There’s a giddy moment for actors when they get the call from Steven Spielberg. One of cinema’s all-time greatest directors wants you in his movie. At that point, there’s little question of signing on, because you know you’ll be in the hands of a master who, despite making some films that push the limits of visual effects, never loses sight of his performers. He’s a director who expertly knows how to use his stars, and who actually abandoned a project because he felt he couldn’t find the right actor for the title role. Being in a Spielberg movie is an honor, but you’re there for a reason, and it’s tough to find a single role one would call “miscast” in his filmography.
Even so, there are performances that stand above the rest. These 13 examples showcase what the legendary filmmaker cherishes about the craft of acting; not broadness or going “big,” but individual pieces of emotion that add up to an iconic whole. Nowhere is that more obvious than his signature ability to frame quiet sadness or sublime wonder—the “Spielberg Face”—a close-up that captures emotion like no other director. He works magic with his camera, but just as important is the actor on the other side of the lens.
13) Michelle Williams as Mitzi Fabelman in “The Fabelmans” (2022)
In lesser hands, it would have been easy for “The Fabelmans” to judge Mitzi Fabelman, a woman following her artistic and romantic muses where they lead, even if it’s toward heartbreak for her family. But we never doubt for a moment how much both Williams and Spielberg love this character, who was based on his mother, Leah Adler. There’s a deep well of sympathy for Mitzi, and although the film doesn’t try to sugarcoat her actions, through Williams we can always understand what makes the character beautiful even at her most confounding.
12) Mark Rylance as Rudolf Abel in “Bridge of Spies” (2015)
Rylance had already won three Tonys and two Oliviers before his first of three movies with Spielberg. But despite the accolades, he’s perfectly disarming as the quiet Rudolf Abel in this distinctive spy drama. Rylance isn’t doing anything big, but he is perfect at winning our sympathies. Rudolf is a traitor, and yet he’s also as flawed and personable as any American. In a movie that doesn’t hide from the absurdity of Cold War tensions, Rylance’s Oscar-winning performance always keeps the underlying emotions feeling tangible and immediate.
11) Djimon Hounsou as Cinqué in “Amistad” (1997)
Hounsou gave a breakthrough performance as the enslaved man Cinqué fighting for his freedom in this blend of courtroom drama and period piece. Despite being surrounded by heavyweight, veteran actors like Anthony Hopkins and Morgan Freeman, Hounsou is magnificent in holding the film’s emotional core. Everything around him can be, on some level, intellectualized; even the film’s framework of a court battle is a debate over what constitutes a free person in America. But all of that fades to the background when Spielberg’s camera settles on Hounsou’s eyes. Other actors have to give grand speeches just to keep up.
10) Tom Hanks as Captain Miller in “Saving Private Ryan” (1998)
In Hanks’ filmography, there are roles that others would likely highlight as more important, such as his back-to-back Oscar wins for “Philadelphia” and “Forrest Gump.” But Spielberg knows that the actor’s everyman persona is essential in conveying the larger sacrifice of normal men thrust into the crucible of war. Miller is an anti-romantic, hardened into understanding the nature of war and how best to survive. But Hanks never lets the character’s pragmatism whittle away at his humanity, striking a balance between the determined soldier and the schoolteacher just trying to get back home to his wife.
9) Ariana DeBose as Anita in “West Side Story” (2021)
I can only imagine how intimidating it must be to follow a legend like Rita Moreno, in a role that won the legend an Oscar in 1962. But DeBose doesn’t miss a beat in her interpretation of Anita. You get a sense of how liberating a Spielberg set can be even though he knows what he wants as a director. At no point is DeBose echoing Moreno’s Anita. Instead, she makes the character her own with moments that can be ravishing or devastating. There’s so much life in her performance that it feels like DeBose might burst off the screen.
8) Christian Bale as Jim in “Empire of the Sun” (1987)
While Bale has gone on to win an Oscar for “The Fighter” and play Batman in three Christopher Nolan movies, one of his earliest performances remains his best. In “Empire of the Sun,” Bale brings a level of dramatic pathos that was rare for a Spielberg film at that point. The first leg of the director’s career largely surrounded young actors with gleeful genre escapism, but Bale’s 11-year-old Jim faces a brutal crucible in World War II–era China during the Japanese occupation. It’s a harsh coming-of-age drama that offers few comforts, yet never tips into all-out brutality and ugliness thanks to the delicate balance Spielberg strikes with his young star. The final shot on Jim’s face, representing the loss of innocence through his multi-year ordeal, is among the most haunting in the director’s work.
