Schindler's List 1993

Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune: What Spielberg has done in this Holocaust story is simply and forcefully place us there. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Not only is the subject matter different for Spielberg, the way it is treated is a departure both for him and for the business as usual standards of major studio releases. Read more

Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel: What the visual immediacy of Schindler's List does is to prod each of us to fill in the gaps of emotion for ourselves. To put this another way, the more you are able to invest in this superb, demanding film, the more you are likely to get back. Read more

Desmond Ryan, Philadelphia Inquirer: Schindler's List is filmed in black and white, but the triumph of Neeson's portrait and Steven Zaillian's screenplay is that Oskar Schindler remains gray and enigmatic. Read more

John Hartl, Seattle Times: More than any previous non-documentary Holocaust movie, this one convinces through the accumulation of such detail. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: The [film succeeds] at conveying some of the enormity of the Holocaust, as well as some of its banal details, in a fully accessible manner, at a time when much of our collective memory and understanding of it is rapidly slipping away. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: 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. Read more

Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic: For this film Spielberg has done the best directing of his career. Much of his previous work has been clever and some of it better than that, but Schindler's List is masterly. Read more

Terrence Rafferty, New Yorker: Few American movies since the silent era have had anything approaching this picture's narrative boldness, visual audacity, and emotional directness. Read more

Dave Kehr, New York Daily News: Spielberg ultimately remains Spielberg, finding his enduring themes within Thomas Keneally's novel and giving them the full Spielberg treatment. Read more

Janet Maslin, New York Times: 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. Read more

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

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: What is most amazing about this film is how completely Spielberg serves his story. The movie is brilliantly acted, written, directed and seen. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: It's a noble achievement, and essential viewing. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: This is the film to win over Spielberg skeptics. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: For a movie -- or more accurately, a Hollywood-approved art movie -- this often-stunning work puts the Holocaust into bracing perspective. Read more

Rita Kempley, Washington Post: 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. Read more