshackled by the ratings systems or playing to four-quadrant demographics, Spielberg martialed every resource at his disposal, along with his mastery of blocking, camera placement, and camera movement, to recreate the Normandy invasion with more fidelity to the on-the-ground truth than any WWII before or since. Everything that followed reminded audiences of the sacrifices made by the Greatest Generation to safeguard Western freedoms against fascism and Nazi Germany.
The box-set concludes with Spielberg’s adaptation of Wells’ genre- and trope-defining novel, War of the Worlds. All but a direct response to Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Roy Neary’s (Richard Dreyfuss) decision to abandon his family to obsessively pursue his vision of alien contact (a secular version of spiritual communion and transcendence), War of the Worlds stubbornly remains fixated on Tom Cruise’s Everyman character, a crane operator, and his film-long journey to save his children from the Martians’ totalizing invasion of the world.
The ground level, Everyman-and-his-family take closely aligned with Wells’ novel, but while it proved frustrating for some critics and moviegoers, few could deny Spielberg’s continued set piece mastery. In set piece after another, from the Martians’ arrival and their emergence in their tripods from a long-buried, underground nest or burrow through a freeway escape, and an ill-fated attempt to escape the tripods on an overcrowded ferry, Spielberg delivered a rare blend of high-concept science fiction and survival horror. Thematically, War of the Worlds reflected its contemporary setting, post-9-11/Iraq War fears and anxieties back at the audience.
Since then, Spielberg has delivered one banger after another (minus the occasional misfire), all deserving of similarly deluxe treatment sometime down the line. A chronological decade-by-decade 4K release, one including every film in Spielberg’s filmography, along with the requisite extras, seems inevitable. Any collection covering more than a small subset of Spielberg’s filmography is certain to be expensive, but for a filmmaker of Spielberg’s caliber, it’ll certainly be worth it, too.
Until then, this eight-film sampler of Spielberg’s best or of not best, best well-known films will have to do for Spielberg’s fans. Besides the expected remastering in 4K of every title in the box set, the box set includes over 25 hours of illuminating, informative extras, a primer for Spielberg newbies and a reminder for everyone else of what makes Spielberg the quintessential American filmmaker of the late 20th and early 21st century.
Special Features
- Jaws
- JAWS @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story
- The Making of JAWS
- The Shark Is Still Working: The Impact & Legacy of JAWS
- JAWS: The Restoration
- Deleted Scenes and Outtakes
- From The Set
- Theatrical Trailer
- Galleries
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind
- Includes all 3 versions of the film (Theatrical Version, Special Edition, Director’s Cut)
- Three Kinds of Close Encounters
- Steven’s Home Videos & Outtakes
- Steven Spielberg: 30 Years of Close Encounters
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Making of Documentary
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Watch the Skies
- Deleted Scenes
- Storyboard Comparisons
- Extensive Photo Gallery
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind – Original Theatrical Trailer
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind – Special Edition Trailer
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Teaser Trailer
- Theatrical Trailer
- Re-Issue Trailer
- E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
- 40 Years of E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
- TCM Classic Film Festival: An Evening with Steven Spielberg
- The E.T. Journals
- Deleted Scenes
- Steven Spielberg & E.T.
- A Look Back
- The Evolution and Creation of E.T.
- The E.T. Reunion
- The Music of E.T.: A Discussion with John Williams
- The 20th Anniversary Premiere
- Designs, Photographs, and Marketing
- Theatrical Trailer
- Special Olympics TV Spot
- Jurassic Park
- Return to Jurassic Park: Dawn of a New Era
- Return to Jurassic Park: Making Prehistory
- Return to Jurassic Park: The Next Step in Evolution
- Archival Featurettes
- The Making of Jurassic Park
- Original Featurette on the Making of the Film
- Steven Spielberg Directs Jurassic Park
- Hurricane in Kauai Featurette
- Behind the Scenes
- Early Pre-Production Meetings
- Location Scouting
- Phil Tippett Animatics: Raptors in the Kitchen
- Animatics: T-Rex Attack
- ILM and Jurassic Park: Before and After the Visual Effects
- Foley Artists
- Storyboards
- Production Archives
- Theatrical Trailer
- Schindler’s List
- Schindler’s List: 25 Years Later
- Voices from the List
- USC Shoah Foundation Story with Steven Spielberg (2018)
- Let Their Testimonies Speak – Stronger Than Hate
- About iWitness (2018)
- Saving Private Ryan
- An Introduction
- Looking Into the Past
- Miller and His Platoon
- Boot Camp
- Making Saving Private Ryan
- Re-Creating Omaha Beach
- Music and Sound
- Parting Thoughts
- Into the Breach: Saving Private Ryan
- Theatrical Trailer
- Re-Release Trailer
- Shooting War
- War of the Worlds
- Revisiting the Invasion
- The H.G. Wells Legacy
- Steven Spielberg and the Original War of the Worlds
- Characters: The Family Unit
- Previsualization
- Production Diaries
- Designing the Enemy: Tripods and Aliens
- Scoring War of the Worlds
- We Are Not Alone
- Galleries
- Theatrical Teaser Trailer
Steven Spielberg: The Spotlight Collection is available for purchase at online and brick-and-mortar retailers.
