The Films of Steven Spielberg

Schedule:
June 13-15 Schindler’s List (1993) Rated R (195 min)
June 20 & 22 Jaws (1975) Rated PG (124 min)
June 27 & 29 E.T. The Extraterrestrial (1982) Rated PG (132 min)

See all three for $10! Get a Spielberg Pass here.

Spanning three decades, our June films demonstrate the power of Steven Spielberg’s storytelling skills. One of the most popular directors in cinematic history, Spielberg has made both blockbuster special effects pictures as well as moving historical dramas, all in his signature style.

June 13-15 Schindler’s List (1993)
Rated R (195 min)

Special note: This movie is being screened with FREE ADMISSION.

(195 min) Based on a true story, Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List stars Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler, a German businessman in Poland who sees an opportunity to make money from the Nazis’ rise to power. He starts a company to make cookware and utensils, using flattery and bribes to win military contracts, and brings in accountant and financier Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) to help run the factory.

By staffing his plant with Jews who’ve been herded into Krakow’s ghetto by Nazi troops, Schindler has a dependable unpaid labor force. For Stern, a job in a war-related plant could mean survival for himself and the other Jews working for Schindler. However, in 1942, all of Krakow’s Jews are assigned to the Plaszow Forced Labor Camp, overseen by Commandant Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), an embittered alcoholic who occasionally shoots prisoners from his balcony.

Schindler arranges to continue using Polish Jews in his plant, but, as he sees what is happening to his employees, he begins to develop a conscience. He realizes that his factory (now refitted to manufacture ammunition) is the only thing preventing his staff from being shipped to the death camps. Soon Schindler demands more workers and starts bribing Nazi leaders to keep Jews on his employee lists and out of the camps.

By the time Germany falls to the allies, Schindler has lost his entire fortune — and saved 1,100 people from likely death. Schindler’s List was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won seven, including Best Picture and a long-coveted Best Director for Spielberg, and it quickly gained praise as one of the finest American movies about the Holocaust.

June 20 & 22 Jaws (1975)
Rated PG (124 min)

This just in – Sony has taken Close Encounters of the Third Kind out of release until their restored version comes out in the fall, so we have changed the Spielberg film for June 20 & 22 to Jaws!

(124 min) A giant great white shark arrives on the shores of a New England beach resort and wreaks havoc with bloody attacks on swimmers, until a local sheriff teams up with a marine biologist and an old seafarer to hunt the monster down.Now considered one of the greatest films ever made, Jaws was the prototypical summer blockbuster, with its release regarded as a watershed moment in motion picture history. Jaws became the highest-grossing film of all time until the release of Star Wars (1977).

It won several awards for its soundtrack and editing. Along with Star Wars, Jaws was pivotal in establishing the modern Hollywood business model, which revolves around high box-office returns from action and adventure pictures with simple “high-concept” premises that are released during the summer in thousands of theaters and supported by heavy advertising.