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Schindler's List
MCA/Universal Pictures


8.5

based on 23 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 123 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

Internet Movie Database

MPAA RATING: R

Starring Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Caroline Goodall, Jonathan Sagall, Embeth Davidtz, Malgoscha Gebel, and Shmulik Levy

Steven Spielberg's epic drama tells the compelling true story of German businessman Oskar Schindler (Neeson) who comes to Nazi-occupied Poland looking for economic prosperity and leaves as a savior. (History in Film)

GENRE(S):	War
WRITTEN BY:	Steven Zaillian Thomas Keneally (novel)
DIRECTED BY:	Steven Spielberg
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: March 9, 2004 Video: August 12, 1994 Theatrical: December 15, 1993
RUNNING TIME:	197 minutes, Color / BW
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Chicago Tribune Gene Siskel

What is surprising is how well Spielberg captures the horror, moving his camera with the fury of a combat photographer on the run. [17 Dec 1993]

100

Film.com John Hartl

The other key part is Schindler's Jewish accountant, played with self-effacing brilliance by Ben Kingsley, who gives the movie just the touch of warmth and sanity it needs.

100

TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)

Director Steven Spielberg has achieved something close to the impossible--a morally serious, aesthetically stunning historical epic that is nonetheless readily accessible to a mass audience.

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

What is most amazing about this film is how completely Spielberg serves his story. The movie is brilliantly acted, written, directed and seen. Individual scenes are masterpieces of art direction, cinematography, special effects, crowd control.

100

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Spielberg restages the Holocaust with an existential vividness unprecedented in any nondocumentary film: He makes us feel as if we're living right inside the 20th century's darkest-and most defining-episode.

100

Time Staff (Not Credited)

Epic cinema, tragic drama, it is also an act of remembrance and conscience that ultimately transcends the ordinary critical categories.

100

Variety Staff (Not Credited)

Evinces an artistic rigor and unsentimental intelligence unlike anything the world's most successful filmmaker has demonstrated before.

100

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

And Ben Kingsley--O rare Ben Kingsley!--is the Jewish accountant whom Schindler plucks from a condemned group to run his business and who combines gratitude with disdain, subservience with pride. (Actors who want to study the basis of acting--concentration--should watch Kingsley.) [13 Dec 1993]

100

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack

By any measure, the horrifying yet powerfully uplifting Schindler's List from director Steven Spielberg is a milestone in the art of filmmaking. [15 Dec 1993]

100

USA Today Mike Clark

With flawless precision, the movie flows seamlessly between a virtual newsreel approach (to chronicle senseless, arbitrary atrocities on the people) and a slightly more direct narrative technique that characterized the film's three dominant characters - each one cast to perfection. [15 Dec 1993]

100

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Because this film touches us so deeply, the catharsis has a power that few -- if any -- other moments in film history can match. And that's what establishes this as a transcendent motion picture experience.

100

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

But the film Schindler's List, directed with fury and immediacy by a profoundly surprising Steven Spielberg, presents the subject as if discovering it anew. [15 Dec 1993]

100

Empire Kim Newman

Overall this film is truly a triumph, its greatness being revealed in its tiny moments - the close-up of a swastika badge that introduces Neeson or the bungled defiance of Fiennes at his hanging.

100

The New Yorker Terrence Rafferty

Few American movies since the silent era have had anything approaching this picture's narrative boldness, visual audacity, and emotional directness. [20 Dec 1993, p.129]

100

Wall Street Journal Julie Salamon

A movie that falls outside the ordinary, or even the extraordinary. There is enormous passion and artistic integrity throughout this film. [11 Jan 1994, p.A10(E)]

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Quietly devastating. [15 Dec 1993]

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

The movie's ending at the train station and the modern-day epilogue feel protracted and indulgent...Apart from the ending though, this is Spielberg's most articulate movie ever.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

True, traces of his bad habits show through at certain moments, especially near the end, when a long and lachrymose scene plunges into Spielgerian sentimentality of the gooiest kind. But before that unfortunate point, Schinder's List serves up three full hours of brilliant storytelling. That's as humane and compassionate as it is gripping and provocative. [15 Dec 1993]

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

A powerful and affecting piece of work.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Schindler's List, despite blatant compromises, is a rending historical document. But the film's near-certain victory is based less on merit than on the marketing of its ambitious intentions. The academy doesn't judge movies, it weighs them by subject matter. On that basis, Spielberg's epic tips the scales.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Spielberg does an uncommonly good job both of holding our interest over 185 minutes and of showing more of the nuts and bolts of the Holocaust than we usually get from fiction films. Despite some characteristic simplifications, he's generally scrupulous about both his source and the historical record.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

This heavy-hitting fist lands with calculated deliberation. Despite Spielberg's obviously genuine commitment, "Schindler's List" feels strangely controlled -- more than impassioned. It's officially artistic, an engineered project of pride, Little Stevie's growing-up project, rather than an organically brilliant masterpiece.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

A ruthlessly unsentimental portrait of a German war profiteer's epiphany that inspires neither sorrow nor pity, but a kind of emotional numbness.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 123 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Berke O. gave it a10:
This is the most beutiful film that I've ever senn!

Jack gave it a10:
A stunning film with great use of film techniques. This shocked me and showed me a part of the holocaust from the eyes of both the jews and the upper-class germans. People who think that the film is boring obviously do not have any sense of humanity and perhaps have been brainwashed by the current modern action films, where the only lift is seeing people killing others in different ways. Fantastic film Steven!

Jay H. gave it a10:
One of the truly greatest films of all time. It is unforgettable and haunting. Steven Spielberg's expert direction, the tremendous acting and outstanding writing make it a brilliant film in all respects.

Fi S. gave it a9:
I love the cinematography- the sharp lighting hues, the layers and shadows- but the girl in red doesn't do it for me. she seems too forced and at odds with the surprisingly constrained hand of Speilberg's direction. i went to a museum for the holocaust and a speaker there had lived under the real forced labor camp commandant Goeth. after listening to the horribly real version of events, i can only praise Fiennes' acting in the role of Goeth. Spielberg really could have shown more restraint in the ending, where Schindler breaks down. such a sudden jump out of character feels unconvincing, but thankfully, the epilogue, in its understated bittersweet joy, redeems its showiness. all in all a good satisfying skillfully constructed film. the three hours are worth it.

Lozza Kate gave it an8:
SL was an absolutely amazing & touching movie, it went for a bit too long. I can't concentrate for that amount of time. & secondly, I felt it was a bit too confronting. In some scenes it made me feel somewhat uncomfortable, such as the nudie scenes. Yet, overall, it was very well made. Well done Speilberg!

John gave it a10:
Ive seen this movie 10 times and would watch it another 10 times. Amazing portrayal of the holocaust

Tim Two gave it a10:
You have got to be kidding me...Return of the King and an animated feature get higher scores than Schindler's List?

Schindler's List MCA/Universal Pictures

Schindler's List
MCA/Universal Pictures