Steven Soderbergh Praises Steven Spielberg’s ‘Ready Player One’: “Most Directors Don’t Understand How He Pulled That Off”

In an interview with Deadline marking the 50th anniversary of Jaws, Steven Soderbergh went full fanboy for Steven Spielberg.

Calling Spielberg “a singular talent who was going to emerge one way or another,” Soderbergh reflected on how the director’s output — stretching, 50 years, from “Duel” to “The Fabelmans” — has become so consistently strong that it’s almost invisible. “Despite being the most successful director in history,” he said, “I still think he’s taken for granted.”

Soderbergh’s point is hard to argue. Spielberg has made so many defining films (“Jaws,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “E.T.,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Schindler’s List,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Minority Report”), that even his technical and emotional precision has somehow become background noise.

“There are things that he’s done,” Soderbergh said, “that if any other filmmaker had made them, these would be their career best. But he’s done it so often that he gets taken for granted.”

Soderbergh even singled out “Ready Player One” — a movie often dismissed by critics as a glossy digital playground — as proof of Spielberg’s otherworldly command of cinematic form. “There’s no filmmaker that I’m aware of that can wrap their head around what he did on Ready Player One,” Soderbergh said. “You get any group of directors together, and they’re like, ‘I don’t even understand how that’s possible.’”

He’s not wrong. “Ready Player One” may not have the emotional weight of “Schindler’s List” or “Saving Private Ryan” but as a piece of cinematic engineering, it’s borderline insane — a seamless fusion of live action and CG choreography. Soderbergh adds that the fact Spielberg shot “The Post” and “Ready Player One” back-to-back feels itself superhuman.

It’s a fair reminder that even Spielberg’s “minor” efforts tend to outclass most directors’ lifetime work. The man shot “Schindler’s List” and “Jurassic Park” back-to-back, both of which were major undertakings in completely different registers. As Soderbergh put it, “Anybody else after any one of these things he’d done would be on bed rest for three years.”

So yes, “Ready Player One” might not be your favorite Spielberg movie — is it really anybody’s? —but, as Soderbergh suggests, maybe it should at least earn your respect.