Matthew McConaughey was in a Steven Spielberg directed movie.
Amistad is a 1997 American historical drama film directed by Steven Spielberg , based on the true story of the 1839 mutiny aboard the slave ship La Amistad , during which Mende tribesmen abducted for the slave trade managed to gain control of their captors ' ship off the coast of Cuba , and the international legal battle that followed their capture by a U.S. revenue cutter . Matthew McConaughey . He appeared in such films as the slasher Texas Chainsaw Massacre : The Next Generation ( 1994 ) , the legal thriller A Time to Kill ( 1996 ) , Steven Spielberg 's historical drama Amistad ( 1997 ) , the science fiction drama Contact ( 1997 ) , the comedy EDtv ( 1999 ) , and the war film U-571 ( 2000 ) .