The John Williams collection gathers 29 films he scored between 1975 and 2023, from Jaws to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, most of them for Steven Spielberg or the Star Wars saga. His signature is the full symphony orchestra used in the late-Romantic manner, with short themes tied to characters and places, bright brass marches for heroes, and spare, quieter writing for history and grief. Watched in release order, the list follows him from the two-note shark motif through the fanfares of Star Wars, Superman and Indiana Jones to the violin of Schindler's List and the solo piano of The Fabelmans.
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No. 01 · 1975 · Film
Jaws recap
Jaws (1975) follows Martin Brody, police chief of the island resort of Amity, as a great white shark kills swimmers during the summer season. Steven Spielberg directs the thriller, adapted from Peter Benchley's 1974 novel and shot largely on the water off Martha's Vineyard. After a young woman is killed on a night swim, Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) wants the beaches closed, but Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) fears for the tourist trade, and a boy dies at a crowded beach. Marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) confirms the shark is unusually large, and a tiger shark caught by local fishermen turns out not to be the killer. On the Fourth of July weekend the shark enters a lagoon and nearly kills Brody's son. Vaughn finally hires Quint (Robert Shaw), a hardened shark hunter, and the three men head out on his boat, the Orca. The first film in this Williams list, its best-known cue is two low alternating notes that announce the shark long before it is seen, standing in for a mechanical shark that often failed.
How Jaws ends
Jaws ends with Brody killing the shark by shooting a compressed-air tank lodged in its jaws, blowing it apart. Before that, Quint tells the story of surviving the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, smashes the radio and drives the Orca until the engine fails. The shark wrecks Hooper's shark cage and leaps onto the sinking boat to eat Quint. Hooper surfaces, and he and Brody paddle to shore on the barrels. Three sequels followed without Spielberg. The novel's affair between Hooper and Brody's wife is dropped, and in the book Hooper dies.
Post-credits scenes
No. Jaws has no mid- or post-credits scene.
No. 02 · 1977 · Film
Star Wars recap
Star Wars (1977) follows Luke Skywalker, a farm boy on a desert planet, who joins a rebellion to rescue Princess Leia and destroy the Empire's Death Star. George Lucas writes and directs this space opera, later retitled Episode IV: A New Hope. Princess Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) hides stolen Death Star plans in the droid R2-D2 before Darth Vader (David Prowse, voiced by James Earl Jones) captures her. The droids end up with Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), whose search for R2-D2 leads him to the old Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness), who tells him about the Force and gives him his father's lightsaber. After stormtroopers kill his aunt and uncle, Luke hires the smuggler Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and his partner Chewbacca to fly them to Alderaan, which Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing) destroys. Pulled aboard the Death Star, they rescue Leia, and Obi-Wan dies fighting Vader. The main title fanfare opens the film over the scrolling text and returns whenever Luke and the heroes act; in this list Star Wars follows Jaws and comes before Close Encounters.
How Star Wars ends
Star Wars ends with Luke destroying the Death Star by firing torpedoes into a small exhaust port, then receiving a medal from Leia beside Han and Chewbacca. Han first leaves with his reward, and Vader closes in on Luke in the trench until Han returns in the Millennium Falcon and knocks him away. Guided by Obi-Wan's voice, Luke switches off his targeting computer and trusts the Force. Vader spins off into space, setting up The Empire Strikes Back in 1980.
Post-credits scenes
No. Star Wars has no mid- or post-credits scene.
No. 03 · 1977 · Film
Close Encounters of the Third Kind recap
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) follows Roy Neary, an Indiana power company lineman who becomes obsessed with an image after seeing a UFO. Steven Spielberg writes and directs this science fiction drama. Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) is sent out during a blackout and is lightly sunburned by lights from a passing craft. Nearby, three-year-old Barry Guiler wakes to find his toys moving, and his mother Jillian Guiler (Melinda Dillon) follows him outside. Roy starts sculpting a flat-topped mountain from shaving cream and mashed potatoes, then builds a huge model in his living room, and his wife Ronnie Neary (Teri Garr) leaves with their three children. Jillian draws the same shape, and Barry is taken from her house by the visitors. Meanwhile, French scientist Claude Lacombe (François Truffaut) tracks strange events worldwide, including Navy planes lost in 1945 that turn up intact in the desert. Five tones, first heard from witnesses in India, become the musical language used to talk to the aliens; the film follows Star Wars in this list and precedes Superman.
How Close Encounters of the Third Kind ends
Close Encounters of the Third Kind ends with Roy boarding the alien mothership and leaving Earth. Coordinates beamed back lead the government to Devils Tower in Wyoming, which it clears with a fake nerve gas story. Roy and Jillian recognise the mountain on television, slip past the army and reach the landing site. Scientists exchange the five tones with the mothership, which releases people missing for decades, including Barry. Lacombe answers an alien with hand signs for the tones before the ship rises. The Special Edition of 1980 shows the inside of the ship, later cut again.
Post-credits scenes
No. Close Encounters of the Third Kind has no mid- or post-credits scene, though Williams' orchestral version of "When You Wish Upon a Star" plays over the credits.
