Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the founding pioneers of the New Hollywood era and one of the most popular directors and producers in film history. Spielberg started in Hollywood directing television and several minor theatrical releases. He became a household name as the director of Jaws (1975), which was critically and commercially successful and is considered the first summer blockbuster. His subsequent releases focused typically on science fiction/adventure films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and its later sequels as part of the Indiana Jones franchise, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Jurassic Park (1993), which became archetypes of modern Hollywood escapist filmmaking.
Spielberg transitioned into addressing serious issues in his later work with The Color Purple (1985), Empire of the Sun (1987), Schindler's List (1993), Amistad (1997), and Saving Private Ryan (1998). He has largely adhered to this practice during the 21st century, with Munich (2005), Lincoln (2012), Bridge of Spies (2015), and The Post (2017), although additional films since then include A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2000), Minority Report (2002), his 2005 adaptation of War of the Worlds, and Ready Player One(2018).
He co-founded Amblin Entertainment and co-owned DreamWorks Pictures, where he has also served as a producer or executive producer for several successful film duologies, trilogies, tetralogies and more including the An American Tail, Gremlins, Back to the Future, Men in Black, and the Transformers series. He later transitioned into producing several video games.
Spielberg is one of the American film industry's most critically successful filmmakers, with praise for his directing talent and versatility, and he has won the Academy Award for Best Director twice. Some of his films are also among the highest-grossing films, while his total work makes him the highest-grossing film director in history. His net worth is estimated to be more than $3 billion.