I guess I have a different "blown away" notion than a lot of people. I guess I would say that Raiders did blow me away at the time, maybe Jaws to an extent (I was very young when I first saw both, but they still hold up as very good). Also the first 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.

Schindler's List was very good too, although my beef with it (and Private Ryan) has to do with Spielberg's tendency to always want to emphasize the happy/heroic story within whatever topic he has chosen. I understand that this criticism might not make much sense to anybody, but I'll try to explain a bit.

I personally like historical war films that emphasize brutality and the negative psychological impact of war (Paths of Glory, Full Metal Jacket, Platoon) because that's what war is most centrally about. Spielberg's stories themselves are very well done and indeed, taking these more heroic stories and wrapping them up in war stories is great for your box office receipts. But in the United States people tend to have a very detached, misinformed, and dare I say romanticized view of war -- I wish Spielberg would would make the realities of war and tragedy more central to his stories. He is by no means required to do this but because he doesn't, I can't find myself admiring his work as much as some others.

As for his fiction work, like I said it feels too formulaic. It's a good formula, but I feel like I haven't seen him do something really, really challenging since maybe The Color Purple.