Spielberg, Steven

US film director, writer, and producer. One of the most commercially successful film-makers in the history of US cinema, Spielberg began his career in television, most famously directing Duel (1971). His credits include the box-office successes Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), ET The Extraterrestrial (1982), Jurassic Park (1992), the multi-award-winning Schindler's List (1993), and Saving Private Ryan (1998). In 1994 he formed a partnership with David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg to create a new Hollywood studio called DreamWorks SKG, although he remains an independent contractor.

Spielberg, alongside Francis Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and George Lucas, was one of the new generation of ‘movie brats’ who emerged in the late 1960s. He made his feature film debut with The Sugarland Express (1974). His second feature film Jaws grossed $260 million and established his reputation as a pioneer of cinematic technique, heralding a new era of blockbuster films with fantastic themes. Spielberg set up Amblin Entertainment, an independent production company, in 1984. Responding to criticism that he could not make a serious film, he directed The Color Purple (1985), a drama based on the novel by US Pulitzer prize-winning author Alice Walker. Schindler's List won him his first Academy Awards, for Best Director and Best Picture; Saving Private Ryan won him a second award for Best Director. Spielberg was awarded the Irving Thalberg Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1987 and the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award in 1995.