Steven Spielberg is the best and the GOAT and it is not even close.

You spend such a large portion of this saying that because he makes a lot of money that means he’s the best, and then you use Kubrick as an example of nihilism? As another commenter said this just reads like a high schooler wrote it.

Come back to this in like 5 years when you have experienced more and you will see what we mean. Box office means nothing in terms of quality, and neither does how many different people like something.

I can agree that Spielberg is a great filmmaker, but I don't see any point in bringing up your economic philosophy.

Also, you're not telling most people anything they already know. Spielberg is versatile, revered, has positive themes in his films, etc.....that's all straightforward stuff.

Regarding Spielberg being "the greatest of all time," why does it matter if he is? Is there an award he's up for if we all agree that he's more successful than other directors? Maybe a big, golden statue, or a golden head in a booby-trapped crypt? Will Spielberg's winning prize end up in a plain wooden crate and put away randomly among thousands of other mysterious unmarked storage items?

I'm glad you like him. I like him too -- at least, his works and what he brought to popular entertainment.

On the downside of the equation, I feel like Spielberg's talents, over the years, were almost always at least partially focused on box-office returns, at the expense of him exploring film more as an art form.

Would love if this sub had more active moderation so that it stuck to its principles. Posts like this, with the cringy term GOAT, would be better made in more mainstream cinema subs.

What you have clearly communicated is that you don't understand or simply don't believe in art. You seem to equate greatness with checking boxes, specifically those relating to making money. You make no reference to anything remotely engaged with the work and actually seeking to say something. It is hard to communicate how absurdly far off you are from understanding why people love Ozu, or Tarkosvky, or cinema itself.

Not to be rude, but was this a high school assignment where you had to argue why your favourite director was Speilberg? No new observations, just listing genres and box office success, something everyone who is familiar with Spielberg already knows.

Then again, this is a good example of the incapability of neoliberals to understand creativity. All the praise for Spielberg's versatility in accruing profits, but no observance of the actual filmmaking itself.

I'll never understand this obsession people have with trying to rank art and find "the greatest". You can't say that Spielberg is better than Kubrick or Kurosawa on any objective level, and to try to place a definitive ranking on them is a pointless waste of time.

It seems like you really like him, which is fine, he makes great films, but I and a lot of other people are going to vehemently disagree with you. I especially disagree with the fact that so much of your justification is based on his box office returns, because that's an incredibly myopic way to appreciate art.

His worldview, as experienced through his films, is very off-putting to me, and I won’t even go into it because this is Reddit, and actually not the place for such a discussion.

There are better visual directors, there are more nuanced storytellers, there are thousands others with more interesting imaginations.

Give Spielberg a script about the Mau-Mau revolt in Kenya. Let’s see him make a good film out of that. He can’t.

Let’s have him adapt Jodorowsky’s Incal. He’ll make a mess.

I’ll give you this- you ve certainly delivered an interesting perspective of criticism I’ve not encountered much. I don’t agree with you at all, but I appreciate the diversity.

As far as feedback- I think you would be much benefited, simply by a newfound appreciation of art that you don’t already agree with, to stop judging art on its agreement with your political beliefs at all. Watch art as a portrait of an individuals worldview aside from you. Appreciate the beauty and unique perspectives that others can see in the world. Judge films not on how much you agree, but on the features of the films that are not reliant on political beliefs. Try to put yourself in the shoes of people you don’t understand.

1. Should it carry weight that Tarkovsky "loved" Spielberg? Should we care that Israel awarded a prize that's apparently prestigious? I would much rather have had some meaningful insight about his cinematography or storytelling that tells me why YOU like him so much, after all, this is YOUR opinion.

2. Well at least we know ChatGPT didn't write this. Instead of name-dropping extremely famous films, extrapolate. Tell me about the versatility of his styles, what did he do differently, how did he show his experience and skill in different settings. All you've done is churn out a list of names without any critical thinking whatsoever.

