The greatest performances in Steven Spielberg movies

Scheider did not have the showy part in “Jaws.” He’s also the most vital role, because Brody is the most vital character. He’s the police chief on Amity; he’s in a little over his head, but he has a sense of what’s right, and he happens to live on an island and hates the water. “Jaws,” Spielberg’s breakthrough film, is great for many reasons. It doesn’t work without Scheider’s wry, human portrayal of Brody.

Plus, Brody being the way he is provides a great balance to Shaw as Quint. Quint is the best character in “Jaws,” but he has to exist in a secondary role. Shaw was a talented actor, but he excelled at having a bit of menace to his characters. Quint is not unlike Captain Ahab, and Shaw is stellar in the role.

Yes, we could have included Dreyfuss for “Jaws,” but we’re going to include him for “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” a movie he (and the special effects) carries. Dreyfuss won an Oscar for another 1977 film, “The Goodbye Girl,” but his turn in “Close Encounters” now stands as the better performance. Had the Oscar voters seemingly been averse to sci-fi, Dreyfuss arguably would have won for “Close Encounters” instead.

It’s one of the best movie star performances in history. Ford shined as Han Solo in “Star Wars,” of course, but he was a side character. As Indiana Jones in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Ford minted himself as one of the greatest movie stars ever. He was also pretty good to really good in all of the sequels. Yes, even “Dial of Destiny.”

Indy has had a few good characters to bounce off of in the Indiana Jones films, but none of them create as strong a dynamic as Marion Ravenwood, and Allen was never better as Marion than in “Raiders.” Obviously, in male-led action films, the supporting female role/love interest is often unremarkable. Marion is not such a role, and Allen’s performance is definitely remarkable. She has a flinty kineticism that absolutely shines, and Allen’s performance is a big reason why Marion is the second-best character in the series.

Casting Connery as Indy’s father was very “first thought, best thought,” but it also worked. Why get cute when you can hire a movie star who can read as patrician but also still sharp and vibrant? After “Temple of Doom,” the franchise needed a jolt, and Connery as Henry Jones made that happen.

“Jurassic Park” was a massive, industry-changing film, but the dinosaurs were the showcase. Spielberg opted not to cast A-list names for the human roles in the movie. Of course, the showy role went to Goldblum, a distinct actor who was well-suited to make Dr. Ian Malcolm make sense. He was so good for the role that they changed the book so that Ian survived, and then he also got to be the lead character in the (mediocre) sequel “The Lost World.”

Sam Neill is solid in “Jurassic Park” as well, but he’s stuck in a certain mode due to his role in the story. Dern, as paleobotanist Ellie Sattler, has a meatier role, but she also sinks her teeth into it. Somehow she makes it feel plausible that a scientist whose job is studying prehistoric plants can survive an action movie, and that isn’t easy.

One more “Jurassic Park” performance, because Knight is so great as Dennis Nedry. He turned Newman up a notch to make Nedry so smarmy and so likably unlikeable. The movie wants you to enjoy when Nedry meets his untimely end, and thanks to Knight’s performance, we very much do. When you pop in a tertiary role in a movie like “Jurassic Park,” you’re doing something right.

How many Oscars does Fiennes have? The answer is zero, and there’s a decent chance that is surprising to you. Fiennes is one of those actors who feels like an Oscar winner, but he has yet to win one. “Schindler’s List” won some Oscars, including Spielberg’s first Best Director, and Fiennes was nominated for his fantastic turn as the malevolent Aman Goeth, but maybe the character was just too dark, in too real a way, for Oscar voters.

And now, the next film that Spielberg won Best Director for. Hanks already had two Best Actor wins by the time he starred in “Saving Private Ryan,” a film that basically birthed his second career as “World War II guy.” It’s not a showy performance, but he has to hold the center of this film, which can be thrilling and harrowing and melodramatic at any given moment, and he does that with aplomb.

Leonardo DiCaprio is good in “Catch Me If You Can,” but asking him to play so young, too young even for Leo’s days when he could still read as fresh-faced, hindered his performance a bit. Hanks didn’t have that issue. DiCaprio’s con artist character is the dynamic one, the on-paper interesting one, but he needs his foil. That foil is Hanks, and he’s the real reason why “Catch Me If You Can” works so well.

Spielberg’s “Minority Report” is a full-throttle sci-fi action movie that requires a certain kind of actor to deliver a certain kind of performance. Cruise’s turn in “Minority Report” is not the thing Oscar nominations are made of. It is how you take a complicated, maybe even convoluted, sci-fi story and turn it into a rip-roaring film, though. If only Cruise (and Spielberg) could have done that with the misfire that was “War of the Worlds.”

For the first time, Spielberg directed an Oscar-winning performance. Now, winning an Oscar would not guarantee a spot on a list of best performances. We’ve seen some Oscar-winning turns we question winning. Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln is decidedly not one of those. There’s a reason why this was his third win for Best Actor, after all.

The power of Spielberg in the 2010s is that he could pack the cast for “Lincoln” with notable actors. Truly, this is a stacked cast. The standout, aside from Day-Lewis, is Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens. Stevens is not one of the historical names your average viewer of this film knows, so Jones couldn’t rely on that. He had to make Stevens feel fleshed out and dynamic, and he very much does.

Mark Rylance won a surprising Best Supporting Actor for “Bridge of Spies,” but you actually won’t find him on this list. Rylance is good in the film, but he’s not great. He’s a little hammy, and the role is less nuanced. Frankly, Hanks is better than Rylance in the movie. He just doesn’t have the showy role, but he makes himself stand out. Almost like he’s one of our greatest living actors or something.

Spielberg mined his childhood (to arguably an excessive degree that borders on navel-gazing) for “The Fabelmans.” It has a few good performances, but Williams stands out as the analog to Spielberg’s mother. She had to convey being an effervescent, freewheeling personality that can go to extremes on that front in a way that is detrimental to herself and her family. Williams is able to do that.

A young, largely unknown actor was asked to play young Spielberg in a movie directed by present-day Spielberg. No pressure, right? LaBelle was always going to get extra scrutiny from film viewers. Who is this young man who Spielberg cast to play himself? LaBelle handled himself well, so much so that he got to play Lorne Michaels in “Saturday Night” a couple of years later. He’s good in that movie as well, and he wasn’t even working with a good director on that one!

For much of “Disclosure Day,” Domingo is doing phone call acting, effectively monologue acting. Hiring a two-time Oscar nominee for a secondary role like that is kind of a cheat code, but Spielberg is smart enough to use his cache. After all, that cache also helped make “Disclosure Day” happen. Domingo is the best actor in the film, and he gives a strong performance, which is not surprising.

Blunt has the showiest role in “Disclosure Day.” It’s also a role that, as written, could have been sweaty and clunky in the wrong hands. Blunt is no Domingo as an actor, and she hasn’t given a lot of strong dramatic performances (though she has been good in plenty of films, of course). This is perhaps her best turn as an actor. Maybe that’s the magic of working with Spielberg.