The best Steven Spielberg films, chosen by directors, critics and super-fans: ‘pure popcorn perfection’

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From franchise hits to historical epics, joyous musicals to autobiographical family sagas: Steven Spielberg has done it all. As his latest sci-fi film Disclosure Day is released, film-makers, authors and Guardian critics reveal which of his movies means the most to them Steven Spielberg is often described as the inventor of the “event movie” – or as the creator of our new age of IP supremacy, in which the genre property is more important than any above-the-title film star. But that isn’t quite it. He came of age in the American new wave era but in spirit belonged neither to that nor fully to Hollywood’s golden age studio system that preceded it. In fact, he synthesised both into a directing style that was audacious and fluent. He availed himself of the subversiveness of the new wave, and yet was classically oriented, drawing upon his love of – and alienation from – the all-American suburb, making him the Edward Hopper or the Andrew Wyeth of the movies. Tellingly, it was François Truffa...
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Film: Wendy Ide’s 10 best of 2023

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From a struggling mother to a monstrous maestro, the year was notable for superb performances by veterans and newcomers

1. Tár
Released in the UK in January
It’s been a banner year for fans of films about mercurial conductors/composers, with Maestro, Bradley Cooper’s mosaic portrait of Leonard Bernstein, a 2023 highlight. But Todd Field’s creation of the magnificent, monstrous fictional conductor Lydia Tár, inhabited down to the last shred of cruelty and ambition by the remarkable Cate Blanchett, is exceptional: a savage, slippery account of rampant narcissism brought down to earth.

2. How to Have Sex
November
A wealth of outstanding British first features has included Rye Lane (directed by Raine Allen-Miller), Scrapper (Charlotte Regan) and Earth Mama (Savanah Leaf) – and there are more to come in 2024. But Molly Manning Walker’s phenomenal How to Have Sex is the standout, for its visual flair, superb performances and for the crucial conversations about consent that it has prompted.

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