American director, born in 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He's been directing movies since he was a little boy, although the ones he made when he was a kid had much cheaper production values than the ones he's made since then.

After working on a number of television shows like "Night Gallery" and "Marcus Welby, M.D.", he made the jump to TV movies and then to theatrical features. His first big success was 1975's "Jaws", the first summer blockbuster. From that point on, Spielberg was one of Hollywood's giants. He sometimes stumbled ("1941", "Always", "Hook"), but more often than not, he triumphed ("Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial", "The Color Purple", "Jurassic Park", "Schindler's List", "Saving Private Ryan").

After years of being snubbed by the Academy Awards (he was nominated for Best Director for "Close Encounters", "E.T." and "The Color Purple"), he finally won an Oscar for the masterful black-and-white "Schindler's List" and, a few years later, for the harrowing "Saving Private Ryan".

Spielberg has also produced a large number of movies, and most of them looked an awful lot like movies that he directed, thanks to his powerful influence. These included "Poltergeist", "Gremlins", "Back to the Future", "The Goonies", "Young Sherlock Holmes", "Innerspace", "Arachnophobia", "The Flintstones", "Casper", "An American Tale", "The Land Before Time", "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", "Twister", "Men in Black", "Deep Impact", "The Mask of Zorro", and "Shrek", as well as the television series "Amazing Stories", "seaQuest DSV", "Tiny Toon Adventures", and "Animaniacs". He's also a founding partner in DreamWorks SKG.

Spielberg is certainly one of the most popular, most influential, most commercially and critically successful directors of all time. Personally, I don't consider him the greatest director ever, but he's certainly quite near the top. Many of his best films were made for purely commercial reasons, and some of his most mediocre movies (well, the closest he gets to making mediocre movies) are the ones that he made to look like an "important" director.

Among the movies he's directed (or will be directing) are: a TV movie from 1971 called "Duel," "The Sugarland Express," "Jaws," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "1941," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," the second segment of "Twilight Zone: The Movie," "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," "The Color Purple," "The Empire of the Sun," "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," "Always," "Hook," "Jurassic Park," "Schindler's List," "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," "Amistad," "Saving Private Ryan," "The Unfinished Journey," "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence," "Minority Report," "Catch Me if You Can," "The Terminal," "War of the Worlds," "Munich," and "Indiana Jones 4".

He's stated that before he goes off to direct a movie, he always watches four movies for inspiration: "The Seven Samurai", "Lawrence of Arabia", "It's a Wonderful Life", and "The Searchers".

Research from the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com)