ABOUT THE FILM & FILM OVERVIEW

Released in: 1993

Directed by: Steven Spielberg

Produced by: Steven Spielberg, Gerald R. Molen, Branko Lustig

Starring: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley

Based on a Book?: Yes, Schindler’s List, by Thomas Kenneally (also called Schindler’s Ark)

Rated: R

Run Time: 3 hours 15 minutes

Scored by: John Williams

SPOILER WARNING!!—The rest of this post, and subsequent posts, will contain spoilers for Schindler’s List, but, really, the movie came out in 1993, so if this blog is how the film would end up being spoiled for you, well, that’s on you.

Schindler’s List is a Holocaust film, one that centers around the experiences of Polish Jews who were forced into the Krakow Ghetto during World War II. The film portrays the liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto, with thousands of Jewish people being slaughtered in the streets and the rest driven to the newly constructed Płaszów concentration camp. The central figure in this film is German industrialist and Nazi Party member Oskar Schindler, whose enamelware factory is worked by Jewish workers imprisoned in the Płaszów concentration camp. The movie follows the great lengths to which Oskar Schindler went in order to protect “his” Jewish workers, which ultimately culminated in a list of 1,100 Jewish workers that Schindler—through bribing sociopathic Płaszów commandant Amon Göth—was eventually able to have moved to a factory he opened in Brünnlitz. Had they not gone to Brünnlitz, these 1,100 Polish Jews would have been shipped to Auschwitz, as was the fate of the rest of the Jewish people imprisoned in Płaszów. As it was, the movie shows how, after the women and girls of Schindler’s factory accidentally ended up in Auschwitz, Schindler bribed the death camp’s commandant for their release. Ultimately, the movie shows that Oskar Schindler’s actions saved the lives of 1,100 Polish Jews.  

From Left to Right: The real Oskar Schindler & Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List