Ranked: The Films Of Robert Zemeckis

Tiptoeing gingerly into theaters this week, trying not to look down, is “The Walk,” the retelling of Philippe Petit’s incredible high-wire stunt between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. The story was previously told in the 2008 Oscar-winning documentary “Man On Wire,” but this new film, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Petit, has something that the previous one didn’t: IMAX 3D technology that puts you in Petit’s shoes to dizzying, pulse-pounding effect, as our review from NYFF revealed.

It’s the latest example of director Robert Zemeckis taking state-of-the-art technology and applying it to truly popular entertainment, his stock-in-trade for 35 years now. The writer-director won a Student Academy Award for his USC film, which brought him under the tutelage of Steven Spielberg, who helped him to make his debut feature “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” at the tender age of 26.

In the 1980s, Zemeckis became one of Hollywood’s biggest filmmakers, with a string of hits,...