Schindler's List (1993)

All Critics (60) | Top Critics (10) | Fresh (66) | Rotten (2) | DVD (38)

Schindler's List is a film whose meanings are to be found less in its uplifting outline than in its harrowing flow of images -- images of fear, hope, horror, compassion, degradation, chaos, and death.

November 6, 2009 Full Review | Comment

Owen Gleiberman

Entertainment Weekly

Top Critic

This is the film to win over Spielberg skeptics.

February 19, 2008 Full Review | Comment

Todd McCarthy

Variety

Top Critic

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.

February 5, 2007 Full Review | Comments (8)

Jonathan Rosenbaum

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

Rising brilliantly to the challenge of this material and displaying an electrifying creative intelligence, Mr. Spielberg has made sure that neither he nor the Holocaust will ever be thought of in the same way again.

May 20, 2003 Full Review | Comment

Janet Maslin

New York Times

Top Critic

For a movie -- or more accurately, a Hollywood-approved art movie -- this often-stunning work puts the Holocaust into bracing perspective.

January 15, 2002 Full Review | Comment

Desson Thomson

Washington Post

Top Critic

Schindler's List, despite blatant compromises, is a rending historical document.

May 12, 2001 Comment

Peter Travers

Rolling Stone

Top Critic

Accurate, heartbreaking masterpiece about the Holocaust.

December 18, 2010 Full Review | Comment

Heather Boerner

Common Sense Media

Schindler's List, because it is so finely crafted and authentic, truly allows one to experience the devastating, calculated breakdown of a Polish Jew in 1939 through the end of the war.

December 2, 2009 Full Review | Comment

Jordan Hiller

Bangitout.com

In a film that is mostly black and white, small touches of color -- a candle flame; a child's coat, bright red -- bring the enormity of the tragedy into excruciating focus.

October 29, 2008 Full Review | Comments (5)

Steven D. Greydanus

Decent Films Guide

a beautiful masterpiece... even though it's the hardest movie ever to watch

July 5, 2008 Comments (2)

Stefan Birgir Stefansson

sbs.is

See website for more details.

April 10, 2008 Full Review | Comment

Rory L. Aronsky

Screen It!

Accessible ... .

March 18, 2008 Full Review | Comment

Dennis Schwartz

Ozus' World Movie Reviews

This is a beautifully crafted, hopeful movie.

February 19, 2008 Full Review | Comment

Colin Kennedy

Empire Magazine

A heart-rending and redemptive Holocaust story, this Oscar-grabbing epic added to Spielberg's directorial credibility, showing he could handle controversial, sophisticated stories with real sensitivity.

February 19, 2008 Full Review | Comment

Film4

Spielberg made the picture with sufficient professional gravitas to signal that he understood the line he was walking. But it is ultimately just a movie, and we all know that in a black-and-white film, chocolate syrup can be read as blood.

September 9, 2007 Full Review | Comment

Philip Martin

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Spielberg has painted his masterpiece with his own blood.

August 18, 2007 Full Review | Comment

Rob Gonsalves

eFilmCritic.com

The movie is raw and unexpected and it vividly depicts the Holocaust in all its monstrousness.

February 3, 2007 Full Review | Comment

Bullz-Eye.com

Spielberg's tribute to the Holocaust reps Hollywood cinema at its best. Looking at the phenom from Schindler's narrow POV, the film is sharply-written and anchored by three great actors, Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley and Ralph Fiennes.

October 2, 2006 Full Review | Comment

Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

It's a noble achievement, and essential viewing.

February 9, 2006 Full Review | Comment

Geoff Andrew

Time Out

Schindler's List s'inscrit parmis les meilleurs films de Steven Spielberg et se veut un portrait très réussi de l'holocauste et de l'horreur qui en découle.

November 17, 2004 Comment

Louis-Jérôme Cloutier

Panorama

There's no shortage of bleak and graphic moments, but this remarkable film is also as uplifting as it is disturbing.

August 13, 2004 Comment

James Plath

Reel.com

• 1. Amon Goeth: So who stole the chicken? A man walks around with a chicken and nobody notices this?
  – Submitted by Roobin N (25 days ago)
• 1. Oskar Schindler: Hey, hey, what are you doing?! These are my workers; they should be on my train!
  – Submitted by Michael C (37 days ago)
• 1. Oskar Schindler: I could have got more. I could have got more, I don't know. If I just...I could have got more.
  2. Itzhak Stern: Oskar, there are 1,100 people who are alive because of you. Look at them.
  3. Oskar Schindler: If I had made more money. I threw away so much money. [laughs, then gets teary-eyed] You have no idea. If I just...
  4. Itzhak Stern: There will be generations because of you.
  5. Oskar Schindler: I didn't do enough.
  6. Itzhak Stern: You did so much.
  7. Oskar Schindler: This car. Goeth would have bought this car. Why did I keep the car? Ten people right there. Ten people. Ten more people. This pin...two people. This is gold. Two people. He would have given me two more, at least one. One more person. A person, Stern, for this. [starts crying] I could have got one more person, and I didn't! I -- I -- I -- I didn't!
  – Submitted by Jordan P (57 days ago)
• 1. Oskar Schindler: Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't.
  2. Amon Goeth: You think that's power?
  3. Oskar Schindler: That's what the Emperor said. A man steals something, he's brought in before the Emperor, he throws himself down on the ground. He begs for his life, he knows he's going to die. And the Emperor... pardons him. This worthless man, he lets him go.
  4. Amon Goeth: I think you are drunk.
  5. Oskar Schindler: That's power, Amon. That is power.
  – Submitted by Kevin B (2 months ago)
• 1. Oskar Schindler: I've been speaking to Goeth.
  2. Itzhak Stern: I know the destination. These are the evacuation orders, I'm to help arrange the shipments, put myself on the last train.
  3. Oskar Schindler: That's not what I was going to say. I made Goeth promise to put in a good word for you. Nothing bad is going to happen to you there, you'll receive special treatment.
  4. Itzhak Stern: The directives coming in from Berlin talk about 'special treatment' more and more often. I'd like to think that's not what you mean.
  5. Oskar Schindler: Preferential treatment. All right? Do we have to create a new language?
  6. Itzhak Stern: I think so.
  – Submitted by Kevin B (2 months ago)