Sightlines · reception
How Empire of the Sun was received
1987 · Steven Spielberg · Empire of the Sun on Sightlines
The arc
A rare Spielberg box-office disappointment in 1987, shrugged off by many critics as overproduced prestige — it's since been reappraised so thoroughly that 'Empire of the Sun is his most underrated film' is now practically Spielberg-fan orthodoxy.
What’s debated
The perennial fight: is this secretly top-tier Spielberg — darker and stranger than his reputation allows — or does John Williams' score and the sweep smother what should have been a bleaker story?
Its footprint
'Cadillac of the skies!' endures as one of cinema's great awe-struck line readings, and the film made the Welsh lullaby 'Suo Gân' world-famous; Christopher Nolan has pointed to it when discussing Dunkirk.
Where it stands
A canon climber and the standard answer to 'most underrated Spielberg' — plus the origin story cinephiles cite for Christian Bale.
Did you know? Thirteen-year-old Christian Bale won the lead over thousands of hopefuls, helped by a recommendation from Spielberg's then-wife Amy Irving, who had just acted alongside him in the TV film Anastasia — and the National Board of Review invented a special juvenile-performance award just to honor him.
Named by the director
- David Lean — Lean was originally set to direct with Spielberg producing; when Spielberg took over he openly framed the film as his homage to Lean's epic style.