A man-eating shark. A friendly alien. An adventurous archeologist. A ragtag WWII platoon. A heroic German businessman in the Holocaust. The eclectic career of director Steven Spielberg, who celebrates his 72nd birthday on December 18, 2018, has virtually defined what a blockbuster could be in the past four decades, but he’s also been able to craft more personal films as well. In honor of his birthday, we are ranking Spielberg’s entire filmography from worst to best in a new photo gallery above of his 31 theatrical features.

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Spielberg’s reputation as a master entertainer came with the release of “Jaws,” his 1975 shark attack thriller. Made when he was just 29 years old, the film set box office records and made the summer safe for blockbusters again. Such following films as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977), “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) and all the Indiana Jones movies,...