Steven Spielberg has ousted Oprah Winfrey as the most influential celebrity in the U.S., according to an annual study conducted by Forbes magazine. It seems it was the film Lincoln that gave Spielberg the edge over Oprah. Earning him 12 Oscar nominations as well as $275 million at the box office in the U.S., it also brought in $93 million at the global box office. Forty seven percent of people surveyed rated Steven Spielberg as influential.

“A celebrity’s ‘Influential’ score represents how that person is perceived as influencing the public, their peers, or both,” president of E-Poll Market Research, Gerry Philpott, said. E-Poll Market Research conducted the study for Forbes.

Oprah Winfrey topped the Forbes list last year with a 49 percent influential rating. She slipped this year to just 45 percent–still impressive, of course, but not high enough to top Steven Spielberg. Reps at Forbes think that Oprah staying out of the limelight for much of the past year contributed to her decline in influence.

Forbes magazine announced Steven Spielberg as their most influential celebrity on Wednesday using a variety of social media outlets–Twitter being among them.

Steven Spielberg tops our list of the most influential celebs http://t.co/t85bQFpiGA Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP pic.twitter.com/1fyhtYYKgq

— Forbes (@Forbes) January 15, 2014

So who else made the list of influential celebrities behind both Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey? Star Wars creator George Lucas earned third place in the survey. Directors Ron Howard and Martin Scorsese came in fourth and fifth, respectively. Other celebrities who made the top ten list include Barbara Walters, Bono and Dr. Oz.

And while Forbes hasn’t said exactly how many people took the survey, E-Poll Market Research ranked more than 6,600 celebrities on 46 personality attributes in their efforts to compile that top ten list.

Are you surprised that Steven Spielberg beat out Oprah Winfrey as most influential celebrity? Was there anyone noticeably absent from the top 5 who you might have expected to see there?

Image via Wikimedia