Steven Spielberg

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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. He is the recipient of many accolades, including three Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, nine Golden Globe 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 2015. Seven of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".

Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. 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'' (2018); the historical dramas ''Amistad'' (1997), ''Munich'' (2005), ''War Horse'' (2011), ''Lincoln'' (2012), ''Bridge of Spies'' (2015) and ''The Post'' (2017); the musical ''West Side Story'' (2021); and the semi-autobiographical drama ''The Fabelmans'' (2022).

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. Several of Spielberg's works are considered among the greatest films in history, and some are among the highest-grossing films ever. In 2013, ''Time'' listed him as one of the 100 most influential people, and in 2023, Spielberg was the recipient of the first ever ''Time'' 100 Impact Award in the U.S. Reviewing ''Close Encounters'', Pauline Kael called the young Spielberg "a magician in the age of movies."