Special Report

32 Steven Spielberg Movies Ranked Worst to Best

Steven Spielberg is in the pantheon of cinema’s greatest directors. The three-time Best Director Oscar winner has helmed such modern classics as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981), “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (1982), “Schindler’s List” (1993), “Jurassic Park” (1993) “Saving Private Ryan” (1998), and “Lincoln” (2012). (See who has won the Oscar for best director every year since the Oscars began.)

He has demonstrated his versatility in directing science-fiction films, dramas, historical-themed movies, adventures, and fantasy. The motion picture industry has rewarded that versatility. Spielberg’s films have been nominated for Best Picture 11 times, and he won once, for “Schindler’s List.”

Though his first theatrical feature, the critically acclaimed anti-hero crime drama “Sugarland Express,” got the movie industry’s attention in 1974, it was the blockbuster thriller “Jaws” a year later that launched him into stardom — and incidentally introduced audience, and film producers, to the concept of summer blockbusters. (These 20 little-known facts about “Jaws” may surprise you.)

To determine Steven Spielberg’s best movies (as well as those that didn’t fare as well), 24/7 Tempo reviewed data on the number of audience ratings and popularity of a wide range of films from Rotten Tomatoes, an online movie and TV review aggregator, and IMDb, an online movie database owned by Amazon. Movies with at least 5,000 audience votes on either IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes were ranked using a composite score based on RT’s audience score and IMDb’s average user ratings.

Click here to see Steven Spielberg’s movies ranked worst to best

At least 10 of the films Spielberg has directed have topped more than 90% on the Rotten Tomatoes Freshness gauge. In addition to directing, he has had success as a producer, having had a hand in hits such as “Back to the Future” (1985), “Cape Fear” (1991), “Twister” (1996), and “Letters From Iwo Jima.” His imprint on the culture was officially validated in 2015 when Spielberg was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

As successful as his career has been, not all of Spielberg’s films are the stuff of immortality. The “Jurassic Park” sequel “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” managed a Rotten Tomatoes Freshness score of just 53%. The comedy “1941” registered a score of just 42% among Rotten Tomatoes critics, despite featuring “Saturday Night Live” stars John Belushi and Dan Akroyd. But those missteps have been few, and his place in motion picture history as among the greatest of film directors is assured.

Courtesy of Universal Pictures

32. 1941 (1979)
> IMDb user rating: 5.8/10 (32,614 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 48% (24,124 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 42% (24 reviews)
> Starring: John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Treat Williams, Nancy Allen

This is a screwball comedy about Californians in a panic over what they fear is an imminent invasion by Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The movie featured “Saturday Night Live” stars John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd.

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Courtesy of Universal Pictures

31. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
> IMDb user rating: 6.6/10 (395,488 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 51% (651,982 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 53% (78 reviews)
> Starring: Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite, Vince Vaughn

Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough return in this sequel to the runaway hit “Jurassic Park” (see No. 7). Chicago Tribune critic Gene Siskel said the film “lacked a staple of Steven Spielberg adventure films: exciting characters.”

Courtesy of TriStar Pictures

30. Hook (1991)
> IMDb user rating: 6.8/10 (243,524 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 76% (731,388 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 29% (66 reviews)
> Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Robin Williams, Julia Roberts, Bob Hoskins

Spielberg reimagined the beloved Peter Pan franchise with Peter (Robin Williams) as a middle-aged lawyer trying to find his young children who were abducted by Capt. Hook (Dustin Hoffman). Malcolm Johnson of the Hartford Courant said, “Unhappily, however, the transformation of a Type A American lawyer into a boy wonder unfolds with an uncertainty and clumsiness atypical of Spielberg.”

Archive Photos / Moviepix via Getty Images

29. Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)
> IMDb user rating: 6.5/10 (36,452 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 55% (32,594 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 58% (40 reviews)
> Starring: Dan Aykroyd, Albert Brooks, Vic Morrow, Doug McGrath

This homage to the groundbreaking television series is presented in anthology style. Critics said the film was uneven. Spielberg was one of four directors of the movie, along with John Landis, Joe Dante, and George Miller.

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Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

28. War of the Worlds (2005)
> IMDb user rating: 6.5/10 (430,134 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 42% (32,518,946 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 75% (264 reviews)
> Starring: Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Tim Robbins, Miranda Otto

Critics liked this remake of the 1953 film based on the H.G. Wells’ novel more than audiences. Tom Cruise plays a dockwater trying to protect his children amid the chaos and destruction during an alien invasion.

