Schindler's List: Critic Reviews

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.

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.

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

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

What is most amazing about this film is how completely Spielberg serves his story. The movie is brilliantly acted, written, directed and seen.

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.

This is the film to win over Spielberg skeptics.

In a severe, uncompromising manner that none of his previous films has approached, Spielberg has captured the terror of the Nazi reign as well as the determination and resourcefulness of those who resisted.

Because this film touches us so deeply, the catharsis has a power that few -- if any -- other moments in film history can match.

Schindler's List, despite blatant compromises, is a rending historical document.

Accurate, heartbreaking masterpiece about the Holocaust.

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.

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.

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

See website for more details.

Accessible ... .

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.

This is a beautifully crafted, hopeful movie.

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.

Spielberg has painted his masterpiece with his own blood.

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

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.

It's a noble achievement, and essential viewing.

Schindler's List s'inscrit parmis les meilleurs films de Steven Spielberg et se veut un portrait tres reussi de l'holocauste et de l'horreur qui en decoule.

Dirigido com uma discricao pouco comum em Spielberg, o filme emociona por sua crueldade e conquista gracas a complexidade do carater de Schindler.