With a record-setting opening weekend gross of $70 million and a staggering total gross of $357 million, the film launched another big-money franchise, including two sequels, The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), which Spielberg directed, and Jurassic Park III (2001), which he produced.

Also in 1993, Spielberg released his sobering black-and-white adaptation of Thomas Keneally’s prize-winning novel Schindler’s List. The story of a complicated real-life hero, Nazi Party member Oskar Schindler (played by Liam Neeson), Schindler’s List finally netted Spielberg the much-coveted Oscar statuettes for Best Director and Best Picture. Nominated in 12 categories in all, including acting nods for Neeson and costar Ralph Fiennes, the film won a total of seven statues. In addition to its critical acclaim, Schindler’s List earned over $100 million at the box office, and Spielberg gave all of his earnings from the film to the Righteous Persons Foundation, an organization that supports a number of projects that impact modern Jewish life. In 1994, Spielberg joined forces with Jeffrey Katzenberg, the former head of production at Disney, and the recording mogul David Geffen to form DreamWorks, a multimedia entertainment company with interests in film, TV, music, computer software, and the budding Internet technology. Though its first several films were only modestly successful, DreamWorks began to hit its stride in the late 1990s, turning out critically acclaimed hits such as Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998), American Beauty (1999), Gladiator (2000), and the animated feature Shrek (2001). Spielberg had another banner filmmaking year in 1997, releasing not only the mammoth sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park but also the drama Amistad. The latter film, a fact-based drama about a revolt by African slaves aboard a Spanish slave ship in 1839 that resulted in a memorable legal battle in the United States, earned critical praise and a Golden Globe nomination for Spielberg. The following summer, Spielberg had an even greater success with Saving Private Ryan, starring Tom Hanks. The grisly but awe-inspiring World War II epic, nominated for 11 Oscars, earned Spielberg his second statue for Best Director. Saving Private Ryan won a total of five Oscars, but was surprisingly upset in the Best Picture category by Miramax’s Shakespeare in Love. In 2001, after three years without a directorial feature, Spielberg helmed the high-profile science fiction drama A.I. Artificial Intelligence, a film that was originally the pet project of his good friend, the famously eccentric director Stanley Kubrick. After Kubrick’s death in 1998, Spielberg took over the reins, adding his trademark air of fantasy and sentiment to Kubrick’s darker vision.