Schindler’s List

Schindler’s List is a 1993 American historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the 1982 non-fiction novel Schindler's Ark by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally. The film stars Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as Amon Göth and Ben Kingsley as Itzhak Stern. It premiered on November 30, 1993, in Washington, D.C. and was released on December 15, 1993, in the United States.

Plot
Businessman Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) arrives in Krakow in 1939, ready to make his fortune from World War II, which has just started. After joining the Nazi party primarily for political expediency, he staffs his factory with Jewish workers for similarly pragmatic reasons. When the SS begins exterminating Jews in the Krakow ghetto, Schindler arranges to have his workers protected to keep his factory in operation, but soon realizes that in so doing, he is also saving innocent lives.

Why It Gives Us a List

 * 1) Well written story.
 * 2) Memorable beginning and ending.
 * 3) The film has a good mix of color and black and white.
 * 4) Memorable and beautiful music composed by John Williams.
 * 5) Steven Spielberg did a good job directing and is a great choice of director since he is Jewish himself and has direct ties to the Holocaust.
 * 6) The depictions of the actual Nazi raids were authentic.
 * 7) The performances and acting is well done.
 * 8) *Especially from Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes.
 * 9) The tribute at the end was nice.
 * 10) Genuinely powerful emotional moments.
 * 11) It was filmed on location in Poland, which is the right setting for the movie.
 * 12) Some parts are dramatized (for example, we don't know what Schindler and Goeth's exact conversations were like. But the book takes an educated guess and the movie goes along with it), but they don't take away from the main story. They add to it.
 * 13) The violence and nudity are never gratuitous nor exploitative and actually serve a purpose to the story.
 * 14) The color segments are used at the very beginning and end. They are also used during the candlelit sabbath scene near the end and for the girl in the red coat. These are the parts the movie wants you to remember the most.
 * 15) Nice cinematography.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The poster is slightly misleading, as it depicts that Schindler is saving the girl in the red coat, yet in the actual movie, she is seen dead after the ghetto liquidation.
 * 2) The pacing can be a bit slow, and the runtime is a bit overlong.

Reception
Schindler’s List received universal critical acclaim for its tone, acting (especially Fiennes, Kingsley, and Neeson), atmosphere, and Spielberg's direction. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has received an approval rating of 98% based on 128 reviews, with an average rating of 9.20/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Schindler's List blends the abject horror of the Holocaust with Steven Spielberg's signature tender humanism to create the director's dramatic masterpiece." Metacritic gave the film a weighted average score of 94 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare average grade of "A+" on an A+ to F scale.

Film critics Gene Siskel of The Chicago Tribune and Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times gave the film extremely favorable reviews, awarded the film a "two thumbs up". Gene and Roger both named it the best film of 1993. The film was placed in the National Film Registry in 2004.

Awards and nominations
Schindler’s List won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.

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Trivia

 * After making this movie, Spielberg couldn't depict Nazis as stock cartoony villains anymore, which is part of the reason the villains were changed to Soviets in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Harrison Ford's advanced age being another thing)
 * Steven Spielberg refused to take a salary for making this film, calling it "blood money".
 * John Williams initially refused to score this film because he didn't think he was good enough. Spielberg's response was "Anyone who is better is dead."
 * Schindler's List is based on a book written by Thomas Keneally called "Schindler's Ark." Keneally was inspired to write the book by Leopold Page, one of the original Schindler survivors - who shared documents including speeches, firsthand accounts, testimonies and the actual list of survivors.
 * Krakow, Poland was one of the few Polish cities spared devastation in World War II. Consequently, many original locations were used - including Oskar Schindler's enamelware factory and apartment building; the Church of St. Mary's; Rynek Glowny market square; Krakow Glowny train station; streets and buildings in the Stare Miasto district; and Niepolomice, which doubled as Brinnlitz, Czechoslovakia.
 * Holocaust survivors presented director Steven Spielberg with a ring like the one that Jews made for Oskar Schindler - inscribed with a Hebrew saying that translates to, "He who saves one life saves the world entire."
 * Schindler's List earned 12 Academy Award* nominations - with wins for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Original Score and Best Adapted Screenplay.
 * Spielberg originally wasn't confident in his own ability to make a good Holocaust movie. He approached Martin Scorsese to direct it. Scorsese was interested, but said that it would be better if a Jew directed it.
 * The film is banned in Malaysia for some reason.