No. 04 · 1978 · Film
Superman recap
On the planet Krypton, the scientist Jor-El sentences the rebel General Zod to the Phantom Zone, then warns that the planet is about to explode. No one believes him, so he sends his baby son Kal-El to Earth in a small ship. The baby lands near Smallville, Kansas, and is raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent, who name him Clark. As a teenager, Clark hides his strength, and after Jonathan dies, a glowing crystal leads him north, where he builds the Fortress of Solitude and learns his history from recordings of his father. Years later, Clark joins the Daily Planet in Metropolis and falls for reporter Lois Lane. He saves her from a helicopter crash as Superman, and gives her an interview and a flight over the city. Lex Luthor plans to fire stolen nuclear missiles into the San Andreas fault to sink California and make his desert land valuable.
How Superman ends
Lex traps Superman with kryptonite, but his assistant Eve frees him after he promises to stop the missile heading for her mother's town first. The second missile triggers an earthquake, and Superman saves much of California, but Lois dies when her car is buried. In grief, Superman flies around the Earth so fast he turns back time and saves her. He delivers Lex and Otis to prison.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 05 · 1980 · Film
The Empire Strikes Back recap
The Empire Strikes Back (1980) follows the rebels as the Empire drives them from their ice base, while Luke Skywalker trains as a Jedi under Yoda. Irvin Kershner directs the space opera sequel, written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan from a story by George Lucas. Three years after the Death Star, Imperial forces led by Darth Vader find the rebel base on Hoth and attack with giant walkers. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), told by Obi-Wan's spirit to go to Dagobah, finds the small Jedi Master Yoda (Frank Oz) and learns to use the Force, with mixed success. Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), Chewbacca and C-3PO escape in the Millennium Falcon with a broken hyperdrive, hiding in an asteroid field as Han and Leia grow close. They reach Cloud City, run by Han's old friend Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), but Vader is already there. Williams introduces the Imperial March here as Vader's theme, a heavy brass march that plays whenever his fleet appears; the film follows Superman in this list and precedes Raiders.
How The Empire Strikes Back ends
The Empire Strikes Back ends with Vader cutting off Luke's hand and telling him he is his father. Leia tells Han she loves him, and he answers "I know" before being frozen in carbonite and taken by the bounty hunter Boba Fett. Luke, who left Dagobah early to save his friends, refuses to join Vader and drops down a shaft. Leia senses him through the Force and the Falcon picks him up. Luke gets a mechanical hand, and Lando and Chewbacca set off to find Han, leading into Return of the Jedi.
Post-credits scenes
No. The Empire Strikes Back has no mid- or post-credits scene.
No. 06 · 1981 · Film
Raiders of the Lost Ark recap
In 1936, after narrowly escaping a booby-trapped temple in Peru, only to lose a golden idol to his French rival Rene Belloq, Indiana Jones returns to teaching. Two US Army intelligence officers tell him the Nazis are searching for the Ark of the Covenant, which carried the Ten Commandments and is said to make any army invincible. Indy travels to Nepal to find his old mentor's daughter, Marion Ravenwood, who has a medallion, the headpiece to the Staff of Ra, needed to find the Ark. Marion, still angry at Indy from years before, joins him after Nazis led by the sadistic Toht burn down her bar. In Cairo, they team up with Indy's friend Sallah, and Marion appears to die in a truck explosion. Indy finds the true location of the Ark, the Well of the Souls, full of snakes, and finds Marion alive, but Belloq and the Nazis seal them in the tomb.
How Raiders of the Lost Ark ends
The Nazis open the Ark on an island, and the spirits inside kill them all while Indy and Marion survive by keeping their eyes shut. Indy and Marion escape the tomb, Indy chases the Ark on a truck, and later they are captured on the island. Back in Washington, the government says "top men" are studying the Ark, which is crated and stored in a vast warehouse.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 07 · 1982 · Film
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial recap
A group of alien botanists collecting plants in a California forest are chased off by government agents, and one of them is left behind. Ten-year-old Elliott, whose father has left the family, finds the creature in the garden shed, lures it inside with candy and hides it in his closet. He shows it to his older brother Michael and little sister Gertie, keeping it secret from their mother Mary. The alien, E.T., learns words from Gertie and television, and Elliott starts to feel what E.T. feels, getting drunk at school when E.T. drinks beer at home. E.T. builds a radio from a Speak and Spell and an umbrella to phone home, and on Halloween Elliott takes him into the woods to send the signal, the bicycle lifting into the air on the way. E.T. falls ill, and so does Elliott. Government scientists seal the house, and E.T. appears to die.
