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Steven Spielberg

Director, writer and producer

Film & TV United States Hall No. 53

Profile

Why they shine

Steven Spielberg has the most restless film career in American cinema and one of the strangest Oscar records: nine Best Director nominations, two Best Director wins five years apart, and three competitive Oscars in all. Schindler's List took him Best Director on 21 March 1994, and he shared Best Picture for the same film. Saving Private Ryan did it again on 21 March 1999, on the strength of its D-Day sequence, though Best Picture that night went to Shakespeare in Love. West Side Story in 2021 was his eighth Best Director nomination; Jane Campion won that year. He has directed for six decades and still describes his films as messages to his children.

Full name: Steven Allan Spielberg
Nationality: United States
Known for: Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Jaws
Role: Director / Writer / Producer
Oscar wins: Best Director 1994 and 1999, Best Picture 1994
Signature: Voyeuristic camera; framing at a child's height

Record

Honor record

Academy Award for Best Director

1994 · Mar 21, 1994

Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles

His first Oscar, and the end of a run of three Best Director nominations without a win. He took the award for Schindler's List, the first Holocaust drama to reach Best Picture, and thanked the survivor Poldek Pfefferberg, whose account of Oskar Schindler had made the film possible, along with the six million who were not watching.

Academy Award for Best Picture

1994 · Mar 21, 1994

Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles

Schindler's List won Best Picture with Spielberg named among its producers, alongside Gerald R. Molen and Branko Lustig, and took seven Oscars that night: Picture, Director, Cinematography, Art Direction, Editing, Score and Sound. It remains his only Best Picture and the last of his three competitive Academy Awards.

Academy Award for Best Director

1999 · Mar 21, 1999

Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles

His second Best Director Oscar, for Saving Private Ryan, at the 71st Academy Awards. The picture took five Oscars, but its Best Picture nomination lost to Shakespeare in Love, the upset that set off accusations of over-aggressive campaigning and remains one of the Academy's most argued-about results.

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