All the Steven Spielberg Movies Streaming on Netflix for His Birthday
Steven Spielberg celebrated his 73rd birthday on December 18, 2019. He hasn’t slowed down making movies at all. He’s working on West Side Story and has a fifth Indiana Jones film up next. He’s already racked up 31 feature films, most of which have had a significant impact on moviegoers everywhere, and that’s not even counting short segments and television work. And even though Spielberg does not want Neflix original movies competing for Oscars, many of his theatrical films are now streaming.
If you want to celebrate Steven Spielberg on his birthday, or any day, here are his movies that are streaming on Netflix. These don’t even include landmark films like Jaws, which invented the blockbuster as we know it, or E.T. which was the biggest movie of all time until Spielberg’s own Jurassic Park.
All of Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones movies are on Netflix
Few movie franchises have the same director for every film. Lethal Weapon does too, but Steven Spielberg has directed every Indiana Jones film and plans to make a fifth one. The first, Raiders of the Lost Ark, introduced the archeologist hero (Harrison Ford) in his quest to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis do. When Spielberg decides to do an action-adventure movie, there’s really no one better at it.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was considered a letdown after Raiders. The child kidnapping Thuggee cult was not as universal as the biblical myth of the Ark, yet there is something to be said for Indiana Jones stepping in and rescuing all the children. When he says, “Let’s go home. All of us.” it feels like Dad is here to save everyone. The portrayal of Indian people eating monkey brains and making human sacrifices exacerbated racist stereotypes and even Spielberg doesn’t like this one, despite its thrilling mine cart and rope bridge sequences.
Last Crusade returned to the formula of Indy racing Nazis to a biblical artifact, this time the Holy Grail and with his father (Sean Connery) in tow. Nearly 20 years later, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull disappointed many Indy fans, but it updates Indy to the ‘50s and is still full of Spielbergian action sequences.
Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece ‘Schindler’s List’ is streaming on Netflix
Schindler’s List was a passion project for Steven Spielberg. He wanted to dramatize The Holocaust for modern audiences and found a way to do so in adapting Thomas Keneally’s biography of Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), the factory magnate who rescued over 1000 Jews from concentration camps by giving them work in his factories.
By 1993, Spielberg had the clout to make any movie he wanted. So after delivering the blockbuster Jurassic Park, he put his clout behind Schindler’s List. The movie was not only acclaimed and successful, but won the Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director among seven awards.
The idea of a three hour immersive movie about the Holocaust may sound daunting, but the brilliance of Schindler’s List is how it weaves the thread of hope throughout the worst atrocities, and that even heroes like Oskar Schindler can feel like they haven’t done enough.
Daniel Day-Lewis became ‘Lincoln’ for Steven Spielberg
The story of Abraham Lincoln is too big for one film. Even the two and a half hour Lincoln couldn’t cover it all, so Steven Spielberg’s film focuses on Lincoln’s efforts to end slavery at the end of the Civil War.
Daniel Day-Lewis played Lincoln in the film focused on the last major historic event of his life. Day-Lewis so immersed himself in the role of Abraham Lincoln that he won an Oscar for his performance, which you can now see on Netflix.
‘The Adventures of Tintin’ is Spielberg’s only animated film and it’s on Netflix
Steven Spielberg produced animated films like An American Tail but The Adventures of Tintin is the only one he directed. Based on the series of graphic novels by Herge, Tintin (Jamie Bell) could have been another Indiana Jones. The plan was for Peter Jackson to direct the next movie but they have not made it yet.
Spielberg used performance capture technology to create Tintin. Bell and costars Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig, Nick Frost and Simon Pegg performed their roles in a studio. Animating their performances, Spielberg could construct even bigger action sequences than he ever could on location with Indiana Jones.
A movie was the final battle for ‘War Horse’
Steven Spielberg’s 2011 movie War Horse was based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo and play by Nick Stafford. It tells a World War I story through the eyes of a horse and the soldiers he encounters.
On stage, actors performed a horse. Spielberg was able to use an actual animal in harrowing war scenes. Albert (Jeremy Irvine) enlists when his horse is commandeered for battle. Ultimately, the horse brings people together on both sides of the battlefield, in true Spielberg fashion.