Courtesy of United Artists

27. Always (1989)
> IMDb user rating: 6.4/10 (29,132 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 60% (22,772 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 64% (25 reviews)
> Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter, Brad Johnson, John Goodman

This is a fantasy about an airborne firefighter (Richard Dreyfuss) who dies saving the life of a fellow flyer and his spirit returns to see a pilot he mentored fall in love with his girlfriend (Holly Hunter). Critic Janet Maslin of the New York Times said the film had its sentimental moments, but “it lacks the intimacy to make any of this very moving.”

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Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

26. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
> IMDb user rating: 6.1/10 (439,008 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 53% (1,320,929 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 78% (277 reviews)
> Starring: Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Shia LaBeouf, Karen Allen

The fourth film in the smash-hit Indiana Jones franchise has Jones in a Cold War-era race to find the Crystal Skull of Akator in Peru before a Soviet agent (Cate Blanchett) does. Though not quite up to the appeal of the previous Indiana Jones films, critics appreciated its energy, though some found a fourth installment unnecessary.

Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

25. The BFG (2016)
> IMDb user rating: 6.4/10 (81,860 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 57% (38,040 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 74% (305 reviews)
> Starring: Mark Rylance, Ruby Barnhill, Penelope Wilton, Jemaine Clement

BFG stands for Big Friendly Giant, a role played by Mark Rylance, who befriends a 10-year-old girl. Together, they try to convince Queen Victoria to help them banish bad giants. The fantasy is based on a book by Roald Dahl. Sara Michelle Fetters of MovieFreak.com thought the film was a “delightful fantasy” and an “enchanting odyssey.”

Courtesy of DreamWorks Distribution

24. The Terminal (2004)
> IMDb user rating: 7.4/10 (429,768 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 74% (408,234 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 61% (207 reviews)
> Starring: Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chi McBride, Stanley Tucci

Tom Hanks stars as an Eastern European tourist trapped at a terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport when war breaks out in his country and the Department of Homeland Security won’t let him leave or enter the U.S. Matthew Lucas of The Dispatch (Lexington, N.C.) called it a “jaunty and charming comedy.”

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Courtesy of Warner Bros.

23. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
> IMDb user rating: 7.2/10 (298,848 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 64% (414,132 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 74% (196 reviews)
> Starring: Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O’Connor, Sam Robards

Haley Joel Osment plays a robotic child adopted by humans who finds he can’t adapt to the world around him and seeks a place where he will be accepted. Critic Andrew Bloom of The Spool opined “A.I. examines the morality of creating something that can love, that must love, but whose deeply-felt affections may not always be returned.”

Courtesy of Universal Pictures

22. The Sugarland Express (1974)
> IMDb user rating: 6.8/10 (16,418 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 66% (7,197 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 85% (48 reviews)
> Starring: Goldie Hawn, Ben Johnson, Michael Sacks, William Atherton

Spielberg’s first feature film, “The Sugarland Express” is about a couple (Goldie Hawn and William Atherton) who lose custody of their baby to the state of Texas and go to extremes to get the child back. In doing so, they become folk heroes. Critic John Huddy of the Miami Herald called the film “A work of depth and dimension.”

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Courtesy of Touchstone Pictures

21. War Horse (2011)
> IMDb user rating: 7.2/10 (152,286 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 74% (69,771 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 74% (238 reviews)
> Starring: Jeremy Irvine, Emily Watson, David Thewlis, Benedict Cumberbatch

This heart-tugging tale is the story of an English boy whose horse is sold to the British cavalry during World War I and his efforts to find his friend amid the carnage and destruction on the battlefields of Europe. Robbie Collin of Britain’s Daily Telegraph said “This is a soaring, sprawling epic that harks back to the dream-big visionaries of old Hollywood: John Ford, David Lean, David O. Selznick.”

Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

20. The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
> IMDb user rating: 7.3/10 (223,684 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 74% (77,565 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 74% (233 reviews)
> Starring: Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg

An animated adventure in the spirit of the Indiana Jones films, based on the popular comic books by the Belgian cartoonist Hergé, this is about a boy who buys a model of a wooden ship. Unbeknownst to him, the ship contains clues to the location of a buried treasure. Though most critics liked the movie, a dissenter was David Jays of Sight and Sound, who said “Like the thrill-sapping hero and anti-climactic denouement, it botches the full satisfaction of adrenaline adventure.”

