“Every­thing about me is in my films,” Steven Spiel­berg has said. Tak­ing this as a key to under­stand­ing the huge­ly suc­cess­ful moviemak­er, Mol­ly Haskell explores the full range of Spielberg’s works for the light they shine upon the man him­self. Through such pow­er­house hits as Close Encoun­ters of the Third Kind, E.T., Juras­sic Park, and Indi­ana Jones, to less­er-known mas­ter­works like A.I. and Empire of the Sun, to the haunt­ing Schindler’s List, Haskell shows how Spielberg’s unique­ly evoca­tive film­mak­ing and sto­ry-telling reveal the many ways in which his life, work, and times are entwined.

Orga­niz­ing chap­ters around spe­cif­ic films, the dis­tin­guished crit­ic dis­cuss­es how Spielberg’s child­hood in non-Jew­ish sub­urbs, his par­ents’ trau­mat­ic divorce, his return to Judaism upon his son’s birth, and oth­er events echo in his work. She offers a bril­liant por­trait of the extra­or­di­nary direc­tor — a fear­ful boy liv­ing through his imag­i­na­tion who grew into a man whose open­ness, gen­eros­i­ty of spir­it, and cre­ativ­i­ty have enchant­ed audi­ences for more than 40 years.