As the single most commercially successful director in the history of cinema, not to mention the only one that’s seen their cumulative filmography rack up more than $10 billion at the box office, misfires from Steven Spielberg are few and far between. He did get one out of the way early, though, with 1941 standing out as an anomaly.
Looking at the filmmaker’s incredible track record stretching across decades, the misjudged wartime comedy sticks out like a sore thumb. Sandwiched in between Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind on one side and Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial on the other, mediocre ticket sales and largely apathetic reviews saw it go down in the history books as Spielberg’s first folly, and last for a while.
Rather harshly, a recent Rolling Stone article named the film’s entire existence as one of the 50 worst decisions to have ever been made in Hollywood both on and off-screen, which feels like it might be at least one or two steps too far. Sure, it’s nowhere near top-tier Spielberg and the ambition far outweighs the execution, but it’s become a solid cult favorite for many well-deserved reasons.
To that end, the post-Pearl Harbor farce that sees a disparate cast of eccentric characters descend into madness has been finding itself in the midst of a coincidental comeback on streaming, with FlixPatrol revealing 1941 as one of the most-watched features on the Chili platform this week. It’s not a classic, but there’s no chance it deserves to be placed at the bottom of the industry’s entire historical barrel.