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

19. Ready Player One (2018)
> IMDb user rating: 7.4/10 (399,550 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 77% (25,761 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 72% (444 reviews)
> Starring: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe

In the future, players pursue a digital Easter egg that when found will reward them with a large fortune. Olly Richards of NME said “It’s a film to watch and enjoy once, but probably not to return to again and again, like Spielberg’s best.”

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Courtesy of DreamWorks Distribution

18. Amistad (1997)
> IMDb user rating: 7.3/10 (74,278 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 79% (51,188 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 77% (65 reviews)
> Starring: Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, Anthony Hopkins, Morgan Freeman

In “Amistad,” a slave (Djimon Hounsou) aboard the ship Amistad bound for America, leads a slave revolt. After the rebellion is suppressed, the rebels are held in Connecticut to await trial, and a freed slave (Morgan Freeman) tries to line up legal help for them. “Amistad is certainly a film of considerable power,” said Eric L. McKitrick of the New York Review of Books.

Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

17. The Post (2017)
> IMDb user rating: 7.2/10 (143,850 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 73% (12,473 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 88% (404 reviews)
> Starring: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk

“The Post” is a solid newspaper yarn about The Washington Post’s efforts to catch up with the breakthrough story by The New York Times about the Pentagon Papers that revealed why America fought the Vietnam War. Critics lauded Meryl Streep’s performance as Post publisher Katharine Graham.

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Courtesy of Universal Pictures

16. Munich (2005)
> IMDb user rating: 7.5/10 (219,836 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 83% (330,282 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 78% (211 reviews)
> Starring: Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Marie-Josee Croze, Ciaran Hinds

After the massacre of its athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972, the Israeli government sends agents to retaliate against those who orchestrated the killing. Critics appreciated the performance of Eric Bana as one of the agents dealing with the consequences of his mission.

Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

15. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
> IMDb user rating: 7.5/10 (466,471 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 81% (717,093 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 84% (69 reviews)
> Starring: Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Ke Huy Quan, Amrish Puri

The first sequel in the Indiana Jones franchise is a bit darker than the original film. Jones is tasked by a small village in India to find a precious gem and some kidnapped boys. Kathleen Carroll of the New York Daily News called it a “rousing piece of entertainment.”

Courtesy of Touchstone Pictures

14. Lincoln (2012)
> IMDb user rating: 7.3/10 (252,659 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 81% (245,942 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 89% (285 reviews)
> Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Drawing from the research of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” the historical epic was an Oscar-winning triumph for Daniel Day-Lewis, who played America’s 16th president.

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Courtesy of Warner Bros.

13. Empire of the Sun (1987)
> IMDb user rating: 7.7/10 (120,588 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 90% (60,320 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 75% (56 reviews)
> Starring: Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson, Nigel Havers

A young Christian Bale plays an English boy living in Shanghai at the start of World War II who is captured by the Japanese and separated from his parents. Audiences liked the movie more than critics. David Denby of New York Magazine/Vulture said the film “is a great, overwrought movie that leaves one wordless and worn out.”

Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

12. Minority Report (2002)
> IMDb user rating: 7.6/10 (527,936 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 80% (481,676 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 90% (253 reviews)
> Starring: Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Max von Sydow

A provocative film based on a story by science fiction writer Philip K. Diсk, “Minority Report” is set in a future when law enforcement employs a technology that arrests and convicts murderers before they commit a crime. Namrata Joshi of Outlook said “Spielberg creates an intriguing world that is at once futuristic and accessible, it makes our collective imagination soar but is never alienating.”

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Courtesy of Universal Pictures

11. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
> IMDb user rating: 7.8/10 (388,407 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 72% (32,314,349 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 99% (133 reviews)
> Starring: Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, Peter Coyote, Dee Wallace

Considered to be one of Spielberg’s most human and beloved films, ” E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” is an unlikely buddy movie — an alien marooned on Earth who befriends a young boy who tries to help the alien to go home. The film enjoys a 99% Freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

10. Bridge of Spies (2015)
> IMDb user rating: 7.6/10 (299,689 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 87% (65,587 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 90% (312 reviews)
> Starring: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Alan Alda, Amy Ryan

Spielberg’s Cold War drama has Tom Hanks playing an attorney tasked with defending an accused spy portrayed by Mark Rylance. Critics credited Spielberg with pumping new life into the espionage genre.