How E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ends
E.T. comes back to life as his ship returns. Elliott, Michael and their friends smuggle him out in a van and escape the agents on bicycles, which E.T. lifts into the sky. In the forest, the ship lands; E.T. says goodbye to the family, tells Elliott he will be right here, touching his forehead, and flies home, leaving a rainbow across the sky.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 08 · 1983 · Film
Return of the Jedi recap
Return of the Jedi (1983) follows Luke Skywalker as he faces his father, Darth Vader, while the rebels attack a second Death Star. Richard Marquand directs this space opera, the third film of the original Star Wars trilogy. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) free the frozen Han Solo (Harrison Ford) from Jabba's palace, and Leia strangles Jabba with the chain he has her bound in. Luke returns to Dagobah, where the dying Yoda confirms that Vader is his father, and Obi-Wan's spirit tells him Leia is his twin sister. The Emperor (Ian McDiarmid) is building a new Death Star above the forest moon of Endor. Han leads a team to knock out its shield generator, helped by the small furry Ewoks, while Luke surrenders to Vader. The Luke and Leia theme, a soft melody for strings and woodwinds, plays as Luke tells Leia she is his sister; in this list the film follows E.T. and precedes Temple of Doom.
How Return of the Jedi ends
Return of the Jedi ends with Vader throwing the Emperor down a shaft to save Luke, dying as Anakin Skywalker, and the rebels celebrating with the Ewoks. The Emperor tries to turn Luke to the dark side as the fleet falls into a trap. Luke cuts off Vader's hand in anger, then refuses to kill him, and the Emperor attacks him with lightning. Lando and Wedge Antilles blow up the Death Star. Luke burns his father's body and sees the spirits of Obi-Wan, Yoda and Anakin. The Phantom Menace returned to the saga in 1999.
Post-credits scenes
No. Return of the Jedi has no mid- or post-credits scene.
No. 09 · 1984 · Film
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom recap
In 1935, a year before Raiders, Indiana Jones escapes a gangster's nightclub in Shanghai with the singer Willie Scott and his young sidekick Short Round. Their plane, owned by the gangster, is abandoned mid-air, and they jump out on an inflatable raft and land in India. A poor village begs Indy to recover its sacred Sankara stone, stolen by the Thuggee, and its children, who have been taken. At the Pankot Palace, they meet the young Maharaja and his prime minister, and find secret tunnels into a temple where the Thuggee priest Mola Ram tears out a man's heart and sacrifices him in a pit of lava. The cult is forcing the village children to dig for the last two Sankara stones. Indy is captured and forced to drink a potion that puts him under Mola Ram's control, and Willie is chosen to be sacrificed.
How Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ends
Indy rescues the children and the stones, and Mola Ram falls to his death from a rope bridge, eaten by crocodiles. Short Round breaks Indy's trance with a torch. They free the children and escape on mine carts. On the bridge, Indy calls on Shiva and the stones burn through their bag; Mola Ram falls into the river. British soldiers arrive, and Indy returns the stone and the children to the village.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 10 · 1989 · Film
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade recap
A prologue shows a teenage Indy in 1912 trying to save the Cross of Coronado from robbers, earning his hat, his fear of snakes and his whip. In 1938, the businessman Walter Donovan tells Indy that his father, Henry Jones Sr., has disappeared while searching for the Holy Grail, and Indy receives Henry's Grail diary in the mail. Indy and his old friend Marcus Brody go to Venice, where Dr. Elsa Schneider is working with Henry. Indy finds a knight's tomb in the catacombs and learns that Henry is held by the Nazis in a castle in Austria. He rescues his father, and they learn that Elsa and Donovan are working for the Nazis. Indy and Henry, never close, argue across Europe, going to Berlin to recover the diary and fleeing on a zeppelin. They follow the diary to the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, where Sallah joins them, and the Nazis capture Brody.
How Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ends
Indy finds the Grail, saves his dying father with it, and the temple collapses as Elsa reaches for the cup; they ride off into the sunset. Donovan shoots Henry to force Indy through the traps. Donovan drinks from the wrong cup and dies, and the ancient knight guarding it tells Indy the Grail cannot leave. Elsa falls, Henry tells Indy to let it go, and they ride away with Sallah and Brody.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 11 · 1990 · Film
Home Alone recap
The night before the McCallister family flies from Chicago to Paris for Christmas, eight-year-old Kevin is sent to the attic after a fight and wishes his family would disappear. A power cut makes them oversleep, and in the rush to the airport they leave him behind. Kevin wakes to an empty house and thinks his wish came true. He eats junk, watches gangster films and shops for himself, while his mother Kate realises mid-flight and struggles to get home, eventually hitching a ride with a polka band. Two burglars, Harry and Marv, are robbing empty houses in the neighbourhood and decide Kevin's house is next. Kevin fools them for a while with cardboard cutouts and a gangster film, but learns they will break in on Christmas Eve. At church he talks to his scary old neighbour, Marley, who is estranged from his own son, and Kevin decides to defend the house.
