Steven Spielberg named his 20 favourite films of all time

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Steven Spielberg names his favourite Beatles song of all time: “Heart-achingly beautiful”

Thu 15 January 2026 8:59, UK

Some musical artists like Rachel Stevens, Duffy, and S Club Juniors come and go like a puff of smoke, gifting the world a handful of toe-tapping tunes before heading back out into the night after having done their bit for King and country. Yet, others, like David Bowie, Freddie Mercury or The Beatles, become vast totems of cultural importance in and of themselves, inspiring young and old for generations.

Look no further than the divisive 2019 film Yesterday by Danny Boyle if you’re after proof, with the fantasy flick purporting that without the influence of The Beatles, such products as cigarettes, Coca-Cola and even the Harry Potter franchise may have never existed. Along the same lines of eyebrow-raising thinking, it would also be unlikely that the great Steven Spielberg would have ever found the inspiration to pick up a camera and make such classic movies as Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Jurassic Park, to name just three.

Just like any great artist, Spielberg never keeps his eyes closed and has been inspired by a collection of different filmmakers and musicians over the years, once even stating that he had been inspired by Walt Disney more than “anybody else” in the history of modern culture. But, when it comes to music, he has long expressed his admiration for the humble lads from Liverpool, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

The impact that the band had on his life was definitively revealed when the director took part in Desert Island Discs for BBC Radio 4.

“I was a freshman in college, and there was a girl I liked a lot,” the director shared, “She would agree to let me take her out to dinner, or to a jazz club, or out to a movie, but she would never ever, ever let me kiss her. And we were driving back from someplace, and we pulled into the big parking lot by the dorms on the college campus at Long Beach”.

Paul McCartney and John Lennon, NME Poll Winners Concert, April 1965 — Credit: Bent Rej

Ever the romantic storyteller, the filmmaker continued: “‘Michelle’ came on. I think we heard it for the first time together on the radio, and the melody is just heart-achingly beautiful. I look over at her, and she’s got tears in her eyes, and just before the song is over, she jumps over on my side of the car and starts kissing me.”

A love song sung partly in French, ‘Michelle’ was penned by McCartney for the band’s sixth studio album, Rubber Soul. So enamoured by the timeless love song, Spielberg made sure to tell McCartney the story of how he first heard ‘Michelle’ when he finally met the musician, no doubt using the beauty of the song to inspire the making of such films as The Terminal and his own autobiographical movie The Fabelmans from 2022.

‘Michelle’ isn’t everybody’s favourite

For the most part, ‘Michelle’ is a beloved track. A gentle number in the crux of The Beatles’ movement from pop icons into rock and roll innovators. “He and I were staying somewhere,” Lennon told Playboy in 1980 of the track’s conception, “And he walked in and hummed the first few bars, with the words, and he says, ‘Where do I go from here?’”

Lennon and McCartney had been writing together for some years now, and they worked it out quite quickly. “I had been listening to Nina Simone. I think it was ‘I Put A Spell On You.’ There was a line in it that went, ‘I love you, I love you.’ That’s what made me think of the middle-eight for ‘Michelle.’ So, my contributions to Paul’s songs was always to add a little bluesy edge to them. Otherwise, ‘Michelle’ is a straight ballad, right?”

But the track did not sit well with another 1960s legend, Bob Dylan. “I’m just saying The Beatles have arrived, right?” explained Dylan during one interview. “In all music forms, whether Stravinsky or Leopold Jake the Second, who plays in the Five Spot, the Black Muslim Twins, or whatever.”

The singer-songwriter elaborated in a sneery fashion: “The Beatles are accepted, and you’ve got to accept them for what they do. They play songs like ‘Michelle’ and ‘Yesterday’, a lot of smoothness there.” But he switched up on the songs, quite quickly, “Yeah, it’s the thing to do, to tell all the teeny boppers ‘I dig The Beatles’, and you sing a song like ‘Yesterday’ or ‘Michelle’. Hey God knows, it’s such a cop-out, man, both of those songs.”