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

9. The Color Purple (1985)
> IMDb user rating: 7.8/10 (82,574 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 94% (180,943 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 81% (31 reviews)
> Starring: Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, Margaret Avery

Audiences liked “The Color Purple” more than critics. Based on Alice Walker’s novel of the same name, the movie is about a woman (Whoopi Goldberg) enduring years of abuse and bigotry who longs to be reunited with her sister in Africa. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film “a great, warm, hard, unforgiving, triumphant movie.”

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Courtesy of Columbia Pictures

8. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
> IMDb user rating: 7.6/10 (192,623 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 85% (142,184 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 94% (64 reviews)
> Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Francois Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon

“Close Encounters of the Third Kind” dazzled audiences when it premiered in 1977. Richard Dreyfuss plays a man who encounters a UFO and will stop at nothing, including giving up his family life, to find the truth about his experience. Adam Kempenaar of Filmspotting said the movie “is a reassuring cry to the cosmos that your life matters, you matter.”

Courtesy of Universal Pictures

7. Jurassic Park (1993)
> IMDb user rating: 8.1/10 (912,545 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 91% (1,071,829 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 92% (130 reviews)
> Starring: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough

The film that launched the Jurassic Park franchise shares equal appeal among critics and audiences. Critics said the scenes of terror of dinosaurs created from prehistoric DNA and running amok in the 20th century evoked comparisons with Spielberg’s “Jaws” (see No. 4).

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Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

6. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
> IMDb user rating: 8.2/10 (719,323 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 94% (768,808 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 88% (73 reviews)
> Starring: Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Alison Doody, Denholm Elliott

Sean Connery and Harrison Ford play father and son in this well-received third installment of the Indiana Jones series. Spielberg applied a lighter touch in this film than other movies in the franchise, as Jones and his father pursue the Holy Grail.

Courtesy of DreamWorks Distribution

5. Catch Me If You Can (2002)
> IMDb user rating: 8.1/10 (891,479 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 89% (749,469 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 96% (203 reviews)
> Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen

“Catch Me If You Can” is a delightful romp based on the true story of con man Frank Abagnale outwitting an exasperated FBI man played by Tom Hanks. Geoff Andrew of Time Out said the film was “this is the director’s most likeable film in ages, even if it’s insubstantial, overlong and, frankly, a touch redundant.”

Courtesy of Universal Pictures

4. Jaws (1975)
> IMDb user rating: 8.0/10 (566,899 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 90% (945,011 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 98% (93 reviews)
> Starring: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary

The film most responsible for keeping people out of the ocean in 1974 and launching the Jaws franchise, it tells the story of a monstrous, rampaging Great White Shark plying the waters off a New England town. Among the memorable characters is Robert Shaw as a Captain Ahab-esque ship captain obsessed with killing the shark.

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Courtesy of DreamWorks Distribution

3. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
> IMDb user rating: 8.6/10 (1,297,141 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 95% (993,591 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 93% (143 reviews)
> Starring: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns

“Saving Private Ryan” set new standards for realistic war scenes and took home five Oscars in 1999, including a Best Director statue for Spielberg and a Best Cinematography award for Janusz Kaminski. The plot centers around a group of U.S. soldiers tasked with pulling out another GI from the battle area because all of his brothers have been killed in the war. “An old-fashioned war picture to rule them all,” said Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian. “Gripping, utterly uncynical, with viscerally convincing and audacious battle sequences.”

Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

2. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
> IMDb user rating: 8.4/10 (919,634 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 96% (827,087 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 95% (84 reviews)
> Starring: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, John Rhys-Davies

Spielberg’s homage to serial action movies from the 1930s launched the Indiana Jones franchise. In the first film, swashbuckling archeologist Indiana Jones tries to keep the Ark of the Covenant, said to hold the Ten Commandments, from falling into Nazi hands.

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Courtesy of Universal Pictures

1. Schindler’s List (1993)
> IMDb user rating: 8.9/10 (1,271,222 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 97% (411,879 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 98% (128 reviews)
> Starring: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Caroline Goodall

“Schindler’s List,” the story of how an Austrian businessman saved the lives of Jews during World War II, dominated the Academy Awards in 1994, winning seven Oscars, including Best Director — the first of three for Spielberg — and Best Picture. Susan Stark of the Detroit Free Press called the film “heartfelt” and “monumental.”

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