How Home Alone ends
Kevin turns the house into a trap, hitting Harry and Marv with paint cans, an iron, tar, nails and a blowtorch, then leads them to the house next door. When they catch him, Marley knocks them out with a snow shovel, and the police arrest them. On Christmas morning, Kate comes home, followed by the rest of the family, and Kevin watches Marley reunite with his son.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 12 · 1991 · Film
Hook recap
Peter Banning is a workaholic lawyer who has no memory of his childhood and breaks his promises to his children, Jack and Maggie. On a family trip to London to see his wife's grandmother Wendy, the children are kidnapped, and a note is signed by Captain James Hook. Wendy tells Peter that he is Peter Pan, grown up. Tinker Bell carries him to Neverland, where Hook is disappointed by the overweight, out-of-shape man who cannot fly or fight. Tink persuades Hook to give Peter three days to get ready. The Lost Boys, now led by Rufio, doubt Peter but train him. Meanwhile Hook, with Smee's help, sets out to win Jack's love, and Jack starts to see Hook as a father. Peter finally remembers his past and finds his happy thought, the birth of his son, and he flies again.
How Hook ends
Peter leads the Lost Boys against the pirates and wins back his children, but Hook kills Rufio. Peter beats Hook in a duel and spares him, and Hook is swallowed by the stuffed crocodile that crashes down on him. Peter names Thudbutt leader of the Lost Boys and returns to London with Jack and Maggie, a changed father who says to live would be an awfully big adventure.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 13 · 1991 · Film
JFK recap
JFK (1991) follows New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison as he comes to believe Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone in killing President Kennedy. Oliver Stone directs and co-writes this political thriller, adapted from books by Garrison and Jim Marrs. Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) first looks into local links to the 1963 assassination, including the pilot David Ferrie (Joe Pesci), and drops the case. In 1966, reading the Warren Report, he reopens it, convinced the single-bullet theory is wrong. His staff interviews witnesses, including the prisoner Willie O'Keefe (Kevin Bacon), and Garrison comes to suspect businessman Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones). Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman) appears in flashbacks. In Washington, a man calling himself X (Donald Sutherland) describes a high-level plot. Witnesses refuse to talk or die, and his wife Liz Garrison (Sissy Spacek) resents the cost to their family. The Prologue, a piece for drums and brass, plays under the opening newsreel montage of the Kennedy years; the film shares 1991 with Hook and comes before Jurassic Park in this list.
How JFK ends
JFK ends with the jury acquitting Clay Shaw in 1969 after less than an hour of deliberation. In court, Garrison plays the Zapruder film, argues for three shooters firing six shots, and claims a coup put Lyndon Johnson in power to widen the Vietnam War. Despite losing, he wins back his wife's respect. Closing text says files on the assassination remain sealed. The film drew criticism for its embrace of conspiracy theories, and its release led Congress to pass a 1992 law releasing many of those records.
Post-credits scenes
No. JFK has no mid- or post-credits scene.
No. 14 · 1993 · Film
Jurassic Park recap
When a park worker is killed by a velociraptor, the investors in John Hammond's new island theme park demand experts sign off on it. Hammond brings palaeontologist Alan Grant, palaeobotanist Ellie Sattler, mathematician Ian Malcolm and lawyer Donald Gennaro to Isla Nublar off Costa Rica, along with his grandchildren, Lex and Tim. The park holds living dinosaurs cloned from DNA preserved in mosquitoes trapped in amber, with gaps filled with frog DNA, and all of them are female so they cannot breed. Malcolm warns that life will find a way. During the tour, a storm hits, and computer programmer Dennis Nedry shuts down the park's security to smuggle embryos out for a rival company. The fences go dark, a Tyrannosaurus breaks out and eats Gennaro, and Nedry is killed by a Dilophosaurus. Grant finds hatched eggs: the dinosaurs are breeding.
How Jurassic Park ends
Ellie restores the power, and the raptors, now loose, kill the game warden Muldoon and hunt the children through the visitor centre. Lex reboots the security system, and as the raptors corner the group, the T. rex bursts in and kills them. The survivors escape by helicopter, and Hammond gives up on his park.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 15 · 1993 · Film
Schindler's List recap
Schindler's List (1993) follows Oskar Schindler, a German businessman and Nazi Party member who ends up saving more than a thousand Jews during the Holocaust. Steven Spielberg directs this historical drama, shot mostly in black and white and adapted from Thomas Keneally's novel Schindler's Ark. Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) arrives in occupied Kraków to make money, bribes German officials and takes over an enamelware factory staffed by Jews from the ghetto. His Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) runs the business and quietly lists as many people as possible as essential workers. SS officer Amon Göth (Ralph Fiennes) builds the Płaszów camp, orders the ghetto cleared and shoots prisoners from his balcony. During the clearance, Schindler sees a little girl in a red coat, one of the only colours in the film, and later sees her body. He grows close to Göth through bribes and gets a sub-camp at his factory. The main theme, a lament for solo violin played by Itzhak Perlman, carries the film's grief; Schindler's List follows Jurassic Park and precedes Saving Private Ryan.
How Schindler's List ends
Schindler's List ends with survivors and the actors who play them placing stones on Schindler's grave in Jerusalem, in colour. When Göth is ordered to ship his prisoners to Auschwitz, Schindler pays to move about 1,100 workers to a munitions factory in Brünnlitz, rescues the women sent to Auschwitz by mistake, and makes sure the factory produces nothing usable. When the war ends he breaks down, saying he could have saved more. The workers give him a ring inscribed, "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire."