3. Woo, capitalism! The more money something makes, the better it is! Inverse also true! Bergman could never make a billion dollars so he sucks, my neighbour doesn't even know who he is!!! I heard Lav Diaz lost money on his last film so I changed my Letterboxd rating to a half star!!!!

4. This has something to do with your second point. His films cast as wide a net as humanly possible. They're built from the ground up to be enjoyable to as broad of an audience as humanly possible, while offending as few people as possible (which often comes with trade-offs in the realm of sincerity, intent and potency). This could have been a more interesting point if you expanded on the cultural aspect of it and his ability to connect disparate people, instead you describe the mainstream and proclaim it as good because it's known. Why is that good?

5. Why are you trying so hard to connect profit to quality? This isn't an entirely objective and quantifiable metric where you can say that until a director makes more than him, he's the best. Putting your political beliefs in bold is irrelevant, uninteresting and serves no relevant purpose I can think of.

6. "Personally" - exactly. Personally, to you he is your favourite, he's your GOAT, very cool. You're projecting your opinion as fact in a brash way that makes me feel you're not actually prepared to listen to anyone and came here expecting a pat on the back for proving once and for all the Spielberg is better than everyone else who has ever made a film. Shockingly, I don't think you will, film subs tend to be full of people who think for themselves and don't take much offence at other people disliking things they like, or liking things they dislike, and I don't believe anyone here over the age of 15 would be interested in discussing who the best director is within the confines of consumer capitalism.

Spielberg is probably squarely within my personal Top 3 all time but posts like these are a tad silly. I’d encourage you to take some interest in the old legends who were heavily influential on Spielberg like Howard Hawks and John Ford.

Just to entertain the argument from income, James Cameron has made nearly as much money as Spielberg with less than half as many films. He will inevitably overtake the #1 spot with the next Avatar or two.

Jodorowsky could make a Jaws but Spielberg could never make a holy mountain.

Jk that type of thought is reductive and so is your claim because film is an art and art is at its best when artists are able express themselves in their own way. Each one does so differently so it’s impossible to say who is “best”. Not one is better than another, just artist contributing to the cultural zeitgeist.

Ayyy...but here's the RUB! Steven Spielberg loved Stanley Kubrick so much, that he went on to complete A.I.

And I don't mean this lightly, because Spielberg and Kubrick had a wonderful relationship from a distance as friends, directors, and film-makers.

They would have long, drawn-out phone calls about film, each other's work, and Kubrick wanted to collaborate with Spielberg on a film.

There was a phone conversation between Stanley and Steven where Kubrick told Spielberg..."Well what do you think about, A Stanley Kubrick Production, Directed By Steven Spielberg?"

And Kubrick was serious in that regard, because he felt A.I.'s sentimentality as a film, would be better suited for Spielberg's sensibilities. And Kubrick was correct, regardless of how you feel about the film.

Steven Spielberg looks at Stanley Kubrick as a Giant among directors, that he himself stands upon Stanley's shoulders. So I don't think the man himself would agree with you.

He's okay. I prefer Michael Bay and Zack Snyder's films as big screen experiences. Apart from Jurassic Park, he hasn't really made a big screen spectacle. All of these are better than Denis The Menace Villenuve though. Also, Kubrick and Tarkovosky might be better filmmakers than Spielberg. This is cinema. - Martin Scorsese.

Taste is subjective

Spielberg is objectively one of the greatest filmmakers directors producers of all time

Is he the best or the GOAT? No way there’s ever a clear consensus on that.

I love Spielberg but my GOAT is the Coen Bros. That’s just my taste, my filmmaking partner isn’t a big fan. His feelings are as valid as mine

Outside of Jurassic Park I don't love any of his films enough for him to beat directors like Nolan - let alone the best directors ever.

I respect that he's made a lot of popular movies (and produced even more) but that's it really.