When fans talk about Christian Bale's greatest roles, they usually mention American Psycho, The Dark Knight, or The Fighter. But the actor's finest work actually came decades earlier, when he was just 13 years old. In Steven Spielberg's 1987 war drama Empire of the Sun, Bale delivered one of the most haunting child performances ever captured on film—a feat that still stands as the clearest proof of his extraordinary talent.
Spielberg's underseen World War II epic arrived right after The Color Purple, marking a surprising shift from the crowd-pleasing adventures of E.T. and Indiana Jones. Instead of fun escapism, audiences got a bleak psychological portrait of a child unraveling under the horrors of war. Though critics respected it, Empire of the Sun underperformed at the box office and has remained one of Spielberg's most overlooked masterpieces ever since.
A Child's View of War
The film follows Jamie "Jim" Graham, a privileged British schoolboy living in Shanghai during Japan's occupation of China in World War II. After being separated from his parents during the chaos following Pearl Harbor, Jim survives on his own before ending up in a Japanese internment camp. It's a premise tailor-made for Spielberg: a child's perspective on the spectacle of war. He weaponizes that innocence in fascinating ways—Jim sees fighter planes as awe-inspiring before understanding they're instruments of death, and he looks up to soldiers before recognizing their cruelty.
That naivety gives the film a haunting quality few other Spielberg movies possess. The result is something unusually bleak for the director in the 1980s, drawing comparisons to international war classics like Ivan's Childhood and Come and See. Like those films, Empire of the Sun becomes less about combat and more about watching war fundamentally distort a child's understanding of the world. Spielberg approaches it through a polished Hollywood lens, but the emotional devastation underneath isn't all that different.
Bale's Breakout Performance
Spielberg is movie magic personified, but even he couldn't pull this film off without a great actor in the lead. The crew reportedly auditioned more than 4,000 child actors before casting Bale, and it's impossible to imagine anyone else as Jim. He carries the part with astonishing confidence for his age, avoiding the exaggerated sentimentality that often drags down child performances in prestige dramas. He doesn't behave like a movie version of a traumatized kid—he feels real, and it's devastating precisely because Spielberg refuses to soften the psychological damage war has inflicted on his lead.
Today, Empire of the Sun feels long overdue for reappraisal. It may have been a box office flop, and it might not have the immediate cultural footprint of Spielberg's biggest hits, but it still contains some of his most impressive direction and one of the strongest performances Bale has ever given. For all the acclaim he's earned as an adult, it's remarkable that this tour de force still hasn't received its due.
If you're looking for more underrated gems, check out our list of 10 Drama Movies That Get Even Better Every Time You Watch Them. And for more on Spielberg's WWII legacy, don't miss Tom Hanks Presents a 20-Part WWII Epic: 'Greatest Story Ever Told'.
