Steven Spielberg almost quit directing after making Schindler's List

Filmmaker Steven Spielberg says he had no desire to return to work after making Schindler's List. Photo / AP

Steven Spielberg has revealed that one of his films took such an emotional toll that he almost quit directing.

The 69-year-old, who has released 28 movies across five decades, told The Hollywood Reporter that he had no desire to return to work after making Schindler's List.

"I just didn't," Spielberg said, "I could not".

Released in 1993 and earning the director two Oscars, Spielberg said the Holocaust film was so draining that he doubted he'd ever make another movie.

In Schindlers List, Liam Neeson portrays Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who, at great personal risk, protected the lives of more than 1.100 Jewish workers in Nazi-occupied Poland.

"I was sad and isolated, and as well-received and successful as that movie was, I think it was the trauma of telling the story and forming the Shoah Foundation."

(In 1994 Spielberg founded the Shoah Foundation which is dedicated to making audiovisual interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust).

"I started to wonder, was Schindler's List going to be the last film I would direct?" Spielberg said.

Despite his doubts, the director's motivation to return to work later "seized me one day like a thunderbolt" and in 1997 his name was back on big screen with Jurassic Park: The Lost World.

Spielberg's 29th film, The BFG, will be released in Australia on June 30 and in 2019 he'll be releasing another Indiana Jones movie.

Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) is a vain, glorious and greedy German businessman who becomes an unlikely humanitarian amid the barbaric Nazi reign in the movie Schindler's List.

"I think this one is straight down the pike for the fans," he said to THR about the fifth film in the franchise which will once again Harrison Ford.

"The one thing I will tell you is I'm not killing off Harrison [Ford] at the end of it."

Fun fact: Forbes estimates Spielberg's wealth at $NZ5 billion and that will only continue to grow, given the director gets two per cent of all ticket revenue at Universal theme parks.