Summary

• Spielberg's best scenes showcase both explosive action and quiet drama, making him a versatile filmmaker in various genres.
• Iconic moments like the rolling boulder scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark show Spielberg's mastery in captivating storytelling.
• Spielberg's personal touch shines through in emotional scenes like the USS Indianapolis speech in Jaws, and he isn't afraid to step back and let his actors shine.

Throughout a career that has spanned five decades, Steven Spielberg has directed a wide variety of now-classic movies, and his best scenes showcase his flair for bold action and quiet drama all the same. The king of the summer blockbuster is behind some of the most iconic scenes of all time, including the rolling boulder scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark and the bicycle scene from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

Spielberg is more than just blockbuster action, though. He can also deliver memorable scenes in many genres without any fireworks. He is, first and foremost, a supremely adaptable filmmaker, who has mastered sci-fi, action, horror and more. Some of Steven Spielberg's best movies don't have particularly iconic, eye-catching scenes, but he can turn on the style like very few filmmakers in Hollywood.

12 Quint's USS Indianpolis Speech

Jaws (1975)

Jaws was Steven Spielberg's first big hit, and it helped redefine the summer blockbuster, as Spielberg would do so many times in his career. Although the opening scene of Jaws and the final showdown with the shark are both iconic in their own right, the film's most enduring and captivating scene is much quieter and less flashy. It consists of Quint telling the other two men waiting for the shark to reappear about his experience on the USS Indianapolis.

Spielberg didn't want to cast Robert Shaw in Jaws to begin with, but his USS Indianapolis monologue proves that he was perfect for the role. Although the men are drunkenly exchanging playful stories, everything slows down for Quint to tell them about how the ship sank, and the crew had to survive in the water for days as sharks repeatedly came back to pick them off one-by-one. Shaw's performance is incredibly powerful, and he also helped to rewrite the monologue.

11 Communicating With The Aliens

Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)

Steven Spielberg followed Jaws with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and these two movies coming back-to-back helped establish him as one of the most exciting directors to come out of the 1970s. Close Encounters was Spielberg's first exploration of the sci-fi genre, and it displays the palpable sense of wonder that he can infuse into his stories. Many alien movies are about a hostile race trying to conquer or destroy the Earth, but Close Encounters is far gentler.

The scene which best encapsulates Spielberg's wide-eyed style in the sci-fi genre features a group of scientists trying to communicate with an alien ship using colors and melodies. It's a beautiful and fascinating scene, but the sense of mystery is undercut by the constant chatter of scientists. They don't see what Roy and Jillian, or the audience, see. They are just trying to do their jobs.

10 Indy's Introduction

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Steven Spielberg knows that the first scene of a movie is vitally important, and many of his best scenes come right at the beginning. Raiders of the Lost Ark has one of the best opening scenes in the history of cinema, and this acts as a perfect introduction for the character who leads Spielberg's greatest franchise. There have been five Indiana Jones movies, but the rolling boulder scene is still Indy's most unforgettable moment.

Raiders of the Lost Ark's opening scene introduces Indiana Jones as a brave, skilled adventurer who is willing to risk his life for ancient artifacts, but it also humanizes him by showing his fears, his ability to narrowly escape death, and his various oversights. Indy does of course snatch the golden idol and escape from a massive boulder as his theme tune kicks in, but he eventually has to hand the idol straight to his biggest rival.

9 Cycling Across The Sky

E.T. the Extra Terrestrial (1982)

Few scenes sum up who Steven Spielberg is as a director as perfectly as the cycling scene from E.T. It's a thrilling action sequence with a sprinkle of magic, and the result is hard to resist. As Elliot and his friends race to return E.T. to his own people, they have to dodge the authorities on the way. The moment that their bicycles lift into the sky is a wonderful triumph, and it perfectly captures Elliot's childish sense of naive optimism.

The bicycle scene is not just visually breathtaking, it's also the perfect way to bring E.T. to a close. After one last piece of magic against the setting sun, Elliot has to say goodbye to E.T. The alien was based on Spielberg's own childhood imaginary friend, and the ramifications of growing up and letting go of one's childhood are clear. Spielberg has said that E.T. is his favorite of all his own movies, and the personal connection helps explain why.