Post-credits scenes
No. Schindler's List has no mid- or post-credits scene.
No. 16 · 1998 · Film
Saving Private Ryan recap
Saving Private Ryan (1998) sends Captain John Miller and his squad across Normandy to find a paratrooper whose three brothers have been killed. Steven Spielberg directs this war film, written by Robert Rodat. It opens with the landing at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, where Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) leads survivors off the sand. In Washington, General George Marshall orders that Private James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon) be found and sent home to his mother. Miller takes a squad that includes Sergeant Mike Horvath (Tom Sizemore), Private Richard Reiben (Edward Burns) and the translator Corporal Timothy Upham (Jeremy Davies), new to combat. Two of the men die on the way, one to a sniper and one attacking a machine-gun nest. Upham persuades Miller to free a German prisoner, and Miller reveals he was a schoolteacher to stop a mutiny. Williams writes little music for the battles; the brass and choral Hymn to the Fallen plays over the end credits as a memorial. In this list the film follows Schindler's List and precedes The Phantom Menace.
How Saving Private Ryan ends
Saving Private Ryan ends with an elderly Ryan at Miller's grave in the Normandy cemetery, asking his wife to tell him he has been a good man. Ryan refuses to leave his unit at a bridge in Ramelle, so Miller's men stay to defend it. In the battle, most of them die, Upham freezes on a staircase as Mellish is killed, and the released German prisoner shoots Miller. Upham then kills the prisoner. As aircraft and reinforcements arrive, the dying Miller tells Ryan to earn this.
Post-credits scenes
No. Saving Private Ryan has no mid- or post-credits scene.
No. 17 · 1999 · Film
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace recap
The Trade Federation blockades the planet Naboo, and the Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi are sent to negotiate. The talks are a trap set by the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, who orders an invasion. The Jedi rescue Queen Amidala and flee, but their damaged ship lands on Tatooine, where Qui-Gon meets Anakin Skywalker, a slave boy unusually strong in the Force. Anakin wins a podrace that pays for the ship's parts and his own freedom, though his mother Shmi stays behind. On Coruscant, the Jedi Council refuses to train Anakin, and Amidala, frustrated by the Senate, backs a vote of no confidence that makes Naboo's senator Palpatine the new Chancellor. Sidious's apprentice Darth Maul hunts the group throughout, and the Gungan Jar Jar Binks, exiled from his own people, tags along with the Jedi. Amidala resolves to go home and fight, even though the Republic will not help her.
How Star Wars: The Phantom Menace ends
Amidala allies with the Gungans and retakes Naboo, while young Anakin destroys the droid control ship and shuts down the droid army. Maul kills Qui-Gon in a duel, and Obi-Wan cuts Maul in half. With his dying breath Qui-Gon asks Obi-Wan to train Anakin, and the Council reluctantly agrees. Palpatine, secretly Darth Sidious, takes office as Chancellor and tells Anakin he will watch his career with interest.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 18 · 2001 · Film
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone recap
Harry Potter lives in a cupboard under the stairs with his cruel aunt and uncle, the Dursleys. On his eleventh birthday the giant Hagrid tells him he is a wizard, famous for surviving the attack by Lord Voldemort that killed his parents and left him a lightning-bolt scar. At Hogwarts he is sorted into Gryffindor and befriends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, makes an enemy of Draco Malfoy, and turns out to be a natural Seeker at Quidditch. The friends learn that a three-headed dog guards something under the school: the Philosopher's Stone, which grants eternal life. They suspect the hostile potions master Severus Snape of trying to steal it, and with Dumbledore away they go through the trapdoor themselves, past a giant chess game in which Ron sacrifices himself.
How Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone ends
Harry reaches the final chamber and finds not Snape but Professor Quirrell, with Voldemort's face on the back of his head. The Stone appears in Harry's pocket through the Mirror of Erised, and Quirrell crumbles to dust at Harry's touch, protected by his mother's sacrifice. Dumbledore explains, the Stone is destroyed, and Gryffindor wins the House Cup. Harry goes home for the summer with Voldemort still out there.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 19 · 2002 · Film
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets recap
The house-elf Dobby tries to stop Harry going back to Hogwarts, and Ron and his brothers rescue Harry in a flying car. At school, students and a ghost are found petrified, and a message on the wall announces that the Chamber of Secrets, built by Salazar Slytherin, has been opened and its monster is hunting Muggle-born students. Harry discovers he can speak Parseltongue, the snake language, and the school suspects him. Hermione is petrified. Harry finds an old diary belonging to Tom Riddle that shows him a memory of Hagrid being blamed for the Chamber fifty years ago. Then Ron's sister Ginny is taken into the Chamber, and Harry and Ron go after her, dragging along the fraudulent teacher Gilderoy Lockhart, whose memory charm backfires on himself.
How Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets ends
In the Chamber, Tom Riddle reveals he is the young Voldemort, preserved in the diary and draining Ginny's life. Dumbledore's phoenix Fawkes brings Harry the Sorting Hat, and he pulls the sword of Gryffindor from it, kills the basilisk, and stabs the diary with a fang, destroying Riddle. Ginny lives. Harry frees Dobby from Lucius Malfoy, who planted the diary. The diary later turns out to be one of Voldemort's Horcruxes.
