Steven Spielberg names his favourite shot in cinema history: “One of the greatest moments”
Steven Spielberg is one of the most influential modern directors, known for being the creator of the commercial blockbuster and one of the most celebrated filmmakers. After the colossal success of Jaws, E.T. and Jurassic Park, Spielberg’s work is inseparable from its cinematic and cultural impact, with each film creating a lasting legacy that has entertained generations of cinema-goers.
As well as being known for his directing, Spielberg is also a self-proclaimed cinephile, and regularly talks about his personal film taste and directors that have most influenced his own style. Spielberg has listed The Godfather, Psycho, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Seven Samurai among his all-time favourites, but when asked about his favourite shot of all time, he described a very specific moment from David Lean’s 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia.
Spielberg’s early experiences in the cinema have been heavily documented in his 2022 film The Fabelmans, a loose biopic about the impact that film had on his childhood and adolescence, as well as the wider context of what his family were experiencing at the time. While Spielberg doesn’t specifically describe the memory of seeing Lawrence of Arabia for the first time, he later explained why the memory of seeing the film was so important to him and the shot that took his breath away.
Spielberg described the moment in detail, saying, “It was a prolonged sequence through every variety of arid landscape, much like the desert that surrounded that hometown Phoenix audience. That desert crossing cast a spell on me… Lawrence, risking everything, rides back for him as the sun grows in size until it looks like the whole audience is going to be sucked into it.”
It wasn’t only the immersive idyll that captured Spielberg’s attention but how it also slammed reality back into the audience’s mind: “Then there is a jarring cut to camels and riders drinking from a great oasis and the tension is drastically broken. When the sequence ended, dozens of people in the audience suddenly rose to their feet and left the theatre. I didn’t understand what was happening. We had all watched one of the greatest moments in movie history, and people were walking out… including my father”.
It’s no surprise that the film had such an effect on Spielberg, a historical epic that has continued to inspire and influence filmmakers working today, with many people comparing the scale of the story to the likes of Dune and Blade Runner. The craftsmanship and scope of the project was revolutionary at the time of its release, a sprawling tale that was technically beyond its time and holds up to this day.
Spielberg is reported to currently be working on a film with long-time collaborator David Koepp, the writer he worked with on Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The film is said to be an original UFO story that will be released in 2026.
The cast is still unknown, but if he’s working with Koepp again, who knows whether he’ll work with other people from his past and bring back some of the old-movie magic to his current projects.