7) Ralph Fiennes as Amon Goeth in “Schindler’s List” (1994)
Spielberg had no trouble showing Nazis as one-dimensional baddies in his “Indiana Jones” movies. But he went deeper (and more chilling) with “Schindler’s List” by working with Fiennes to portray the unnerving humanity permeating concentration camp commandant Amon Goeth. The film never hides from Goeth’s cruelty or attempts to apologize for him. But Fiennes knows how to make the audience’s blood run cold because he embodies the “banality of evil” that philosopher Hannah Arendt observed during Adolf Eichmann’s trial. Fiennes and Spielberg understood that the challenge wasn’t to make Goeth outsized, but hauntingly familiar.
6) Laura Dern as Ellie Sattler in “Jurassic Park” (1993)
Like with other Spielberg movies, it can be tough to single out just one performance in “Jurassic Park,” but Ellie Sattler is an inspiration. As good as Dern’s costars are (and can be memes unto themselves), Dern’s turn is the moral center. Although she can be tough, the movie never forgets to lean into what makes her human and vulnerable. That’s essential in a film where even the expert hunter Muldoon (Bob Peck) is no match for a “clever girl.” Yes, it’s great when Ellie calls out Hammond (Richard Attenborough) on his glorified flea circus, but Dern also gives us great little moments like Ellie’s fear and exhilaration after running from a raptor or just the sly little delivery of “Dinosaurs eat man; woman inherits the Earth.”
5) Robert Shaw as Quint in “Jaws” (1975)
There have been impressive monologues throughout Spielberg’s oeuvre, but no one captures the anarchic, dangerous spirit of the movie they’re in quite like Shaw’s Quint and his tale of the USS Indianapolis. Even before that, you feel the film hit a new gear when he scratches his nails down the chalkboard and promises that, for $10,000, he’ll hunt the shark and “get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.” While Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss help bring an everyman quality to guys facing a dangerous threat from nature, Shaw’s turn helps elevate the piece. Even as a young filmmaker, Spielberg knew how to direct the actor’s unpredictability without (no pun intended) going overboard.
4) Whoopi Goldberg as Celie in “The Color Purple” (1985)
Aside from the 1982 indie “Citizen: I’m Not Losing My Mind, I’m Giving It Away,” Goldberg primarily cut her teeth in the early 1980s through standup comedy. And yet, Spielberg’s faith in her was well-placed (and apparently only deepened by her audition where she did an impression of a Black E.T.). Goldberg is stunning as Celie in this adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel, covering decades of the character’s life as she goes from an abused, timid woman to someone who fights for the love she deserves. It’s so unlike anything audiences would come to expect from Goldberg’s onscreen persona, and yet her dramatic turn is as powerful as any of her comedic work.
3) Henry Thomas as Elliott in “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (1982)
Yes, a young Drew Barrymore gives Thomas a run for his money, but consider how much of the movie’s emotional weight rests on this young actor. That’s not just through his interactions with a puppet, but also the complexities of the subtext—an absent father and a kid looking for a friend. Thomas has to hit so many levels here, not just in terms of wonder, but also humor and fear, as his connection with E.T. deepens. And as much as we talk about the “Spielberg Face,” it’s never been done as well as Thomas at the film’s finale.
2) Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981)
Ford was not the first choice for Indiana Jones, but he was unquestionably the right one. Although Ford had made a name for himself as a supporting player thanks to the lovably roguish Han Solo in George Lucas’ “Star Wars” films, Spielberg and franchise co-creator Lucas realized they could rest their whole adventure epic on his capable shoulders. What Ford’s take on an icon protagonist shows is how much Spielberg relishes vulnerability in his characters. Although the director had once hoped to make a James Bond movie, the Bond of the time—Roger Moore’s dashing but superficial spy—would lack the fears and comic timing of Ford’s Indy. Together, Spielberg and Ford made a hero for the ages.
1) Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in “Lincoln” (2012)
It would have to be an actor of Day-Lewis’ caliber to stand above the most stacked cast in any Spielberg movie. You can’t throw a stone without hitting several beloved performers in “Lincoln,” ranging from character actors to movie stars. But Day-Lewis is the incredible center of it all as the 16th president. His approach to Lincoln is far from the booming-voiced caricature of the modern age. Instead, he taps into the historical record of the gentle storyteller who could, at times, irritate his cabinet with yet another yarn. But when he does finally unleash his anger and demand the votes for the passage of the 13th amendment, we can only sit back and watch the fireworks.
