The Fabelmans (2022)

This is Spielberg's back story, which he co-wrote with Tony Kushner during the pandemic, and it is very very good. The events are apparently not 100% accurate but do follow the arc of the director's actual childhood. You can tell from the opening sequence that it is going to be a good story. The mother, Mitzi (Michelle Williams), is a former concert pianist who became a homemaker and piano teacher. The father, Burt (Paul Dano), is a scientist who works for various tech companies and there are four siblings, including Sammy. One night, Mitzi and Burt take their 8 year old son to his first theatrical film experience. The movie ends with a spectacular train crash that was created with miniatures. Sammy becomes obsessed with the sequence and asks for a train set, which he crashes in an attempt to recreate the scene, infuriating his father, but his mother gets it. She suggests that he shoot the trains crashing with his father's movie camera so that he can watch one crash over and over instead of bashing the trains until they fall apart. Mitzi can tell from watching the boy's first film, which employs multiple, dynamic angles to capture the crash, and uses editing to build suspense and set up visual jokes, that he has real promise, and supports his creative endeavors going forwards. THe film ends as Sammy is not going to college but rather trying to get jobs that involve film and TV, and we know what happens next.