66th Academy Awards · 1994
Schindler's List
Directed by Steven Spielberg
“Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.”
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The story
The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.
What critics & audiences say
Tomatometer98%Fresh#5 of 98 winnersIMDb9.01.6M votes#2 of 98 winners
Metacritic95/ 100#9 of 93 winners
TMDB8.6/ 10
Famous lines
It's Hebrew from the Talmud. It says, "Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.
The list is an absolute good. The list is life. All around its margins lies the gulf.
I could have got more out. I could have got more. I don't know. If I'd just … I could have got more.
This car. Goeth would have bought this car. Why did I keep the car? Ten people right there. … This pin. Two people. … I could have gotten one more person... And I didn't!
Power is when we have every justification to kill... and we don't.
Oskar, there are eleven hundred people who are alive because of you. Look at them.
Schindler: That's power, Amon. That is power. Amon the Good.
Goeth: I pardon you.
Today is history. Today will be remembered. Years from now the young will ask with wonder about this day. Today is history and you are part of it.
Stern: By law, I have to tell you, sir, I'm a Jew.
Schindler: Well, I'm a German, so there we are.
My father was fond of saying you need three things in life. A good doctor, a forgiving priest, and a clever accountant.
Quotes via Wikiquote
Fun facts
- When John Williams told Steven Spielberg, "You need a better composer than I am for this film," Spielberg replied, "I know. But they're all dead!" Williams's score, with Itzhak Perlman on violin, won him his fifth Oscar.Wikipedia · Soundtrack
- Universal's Sid Sheinberg greenlit the film only on condition that Spielberg make Jurassic Park first, and Spielberg spent several hours each evening in Poland editing the dinosaur film.Wikipedia · Development
- Spielberg refused a salary for the film, calling it "blood money," and believed it would fail; made for $22 million, it earned over $321 million worldwide.Wikipedia · Development
- Spielberg tried to hand the project to Roman Polanski, Sydney Pollack and Martin Scorsese, who was attached in 1988; Spielberg then traded Scorsese the remake of Cape Fear to get it back.Wikipedia · Development
- Ralph Fiennes looked so much like Amon Göth in costume that when Holocaust survivor Mila Pfefferberg met him, she trembled with fear.Wikipedia · Casting
- The girl in the red coat, played by three-year-old Oliwia Dąbrowska, was colored by hand-rotoscoping; Spielberg asked her not to watch the film until she was eighteen, but she saw it at eleven and was "horrified."Wikipedia · The girl in red
- Robin Williams phoned Spielberg during the shoot to cheer him up given the profound lack of humor on set, and Spielberg later thanked his wife Kate Capshaw "for rescuing me ninety-two days in a row."Wikipedia · Filming
- Forty percent of the film was shot handheld, and Spielberg banned Steadicams, elevated shots and zoom lenses, which he called "everything that for me might be considered a safety net."Wikipedia · Cinematography
- The film's success led Stanley Kubrick to abandon his own Holocaust project, Aryan Papers; Kubrick reportedly quipped that the Holocaust is about six million who were killed, while Schindler's List "is about 600 who don't."Wikipedia · Assessment by other filmmakers
- Spielberg pulled the film from Philippine cinemas rather than accept censors' cuts, until President Fidel V. Ramos personally ruled it could be shown uncut to anyone over 15.Wikipedia · Controversies