Steven Spielberg had a banner year in 1993. He scored one of his biggest commercial hits that summer with the mega-hit Jurassic Park, but it was the artistic and critical triumph of Schindler's List that Spielberg called "the most satisfying experience of my career." Adapted from the best-selling book by Thomas Keneally and filmed in Poland with an emphasis on absolute authenticity, Spielberg's masterpiece ranks among the greatest films ever made about the Holocaust during World War II. It's a film about heroism with an unlikely hero at its center--Catholic war profiteer Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), who risked his life and went bankrupt to save more than 1,000 Jews from certain death in concentration camps.
By employing Jews in his crockery factory manufacturing goods for the German army, Schindler ensures their survival against terrifying odds. At the same time, he must remain solvent with the help of a Jewish accountant (Ben Kingsley) and negotiate business with a vicious, obstinate Nazi commandant (Ralph Fiennes) who enjoys shooting Jews as target practice from the balcony of his villa overlooking a prison camp. Schindler's List gains much of its power not by trying to explain Schindler's motivations, but by dramatizing the delicate diplomacy and determination with which he carried out his generous deeds.
As a drinker and womanizer who thought nothing of associating with Nazis, Schindler was hardly a model of decency; the film is largely about his transformation in response to the horror around him. Spielberg doesn't flinch from that horror, and the result is a film that combines remarkable humanity with abhorrent inhumanity--a film that functions as a powerful history lesson and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the context of a living nightmare. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Mandatory Viewing I believe this movie should be mandatory viewing by all seniors in the high school system, to show them how cruel and meaningless war was and is. I enjoyed the movie when it was first released, I found it shocking, brutal and touching. I didn't really care for the character Schindler (I found him to be ruthless money grabber), but the characters revolving around him in the chaotic times of WWII was where I found the real depth of the movie.
If everyone of our children watch "Schindler's List" and walk... more info
PORTRAYS JEWS AS HELPLESS WIMPY SHEEP: SCHINDLER DID IT FOR MONEY - POLE, IRENA SENDLER SAVED JEWS AS A HUMANIST. Poles, unlike the Jews, fought back and paid dearly for it. 3,000,000 Polish-Catholics were murdered by the germans and another 2,000,000 Polish-Catholics were murdered, worked to death and deprted to the gulags by Stalin. Hello, that's 5,000,000 Polish-Catholics murdered in WWII! A thought: Schindler saved 1,200 Jews with NO risk to his life whatsoever. Irena Sendler, a POLISH-CATHOLIC, saved over 2,500 Jewish children, with the risk of death at any second. She carried Jewish Babies out of the ghetto... more info
A gross understatement.... To call Schindler's List, "a cinematic masterpiece," is a gross understatement. Unfortunately, I can't think of any better term than that. This is one of the most outstanding movies I have ever had the privilege to see. It has inspired me to reach out to the Jews of today who are still facing persecution in countries around the world. I want to start my own list of names. It will be of those Jews who I help make aliyah (emigrate to Israel). "The list is life."
Probably the greatest movie ever made Like many cinematic masterpieces, it's not possible to summarize this film in a TV-guide style and portray any sense of its monumental achievement. I'm not going to describe its content but it's a film that every person should watch as a lesson for not just where true evil can lead, but also how hope, honesty and humanity offers redemption. It's even more of a testament to Steven Spielberg that he was reviewing FX reels of Jurassic Park in between filming sequences for this, since ever shot is vital to... more info
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