2. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Movies - and audiences - would never be the same again after the Normandy Beach sequences that opens this film. Watching it again, the technical prowess and ingenuity of staging and setting demonstrate Spielberg at the peak of his ability. Every decision made and every image shown in this sequence is intended to maximize the experience. And the effect has to be seen to be believed. For the first time in his career, Spielberg strips away the sleek, saturated, commercial look that he himself practically coined with his earlier films, and thrusts us right into the action, handheld, with grime and mud and water on the lens, choppy images, sloppy framing, and total chaos. The Normandy sequence is so groundbreaking and iconic many people tend to neglect the rest of the film, which actually has more in common with Raiders of the Lost Ark than Spielberg's other heavily lauded "serious" film, Schindler's List. Just as Raiders is Spielberg's homage to the Saturday Morning serials from the 30's that he grew up watching on television as a kid, Saving Private Ryan is actually a brilliant homage to the ensemble "men on a mission" war films from the 50's and 60's such as The Dirty Dozen. Saving Private Ryan hits all the tropes - throwing a hodgepodge group of soldiers together and sending them out on a unified mission - but it does so with a twist: the added perspective a history buff intent on portraying WWII in the most realistic and harrowing way possible. What follows subsequently is a fascinating and sobering deconstruction of the myth of the American Soldier: filtering the story through the cultural and historical relevance of previous war films, Spielberg shows us that war was hell, that soldiers could be cowards, died horrible deaths, and risked their lives for things that ultimately didn't really matter in the grander scale of things. The film's bookend sequences set in present day are often derided, but I think they carry a darker and more depressing undertone than most viewers give them credit for. Either way, Saving Private Ryan remains one of Spielberg's greatest triumphs as a director, a masterpiece in every meaning of the word, and quite possibly the greatest war film ever made.