Golden Globes 2023: Steven Spielberg wins best director for ‘The Fabelmans’

Steven Spielberg
| Photo Credit: MARIO ANZUONI

Steven Spielberg won the best director Golden Globe award for his autobiographical epic The Fabelmans.

The filmmaker competed with James Cameron for Avatar: The Way of Water, Baz Luhrmann for Elvis, Martin McDonagh for The Banshees of Inisherin, and Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for their quirky Everything Everywhere All at Once.

The Fabelmans, which Spielberg wrote with Tony Kushner, draws extensively from the director’s own childhood — from his parents, played by Michelle Williams and Paul Dano in the film, and from his early formation as a filmmaker.

While accepting the award, Spielberg said that this was a story that he has been hiding since he was 17 years old. “I told this story in parts and parcels all through my career. ‘E.T.’ Has a lot to do with this story. ‘Close Encounters’ has a lot to do with this story. But I never had the courage to hit this story head-on until Tony Kushner [and I] were working on ‘Munich’ a long time ago, [and he] started telling me about all these stories about [his] life. And we started a conversation. And the conversation lasted all through ‘Munich,’ all through ‘Lincoln’ and ‘West Side Story.’ And my wife Kate was always saying, ‘You have to tell this.’ And during COVID, I didn’t know if any of us were going to have the chance to tell any of our stories again in March, April, May of 2020,” quoted Variety.

“Everything I’ve done up to this point has made me ready to finally be honest about the fact that it’s not easy to be a kid. The fact that everybody sees me as a success story… But nobody really knows who we are until we’re courageous enough to tell everyone who we are. And I spent a lot of time trying to figure out when I could tell that story and I figured out when I turned 74 years old. I said, ‘You better do it now.’ And I’m really, really happy I did,” added Spielberg

The Fabelmans was nominated under five categories at the Golden Globes 2023.