Steven Spielberg

Jaws opens. The mechanical shark keeps breaking. He shoots around it. Shows the fin, the barrels, the faces of the actors. The less you see, the more you fear. It earns $470 million worldwide and invents the summer blockbuster. He is 28.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial opens. It becomes the highest-grossing film of all time, passing Star Wars. The flying bicycle silhouette becomes one of the most recognized images in cinema. He's drawn from his own childhood loneliness after his parents' divorce. Adults cry in theaters.

Directs Jurassic Park and Schindler's List in the same year. The dinosaur movie becomes the highest-grossing film ever. The Holocaust film, shot in black and white in Krakow, is called one of the greatest ever made. He wins his first Best Director Oscar. He's 47 and has been snubbed for nearly two decades.

Saving Private Ryan opens with a 27-minute D-Day sequence that veterans say is the closest anything has come to what it was actually like. He wins his second Best Director Oscar. He also co-founded DreamWorks in 1994, the first new major film studio in decades.

Directs The Fabelmans, a semi-autobiographical film about growing up making movies and watching his family come apart. He's 76. He's directed over 35 feature films. Three Oscars. Seven of the 50 highest-grossing films of all time. He changed what movies look like, how they're released, and how much money they make.