Post-credits scenes
Yes. After the credits, a sign in Flourish and Blotts advertises Lockhart's new book, "Who Am I?", a joke about his lost memory. It sets up nothing further.
No. 20 · 2002 · Film
Catch Me If You Can recap
Catch Me If You Can (2002) follows Frank Abagnale Jr., a teenage runaway who forges millions in cheques while posing as a pilot, a doctor and a lawyer. Steven Spielberg directs this crime comedy-drama, based on Abagnale's disputed memoir. In 1963, Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) watches his father Frank Abagnale Sr. (Christopher Walken) lose his business to tax trouble, and when his mother Paula (Nathalie Baye) leaves for his father's friend, he runs away. Needing money, he poses as a Pan Am co-pilot and forges the airline's payroll cheques. FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks) takes up the chase and corners him in a hotel, but Frank convinces Carl he is a Secret Service agent and walks out. As Dr. Frank Conners, he falls for nurse Brenda Strong (Amy Adams), passes the Louisiana bar exam with help from her father, and gets engaged. The jazzy title music, built on alto saxophone and finger snaps, sets a 1960s caper tone over the animated opening credits; the film follows Chamber of Secrets and precedes Prisoner of Azkaban.
How Catch Me If You Can ends
Catch Me If You Can ends with Frank working for the FBI's fraud unit beside Carl, choosing to come back to work after Carl lets him decide. Carl breaks up the engagement party, Frank escapes to Europe surrounded by student stewardesses, and Carl finally arrests him in his mother's French hometown. On the flight home Frank learns his father has died, escapes through a toilet and finds his mother with a new family. He serves prison time until Carl brings him in. Closing text says the real Abagnale stayed friends with Hanratty, though much of his story has since been questioned.
Post-credits scenes
No. Catch Me If You Can has no mid- or post-credits scene.
No. 21 · 2004 · Film
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban recap
Sirius Black, a mass murderer said to have betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort, escapes from the wizard prison Azkaban and appears to be hunting Harry. Soul-sucking Dementors guard Hogwarts, and the new Defence teacher Remus Lupin teaches Harry to fight them with the Patronus charm. Harry learns Black was his father's best friend and his godfather. Hagrid's hippogriff Buckbeak is sentenced to death after Draco provokes it. Ron's rat Scabbers vanishes, and a huge black dog drags Ron into the Shrieking Shack.
How Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban ends
In the Shack, Black and Lupin reveal that Scabbers is Peter Pettigrew, the real traitor, who framed Sirius. Lupin turns into a werewolf under the full moon and Pettigrew escapes. Hermione uses her Time-Turner to take Harry back three hours, and they save Buckbeak and then Sirius, who flies off on the hippogriff. Harry casts a full Patronus to drive off the Dementors. Lupin resigns, and Sirius sends Harry a Firebolt broom.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 22 · 2005 · Film
Memoirs of a Geisha recap
Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) follows Chiyo Sakamoto, a fishing-village girl sold to a geisha house in Kyoto in 1929, who grows up to become the geisha Sayuri. Rob Marshall directs the period drama, adapted from Arthur Golden's 1997 novel and produced by Steven Spielberg. Young Chiyo (Suzuka Ohgo) is separated from her sister and taken in by the owner of an okiya, where the jealous star geisha Hatsumomo (Gong Li) torments her. After a failed escape, Chiyo is made a servant. Crying on a bridge, she is given a handkerchief by the Chairman Ken Iwamura (Ken Watanabe), and decides to become a geisha to be near him. Years later the rival geisha Mameha (Michelle Yeoh) takes the grown Chiyo (Zhang Ziyi) as her pupil and renames her Sayuri. Sayuri becomes popular, and a bidding war for her virginity makes her the okiya's heir, which embitters her friend Pumpkin (Youki Kudoh). Sayuri's theme, with cello solos by Yo-Yo Ma, follows her longing for the Chairman; the film follows Prisoner of Azkaban and precedes Munich.
How Memoirs of a Geisha ends
Memoirs of a Geisha ends with the Chairman telling Sayuri he arranged for Mameha to train her, and the two finally kissing. Hatsumomo sets the okiya on fire and is thrown out, then war ends Sayuri's career. Afterward, the Chairman's partner Nobu (Kōji Yakusho) wants to become her patron, so she plans for him to catch her with an American colonel, but Pumpkin brings the Chairman instead. The casting of non-Japanese actresses as Japanese women drew criticism, and the novel's source, the former geisha Mineko Iwasaki, sued Golden.
Post-credits scenes
No. Memoirs of a Geisha has no mid- or post-credits scene.
