One of the all-time masters of sci-fi and blockbuster filmmaking at large returns this week, as Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Dayopens under a fair amount of mystery for a project this large, with Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor and Colman Domingo starring in a nostalgia-heavy adventure picture about a mysterious organization's cover-up of human contact with extra-terrestrials. Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp penned the script from an original story by Spielberg himself. Early critical response has been generally positive, though it remains to be seen if the picturecan recapture anything like the box-office magic of Spielberg in his heyday.

Few directors command as much respect from critics or awaken such reverence from audiences as Steven Spielberg. Perhaps the best director working in Hollywood today, Spielberg is a cinematic institution, a bona fide genius whose name has become synonymous with the seventh art itself. In a career spanning over sixty years, Spielberg has directed many of cinema's biggest masterpieces, from adventure classics like Raiders of the Lost Ark to harrowing war epics like Saving Private Ryan to deeply humanistic portrayals of artistic ambition like The Fabelmans. No director has mastered the delicate balance between artistry and commercialism as perfectly as Spielberg, whose Jaws set the blueprint that every summer blockbuster has followed since.

For many, myself included, Steven Spielberg is the filmmaker who made us fall in love with cinema. Few directors have effortlessly moved between genres. He reinvented the summer blockbuster with Jawsand Raiders of the Lost Ark, made harrowing historical dramas such as Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, andchanged the way we look at extraterrestrials with E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I’ve made no secret of my attachment to Spielberg; without him, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be writing this review. There’s also a chance this very website wouldn’t exist.