How Spielberg changed film

Alfred Hitchcock influenced the way Spielberg shot 'Jaws'

Steven Spielberg realized the key to unlocking the terror of the shark in "Jaws" would be by obscuring it, remembering an important lesson from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.” Spielberg recalled, “It’s what we don’t see that is truly frightening."

The best Steven Spielberg movies

Spielberg's impact on Hollywood is massive—so is his filmography. This list from the Guardian ranks every one of his film's from the forgettable, like "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and "Always," to his essential flicks, including the science-fiction classic "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and the first modern blockbuster, "Jaws."

Steven Spielberg’s movies have a unique style

Despite their distinct genres, Spielberg films often have much in common with one another. For example, supernatural phenomena, middle-class values, and camera techniques—including long, uninterrupted shots and a dolly-zoom method called the "Spielberg Face.”

‘Jaws’ was the first modern blockbuster

“Jaws” earned $70M in its first month and eventually grossed $476M worldwide, breaking box office records. It would be surpassed two years later by another legendary blockbuster: “Star Wars.”

A young Spielberg was changed by DeMille’s ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’

The first movie Steven Spielberg saw was Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Greatest Show on Earth.” The movie’s on-screen train wreck frightened yet fascinated the young Spielberg—illustrating the visceral impact movies have on their audiences.

Shooting 'Jaws,' Spielberg went over budget and schedule

The shark flick was plagued with technical issues—many of them due to shooting on the open ocean—causing the director to go over budget by more than $4M. Shooting the film took much longer than anticipated, stretching more than 100 days past the anticipated end date.

'Jaws' creators regret making sharks the monsters

Both Peter Benchley, the author of the original 1974 novel, and Steven Spielberg, the director of the blockbuster film based on it, acknowledge that the film's popularity has led to the stigmatization of the mostly harmless creatures.

Spielberg worked on ‘Schindler’s List’ and ‘Jurassic Park’ at the same time

Seemingly polar opposites, two of Steven Spielberg’s most popular movies were created in the same time period. Spielberg would shoot “Schindler’s List” during the day, then work on special-effects editing for “Jurassic Park” at night. The movies won a combined 10 Oscars at the 1994 Academy Awards.

Even at the height of his popularity, Spielberg felt like an outsider

By 1992, Spielberg was already one of the most successful names in Hollywood, but he had trouble kicking the alienation he’d felt as a kid. In this interview from 1992, on the cusp of the biggest year of his career, he talks about that feeling and how it motivated him.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

The 'Movie Brats’ ushered in a new era of Hollywood

"The Movie Brats" is a name used to describe a generation of directors who blended classic cinema with the rebellious, crowd-pleasing spirit of rock ‘n’ roll. The figures most often associated with the tag are Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Brian De Palma.

In 1980, Steven Spielberg added a scene depicting the interior of an alien spaceship to a rerelease of 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' at the studio's request, but later regretted the decision, believing it depleted the movie's enchanting mystery.

'You shouldn't dream your film, you should make it!'

- Filmmaker Steven Spielberg (1946-present)

Spielberg improvised most of the iconic D-Day scene from 'Saving Private Ryan'

Although action sequences are often tightly choreographed, one of cinema's most famous war scenes was mostly shot on the fly. Spielberg wrote seven pages (or approximately seven minutes of screen time) for the scene, though the final cut of the sequence was 25 minutes long.

Some of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters were designed by Drew Struzan

The artist is responsible for iconic posters advertising "Indiana Jones," "Hook," "The Goonies," and more. His distinctive style—sometimes painted by hand, sometimes drawn with an airbrush—defined the era of the family-friendly family blockbuster.

'Friday the 13th' kicked off a summer camp-themed trend

When it was released in 1980, “Friday the 13th” was panned by critics, but it established a lasting horror trope: the unsafe summer camp. The setting made for a natural fit: vulnerable children exiled from normal society, isolated in the dark woods.

'The Jazz Singer,' the first film with synchronized sound, changed Hollywood

Movies changed forever in 1927, when Warner Bros. released "The Jazz Singer," the first feature film with integrated dialogue. Based on a Broadway musical, the movie starred Al Jolson as the son of a Jewish cantor who wants to be a popular singer.

How 'Star Wars' changed science fiction

The popularity of "Star Wars" shifted the market away from the more literary, and sometimes cynical, science fiction of the 1960s and '70s. In the wake of George Lucas' space opera, publishers and studios wanted similarly optimistic adventure stories. In time, though, writers like William Gibson would react against that and, in turn, create the "cyber punk" subgenre.

Steve Jobs revolutionized animated filmmaking

Steve Jobs left his mark beyond Apple with Pixar, the animated studio he acquired in 1986. In addition to pushing Pixar to focus on storytelling, Jobs led the studio to revolutionize animation via computer-generated imagery.

A 1948 Supreme Court ruling realigned the film industry

1948's landmark United States v. Paramount Pictures found that the "Big Five" studios violated antitrust laws, effectively ending the reign of the vertically integrated system and the golden age of Hollywood.

Show business is increasingly leaving Hollywood

Using tax incentives, states like Georgia, New Jersey, and New Mexico are luring studios to produce their films and television shows outside of California. Changing business models after COVID-19 largely influenced this change.

Dinosaur portrayals in film mistakenly limit them to only living in tropical climates

The ancient creatures have been brought to life in cinema by combining animatronics and CGI. However, creative liberties have created misconceptions about dinosaurs for audiences, including that the Tyrannosaurus rex could not see stationary prey.

A television show helped popularize sushi in the US in the 1980s

"Shogun," a miniseries released in 1980, followed a British sailor's journey through 17th-century Japan. Nearly a third of American households watched its five installments, and it was used as an instructional text in classrooms throughout the '80s, inspiring a wave of American interest in Japanese culture, including sushi.

Movie trailers changed after the king of voice-overs died

Don LaFontaine, known in the film industry as "Thunder Throat," provided voice-over for over 5,000 film trailers. After he died in 2008, the trailer formula changed, with most preferring to lean into dialogue from the film.

Ed Sabol's vision of NFL Films impacted how sports were filmed

When the NFL put out a bid to film the 1962 NFL Championship Game, Ed Sabol promised NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle his higher price tag would be worth it. Sabol’s style of fixed high shots, close-ups of players, and fans in the stands revolutionized how sporting events are filmed, influenced moviemakers like Ron Howard, and gave birth to NFL Films.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

YouTube evolved into a film distributor

YouTube has evolved from a random clearinghouse of user-uploaded video content to a global media powerhouse. One example is the use of YouTube to distribute "Milk & Serial," a slasher film made for $800 that eventually racked up hundreds of thousands of views.

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

The distributor behind 'Rocky Horror' pulled the film from its scheduled national release, believing it would be a failure, though it eventually amassed a dedicated fanbase through midnight showings, a trend that continues over 50 years later.

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The Ramones' 'Pet Sematary,' the theme song for the Stephen King novel of the same name, was written while the band was admiring the writer's collection of horror memorabilia.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

'Silent' fireworks have gained more interest in recent years as a quieter celebratory option.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Watch how viruses like Ebola can spill over from animals to humans—and vice-versa.

Massive blooms of microscopic plankton called dinoflagellates produce the neon blue light seen in glowing tides.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

El Niño, Spanish for 'the boy,' was named after Jesus Christ because the phenomenon resembled the weather changes observed around Christmastime.

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.