STEVEN SPIELBERG: THE SPOTLIGHT COLLECTION Brings Home Eight Modern Classics

Okay, "eight classics" may be jumping the gun a bit, as the most recent of the films collected in Steven Spielberg: The Spotlight Collection has a more checkered history with both critics and audiences, but this still a mammoth collection of masterful works.

The big box -- a metal casing with a cushioned, slotted interior holding eight individual steel books -- includes 4K versions of Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, and War of the Worlds.

That's an undeniably strong collection of films -- even if you don't enjoy Spielberg's take on War of the Worlds as much as I do -- but that points to this set's only real drawback. It's a beautifully produced collection, but all eight of these films are already available individually on 4K UHD.

Fans and collectors are given no reason beyond the aesthetic to purchase it if they already own the previously released 4Ks. It feels like this would have been a great opportunity to debut a 4K remastered release of Munich or Empire of the Sun instead of only featuring reissues, but no such luck.

That understanding aside, fans who don't already have the bulk of these titles on 4K might want to hop on here, as it's a very slick limited-edition release. Packaging is attractive, and the steel books offer a uniform look utilizing the original poster art on the front, a memorable quote from the film on the back, and a behind-the-scenes photo as the interior.

Each case holds a 4K UHD and a Blu-ray -- all using previous 4K masters -- while Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Schindler's List, and Saving Private Ryan all include a bonus Blu-ray with additional extras. The set also comes with a numbered (out of 5700) certificate of authenticity.

Spielberg is arguably the most popular and well-known filmmaker in the Western world, so we won't be going through each film in detail, as it seems unlikely any of them will be new to you. The extras included with each film are also lifted from previous releases, meaning there's nothing new here on the supplemental front, either. So here are a couple highlights instead.

Jaws is as iconic as ever and looks stunning in 4K, and the numerous extras thankfully include last year's stellar look-back documentary, Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story. The feature-length doc, also included on the recent standalone 4K UHD of the film, features new interviews and archival footage to explore the film's production, reception, and legacy, and it's an engaging watch for fans.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind also comes loaded with supplemental goodies, but the main draw here remains the inclusion of all three cuts of the film remastered in 4K. The theatrical cut, the special edition edit, and the director's cut all get the 4K treatment, and all three look brilliant.

Finally, and this is an aside spurred on by the set's inclusion of both Jurassic Park and Schindler's List, but while it's not unheard of for a filmmaker to release two films into theaters in the same year, it's not often that they're both such undeniably fantastic examples of the artform. Mel Brooks and Francis Ford Coppola both did it in 1974 with Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein and The Conversation and The Godfather II, respectively.

Only two feature filmmakers have doubled up twice, though. Alfred Hitchcock managed it in 1954 (Dial M for Murder, Rear Window) and 1955 (To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry). Spielberg did so in 1993 with the two films mentioned above and again in 2002 with Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can.

Look, I think it's interesting... anyway, the box set also includes digital copies of all eight features. They're nice to have available if you're away from home and craving a Spielberg fix, but remember, you don't own digital versions the same way you do physical ones. Bottom line, Steven Spielberg: The Spotlight Collection is a fantastic home video release, especially for fans who don't already own these films individually.