8 The Mine Cart Chase

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

Steven Spielberg doesn't often direct sequels or prequels, but he made an exception for Indiana Jones. Temple of Doom is a prequel to the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark, showing a slightly younger Indiana Jones trading historical artifacts for money. He's a less noble character at this point in his career, and Temple of Doom is much darker than Raiders in many other ways too. The plot features human sacrifices, child slavery and demonic possession.

The mine cart chase was one of a few Temple of Doom scenes originally written for Raiders, but it fits perfectly with the story of the prequel. The third act chase scene is brimming with tension, and Spielberg masterfully raises the stakes and reverses the fortune of his heroic trio multiple times. Prequels rarely manage to inject so much jeopardy, because audiences know that the characters have to survive for the next movie, but Temple of Doom is an exception.

7 Young Indy

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

The final film in Steven Spielberg's original Indiana Jones trilogy provides the perfect send-off for the adventurer. It starts with a flashback sequence that shows a young Indy on one of his first adventures, and it ends with Indy riding off into the sunset having reconciled with his father and defeated the Nazis once again. It would have been a perfect finale if not for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

The scene with a young Indiana Jones shows his moral fortitude and his courage from an early age, and it also shows the origins of his hat and whip, and even the scar on his chin. The train chase does more to establish his character than pretty much the entirety of Temple of Doom. There are several highlights, but the trick with the magician's box shows Spielberg at his most playful, as he lets the trick unfold in one shot.

6 Rexy's First Appearance

Jurassic Park (1993)

Jurassic Park spawned a multi-billion dollar franchise, and Jurassic World 4 is set to kick off a whole new era, but Spielberg's 1993 original is still by far the best movie in the series. Although there is plenty of adventure and Spielberg's signature sense of magic, there are also moments when Jurassic Park becomes a full-blown horror movie, and the introduction of the T. Rex is one such moment.

Although the more recent movies in the franchise have earned a lot of money by throwing dinosaurs at each other and unleashing them on people, Spielberg's original shows that all of this is pointless without a compelling human story at the film's heart. The T. Rex scene only works so well because Jurassic Park does the hard work of establishing the characters beforehand.

5 The Girl In The Red Coat

Schindler's List (1993)

Schindler's List could be Steven Spielberg's best movie, and it's certainly among his most important. The director has spoken about the emotional toll that making the movie took on him, but his work helped to guide public consciousness on the holocaust, and honor the millions of victims. The film is shot almost entirely in black-and-white, with the exception of a little girl wearing a red coat.

Schindler's List's girl in the red coat stands out from the rest of the action. The splash of a color in a gray and violent world represents the last remaining shred of optimism and innocence, but even this is snuffed out as the Nazis storm the Krakow ghetto and begin indiscriminately slaughtering Jewish people. The scene shows the incredible scale of the atrocity, but focusing on one girl amid the chaos helps contextualize the tragedy even more.

4 Storming Omaha Beach

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Saving Private Ryan's D-Day sequence isn't just the outstanding moment of the film, it's also one of the greatest scenes in any war movie. It's so captivating and impactful that many people it as the movie's opening scene, even though the story actually begins with a much older Private Ryan visiting a war cemetery. This helps to visualize the scale of the war's casualties before the D-Day scene shows the action at ground-level.

The Omaha beach landing is a whirlwind of chaos, with explosions all around and gunfire ringing through the air, but Spielberg also slows things down to dig into Captain Miller's internal state. The sound is reduced to a dull ringing as he surveys the brutal carnage all around him. Soldiers are engulfed by flames and scream silently, a dazed soldier searches the beach for his missing arm, and waves turn red with blood.

3 The Falcon Chase

The Adventures of Tintin (2011)

The Adventures of Tintin shows that Steven Spielberg is not afraid to take risks, even at a late stage in his career when he has nothing to prove to anyone. The director's first animated feature is a fitting adaptation of Hergé's series of comic books, even if the 3D animation has one or two shaky moments. The Adventures of Tintin has the same joyous sense of adventure as Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The motorcycle chase is a glorious slice of adventure, and it shows an incredible flair for animation for a director who had been working for decades in live-action. Most of the action scene plays out in a single shot. This is Spielberg letting his imagination run free, without any of the constraints or the practical concerns of live-action. A sequel to The Adventures of Tintin has been stuck in development hell for years, with Spielberg's co-producer Peter Jackson set to take over the directing duties.