The Fabelmans

New Jersey 1952. Young Sammy Fabelman going to first movie - The Greatest Show on Earth. Parents Burt and Mitzi. Terrified of movies. Then sees train crash. Obsessed. Before filmmaker born. Magic of cinema discovered.

Mitzi: "Movies are dreams you never forget." Burt: "They are not real." Theme of art vs. science, following passion vs. practical, and how filmmaking reveals truth even when fictional. Cinema as calling.

Sammy recreating train crash with toys. Parents give him camera. Making films obsessively. Family close. Burt engineer, Mitzi pianist who gave up career. Uncle Bennie family friend. Sisters. Happy childhood creating movies. Passion igniting.

Camping trip footage. Editing film of family vacation. Discovers in footage: mother and Bennie in love. Camera reveals truth parents hiding. Sammy sees what he was not meant to. Innocence lost. Art showed him painful reality.

Should Sammy tell father? Keep filming? Sees mother unhappiness. Family moving to California for father job. Mitzi depression. Art revealing family fractures. Can movies fix or only expose? Torn between truth and protecting father.

California. New high school. Antisemitism. Bullied. Filmmaking refuge. Also family breaking. Mother erratic. Bennie distance. Making more films. Entering world where art is identity but cannot save family. Growing up through loss.

Sammy and girlfriend Monica. "Jesus" obsession. Love but different worlds. Also classmate Chad bullying Sammy but Sammy makes him look heroic in film. Power of cinema to transform. Relationships through filmmaking lens. Art defines him.

Making beach film. Ditch Day footage. Editing magic. Film screening. Promise: young filmmaker discovering craft, power of cinema, turning life into art. Technical growth. Vision developing. Passion becoming vocation.

Parents divorcing. Mother leaving. Mitzi tells Sammy she sacrificed piano for family. Regret. False defeat: family destroyed. Cannot film happy endings in real life. Art does not fix reality. Stakes raised: must choose art despite pain.

Family fractured. Mother gone. Sisters angry. Sammy punches bully. Grandmother death. Father dating. Everything falling apart. Film not enough. Art cannot protect from life. Loss everywhere. Coming of age through tragedy.

Sammy contemplating giving up film. Mother says keep making movies. Father dismisses art as hobby. Must choose between parents worldviews. Science vs. art. Practical vs. passion. Identity crisis. What defines him? Filmmaker or son?

Sammy alone with camera. Family broken. Future uncertain. Does filmmaking matter? Caused pain showing truth. Mother unhappy. Father disappointed. But also only thing he truly is. Cannot not make films. Wrestling with calling.

Uncle Boris visits. Circus performer. "Family, art - will tear you in two." Synthesis: must choose art despite cost. Calling undeniable. Filmmaking is him. Acceptance of sacrifice. Embracing identity. Moving forward.

Meeting John Ford. Master director. Lesson in framing horizon. Artistic validation. CBS interview arranged. Future opening. Family supports despite divorce. Sammy becoming filmmaker. Dream manifesting. Art wins. Identity confirmed.

Sammy at CBS lot. Camera pans up then corrects to horizon per Ford teaching. Already thinking like director. Family broken but artist born. Pain transformed into purpose. Filmmaker ready. Spielberg origin story complete. Art endures.