‘West Side Story’ and Top Five Steven Spielberg Movies

‘West Side Story’with Joanna Robinson

West Side Story 2021

Spielberg's first musical, a remake of Robert Wise's Best Picture winner with a Tony Kushner script. Amanda put it on her top five of the year; Joanna, a self-described musicals fan, was won over despite having dreaded the remake. Rachel Zegler is the panel's Oscar-worthy Maria; Mike Faist's Riff and Ariana DeBose's Anita draw the most praise, with Ansel Elgort's Tony rated merely adequate and shadowed by the sexual-misconduct allegation made against him after filming wrapped. The rewrite expands Chino into an actual character, recasts Anybodys as trans-coded, drops subtitles on the Spanish dialogue, and shuffles the songs closer to the stage version's order. Rita Moreno returns in a reworked role, playing the drugstore owner Valentina.

West Side Story (1961) 1961

The original, which won Best Picture and nine other Oscars. The panel still admires it but flags Natalie Wood's casting as Maria (not Latina, and dubbed by Marni Nixon for the singing) and Richard Beymer's bland Tony as glaring weaknesses at the center of an otherwise airtight movie. Rita Moreno's Anita, and her purple dress, remain the film's most enduring element.

Joanna Robinson's Top Five Spielbergranked best-first; No. 2 and No. 3 weren't revealed on air

No. 1

Jurassic Park 1993

No. 1 - her most-rewatched Spielberg; she's argued before it's a perfect film, and once saw it performed with a live orchestra.

No. 2

Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1977

No. 4 - a blind spot she only just filled, at a theatrical revival, and was floored by. Richard Dreyfuss's Roy Neary as the bad-dad, obsessive-artist Spielberg surrogate.

No. 3

Minority Report 2002

No. 5 - shared with Sean. An underrated entry she rates among the best science-fiction adaptations, anchored by Tom Cruise and a breakout Colin Farrell.

Sean Fennessey's Top Five Spielbergranked best-first; he held off naming No. 3 and never circled back to it

No. 1

Jaws 1975

No. 1 - “the greatest blockbuster of all time,” a movie that made and then complicated Hollywood's relationship with the blockbuster. He's never seen it in a theater.

No. 2

A.I. Artificial Intelligence 2001

No. 2 - bumps Close Encounters, which held this spot on his list from a Spielberg episode he did three and a half years earlier. On rewatch he calls it one of the most incredible films ever made, and now reads it as a movie about the terror of being a parent.

No. 3

Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981

No. 4 - his pick over Last Crusade; “in some ways the first modern action movie,” built entirely around its set pieces.

No. 4

Minority Report 2002

No. 5 - shared with Joanna.

Amanda Dobbins's Top Five Spielbergranked best-first

No. 1

Jurassic Park 1993

No. 1 - shared with Joanna. She was nine when she saw it and has never gotten over the dinosaurs looking real.

No. 2

Jaws 1975

No. 2 - she's embarrassed to rank it this low given how much of the modern blockbuster is still ripping it off.

No. 3

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 1982

No. 3 - “a beautiful and pretty screwed up movie” she cried through on rewatch; the closest thing Spielberg has to an actual autobiography.

No. 4

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 1989

No. 4 - picked over Raiders for Sean Connery as Indy's fun-but-absent dad, and because it's the one she's rewatched most.

No. 5

Catch Me If You Can 2002

No. 5 - shared with Joanna, who ranks it higher on her own list. A caper about fathers and sons starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks; possibly DiCaprio's best performance.

Also mentioned raised along the way

In passing Hello, Dolly!Taxi DriverThe Sound of MusicAtonementRomeo + JulietArgoDuel

Spielberg, not on anyone's list Schindler's ListEmpire of the SunAmistadMunichLincolnSaving Private RyanThe Color PurpleAlwaysWar Horse1941Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal SkullThe Lost World: Jurassic ParkBridge of Spies

Coming soon The FabelmansThe Tragedy of MacbethThe Power of the DogDon't Look Up

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