No. 23 · 2005 · Film
Munich recap
Munich (2005) follows Avner Kaufman, a Mossad agent who leads a secret team hunting the men Israel blames for the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. Steven Spielberg directs the historical thriller, written by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth from George Jonas's book Vengeance. After Black September kills eleven Israeli athletes, Avner Kaufman (Eric Bana) resigns from the Mossad on paper so Israel can deny the mission, and his handler Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush) gives him a list of eleven names. His team includes the driver Steve (Daniel Craig), the bomb-maker Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz), the cleaner Carl (Ciarán Hinds) and the forger Hans (Hanns Zischler). A French informant, Louis, sells them locations. They kill targets in Rome, Paris, Cyprus and Beirut, argue over bystanders, and in Athens share a safe house with Palestinian fighters, where Avner talks with one of them about homeland. A Prayer for Peace, a slow theme with a wordless female voice, plays over the film's grief and doubt; in this list Munich follows Memoirs of a Geisha and comes before Lincoln.
How Munich ends
Munich ends with Ephraim refusing Avner's invitation to dinner in Brooklyn, and the camera resting on the New York skyline with the World Trade Center. Before that, Carl, Hans and Robert are killed one by one, the team fails twice to kill Ali Hassan Salameh, and Avner, paranoid, moves his family to New York. Closing text says nine of the eleven targets were killed, including Salameh in 1979. Some former Mossad officers disputed the book the film is based on.
Post-credits scenes
No. Munich has no mid- or post-credits scene.
No. 24 · 2012 · Film
Lincoln recap
Lincoln (2012) covers January 1865, when Abraham Lincoln pushes the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery through the House before the war ends. Steven Spielberg directs the historical drama, written by Tony Kushner and partly based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals. Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) fears the Emancipation Proclamation will not survive the peace, so the amendment must pass now. Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn) hires three political operatives, among them W. N. Bilbo (James Spader), to offer jobs to Democrats who lost their seats. To keep conservative Republicans on board, Lincoln lets Francis Preston Blair open peace talks with the Confederacy, which could sink the vote. The radical Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) tones down his views on racial equality in debate. At home, Mary Todd Lincoln (Sally Field) grieves a dead son and fears for Robert Todd Lincoln (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who wants to enlist. The People's House, a quiet orchestral piece, carries the film's talk of democracy; Lincoln follows Munich and precedes The Force Awakens.
How Lincoln ends
Lincoln ends with a flashback to Lincoln delivering his second inaugural address, after his death from an assassin's bullet. The amendment passes by two votes once Lincoln denies, with careful wording, that peace envoys are in Washington. Stevens goes home to his housekeeper and partner, Lydia Smith. The peace talks fail, Lee surrenders, and Lincoln leaves for Ford's Theatre; his son Tad hears the news at another theatre. Day-Lewis won his third Best Actor Academy Award for the role.
Post-credits scenes
No. Lincoln has no mid- or post-credits scene.
No. 25 · 2015 · Film
Star Wars: The Force Awakens recap
Thirty years after the Empire's fall, the First Order has risen from its ruins, and Luke Skywalker has vanished. Resistance pilot Poe Dameron hides a map to Luke in his droid BB-8 before being captured by Kylo Ren. A stormtrooper, Finn, breaks Poe out and crash-lands on Jakku, where the scavenger Rey has found BB-8. Fleeing in the Millennium Falcon, they are picked up by Han Solo and Chewbacca. At Maz Kanata's castle Rey touches Luke's old lightsaber and has a vision. General Hux destroys the Republic's capital system with Starkiller Base, a planet-sized weapon, and Kylo captures Rey, who discovers she can use the Force when she resists his probe and escapes her cell with a mind trick. Han, Chewbacca and Finn land on the base to bring down its shields.
How Star Wars: The Force Awakens ends
On Starkiller Base, Han confronts Kylo Ren, his son Ben, and Kylo kills him. Kylo wounds Finn, but Rey calls the lightsaber to her hand and defeats him in the snowy forest as Poe's X-wings destroy the base. The planet collapses, and Chewbacca flies Rey and Finn out. Finn lies in a coma. R2-D2 completes the map, and Rey travels to Ahch-To, where she finds Luke and holds out his lightsaber.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 26 · 2017 · Film
Star Wars: The Last Jedi recap
Luke refuses Rey's lightsaber and her plea to return. On Ahch-To he admits he once considered killing his nephew Ben and caused his turn to the dark side. Rey and Kylo find themselves connected through the Force, talking across the galaxy. The First Order tracks the Resistance fleet through hyperspace, Leia is blown into space and survives, and Vice Admiral Holdo takes command, clashing with Poe. Finn and the mechanic Rose Tico, who lost her sister in a bombing run, go to the casino city of Canto Bight to find a codebreaker to stop the tracking, but are betrayed. Rey learns from Kylo that her parents were nobodies who sold her for drink money, and goes to him aboard Snoke's ship, believing she can turn him.
How Star Wars: The Last Jedi ends
Kylo kills his master Snoke and fights beside Rey, then asks her to rule with him; she refuses. Holdo rams her ship through Snoke's flagship at lightspeed. The survivors, cut down to a few dozen, hide in an old rebel base on Crait, and Luke appears to face Kylo, who learns he is a projection from across the galaxy. Luke dies at peace on Ahch-To as the Resistance escapes. Rey has the Jedi texts, and a stable boy on Canto Bight looks to the stars.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 27 · 2019 · Film
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker recap
A broadcast reveals that Palpatine is alive. Kylo Ren finds him on the hidden Sith world of Exegol, where he has built a fleet of planet-killing Star Destroyers and orders Kylo to kill Rey. Leia, now training Rey, sends her out. Rey, Finn, Poe, Chewbacca and the droids follow clues across Pasaana and Kijimi to a Sith wayfinder that leads to Exegol. Kylo tells Rey she is Palpatine's granddaughter. Rey fights Kylo on the wreck of the second Death Star, and as Leia reaches out to her son with her last strength, Rey stabs and then heals him. Ben Solo turns back to the light. Luke's ghost pushes Rey to face Palpatine.
How Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ends
Rey and Ben face Palpatine on Exegol while the Resistance and an army of ordinary ships fight his fleet. Palpatine drains them both, but Rey, backed by the voices of past Jedi, turns his lightning back and destroys him. Ben gives his life to revive Rey and vanishes. Rey buries Luke's and Leia's lightsabers on Tatooine and calls herself Rey Skywalker. She watches the twin suns set, with Luke's and Leia's ghosts standing nearby.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 28 · 2022 · Film
The Fabelmans recap
The Fabelmans (2022) follows Sammy Fabelman, a boy in 1950s New Jersey and Arizona who falls for filmmaking while his parents' marriage comes apart. Steven Spielberg directs and co-writes this coming-of-age drama with Tony Kushner, loosely based on his own youth. After seeing The Greatest Show on Earth, young Sammy films a toy train crash with his father's camera. As a teenager, Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle) makes war and western films with his friends. His mother Mitzi Fabelman (Michelle Williams), a pianist, encourages his art, while his father Burt Fabelman (Paul Dano), an engineer, calls it a hobby. Burt's best friend Bennie Loewy (Seth Rogen) is always around. Great-uncle Boris (Judd Hirsch) warns him that art and family will always pull against each other. Editing home footage of a camping trip, Sammy sees that Mitzi and Bennie are in love. In California he faces antisemitic bullies. Williams writes a gentle piano score, much of it in solo piano, that reflects Mitzi's playing; the film follows The Rise of Skywalker in this list and comes before Dial of Destiny.
How The Fabelmans ends
The Fabelmans ends with a young Sammy meeting director John Ford (David Lynch), who tells him never to put the horizon in the middle of the frame, and the camera then tilting to obey. Mitzi and Burt divorce. Sammy's film of the senior Ditch Day makes a hero of the bully Logan, which upsets him, and Monica breaks up with Sammy. Sammy lives with Burt in Los Angeles, and Burt accepts his choice. The film is dedicated to Spielberg's parents.
Post-credits scenes
No. The Fabelmans has no mid- or post-credits scene.
No. 29 · 2023 · Film
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny recap
In 1944, Indy and his friend Basil Shaw try to recover the Lance of Longinus from the Nazis, and find half of Archimedes' Antikythera, a dial said to locate fissures in time. In 1969, Indy is retiring from his New York college, separated from Marion after their son Mutt died in the Vietnam War. Basil's daughter Helena, Indy's goddaughter, asks for the dial, then steals it to sell. Jurgen Voller, the Nazi physicist from 1944, now working for the US space program as Dr. Schmidt, sends killers after them, framing Indy for murders. Indy follows Helena to Tangier, where she tries to sell it, with her young sidekick Teddy, and then goes in search of the other half with the help of his old friend Sallah and the diver Renaldo. Voller plans to use the dial to go back to 1939 and kill Hitler to win the war for Germany.
How Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny ends
The dial sends Indy, Helena and Voller's plane back to the siege of Syracuse in 212 BC, where Voller dies, and Helena brings a wounded Indy home to Marion. Voller's calculations ignored continental drift, so the fissure leads to Archimedes' time instead of 1939. Indy wants to stay with Archimedes, but Helena knocks him out and takes him back. In New York, Marion returns to their apartment and they reconcile.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
Common questions
What is the John Williams story so far?
The John Williams collection gathers 29 films he scored between 1975 and 2023, from Jaws to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, most of them for Steven Spielberg or the Star Wars saga. His signature is the full symphony orchestra used in the late-Romantic manner, with short themes tied to characters and places, bright brass marches for heroes, and spare, quieter writing for history and grief. Watched in release order, the list follows him from the two-note shark motif through the fanfares of Star Wars, Superman and Indiana Jones to the violin of Schindler's List and the solo piano of The Fabelmans.
Where did John Williams leave off?
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) is the latest. The dial sends Indy, Helena and Voller's plane back to the siege of Syracuse in 212 BC, where Voller dies, and Helena brings a wounded Indy home to Marion. Voller's calculations ignored continental drift, so the fissure leads to Archimedes' time instead of 1939. Indy wants to stay with Archimedes, but Helena knocks him out and takes him back. In New York, Marion returns to their apartment and they reconcile.
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