Schindler's List

Schindler's List is a 1993 American epic historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg, and written by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the historical novel Schindler's Ark (1982) by Thomas Keneally. The film follows Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved more than a thousand mostly Polish–Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories during World War II. It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as SS officer Amon Göth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern.

Ideas for a film about the Schindlerjuden (Schindler Jews) were proposed as early as 1963. Poldek Pfefferberg, one of the Schindlerjuden, made it his life's mission to tell Schindler's story. Spielberg became interested when executive Sidney Sheinberg sent him a book review of Schindler's Ark. Universal Pictures bought the rights to the novel, but Spielberg, unsure if he was ready to make a film about the Holocaust, tried to pass the project to several directors before deciding to direct it himself.

Principal photography took place in Kraków, Poland, over 72 days in 1993. Spielberg shot in black and white and approached the film as a documentary. Cinematographer Janusz Kamiński wanted to create a sense of timelessness. John Williams composed the score, and violinist Itzhak Perlman performed the main theme.

Schindler's List premiered on November 30, 1993, in Washington, D.C., and was released on December 15, 1993, in the United States. Often listed as one of the greatest films ever made, the film received widespread acclaim for the tone, acting, atmosphere, score, cinematography, and Spielberg's direction. It was a box office success, earning $322.2 million worldwide on a $22 million budget. It was nominated for twelve awards at the 66th Academy Awards, and won seven including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. The film won numerous other awards, including seven BAFTAs and three Golden Globes. In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked Schindler's List 8th on its list of the 100 greatest American films. The film was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress in 2004 and selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry.

In German-occupied Kraków during World War II, the Nazis force local Polish Jews into the overcrowded Kraków Ghetto. Oskar Schindler, a German Nazi Party member from Czechoslovakia, arrives in the city, hoping to make his fortune. He bribes Wehrmacht (German armed forces) and SS officials, acquiring a factory to produce enamelware. Schindler hires Itzhak Stern, a Jewish official with contacts among black marketeers and the Jewish business community; he handles administration and helps Schindler arrange financing. Stern ensures that as many Jewish workers as possible were deemed essential to the German war effort to prevent them from being taken by the SS to concentration camps or killed. Meanwhile, Schindler maintains friendly relations with the Nazis and enjoys his new wealth and status as an industrialist.

SS-Untersturmführer (second lieutenant) Amon Göth arrives in Kraków to oversee construction of the Płaszów concentration camp. When the camp is ready, he orders the ghetto liquidated: two thousand Jews are transported to Płaszów, and two thousand others are killed in the streets by the SS. Schindler witnesses the massacre and is profoundly affected. He particularly notices a young girl in a red coat who hides from the Nazis and later sees her body on a wagonload of corpses. Schindler is careful to maintain his friendship with Göth and continues to enjoy SS support, mostly through bribery. Göth brutalizes his Jewish maid, Helen Hirsch, and randomly shoots people from the balcony of his villa; the prisoners are in constant fear for their lives. As time passes, Schindler's focus shifts from making money to trying to save as many lives as possible. To better protect his workers, Schindler bribes Göth into allowing him to build a sub-camp at his factory.

As the Germans begin losing the war, Göth is ordered to ship the remaining Jews at Płaszów to Auschwitz concentration camp. Schindler asks Göth for permission to move his workers to a munitions factory he plans to build in Brünnlitz near his hometown of Zwittau. Göth reluctantly agrees but charges a huge bribe. Schindler and Stern prepare a list of people to be transferred to Brünnlitz instead of Auschwitz. The list eventually includes 1,100 names.

As the Jewish workers are transported by train to Brünnlitz, the women and girls are mistakenly redirected to Auschwitz-Birkenau; Schindler bribes Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, for their release. At the new factory, Schindler forbids the SS guards from entering the production area without permission and encourages the Jews to observe the Sabbath. Over the next seven months, he spends his fortune bribing Nazi officials and buying shell casings from other companies. Due to Schindler's machinations, the factory produces no usable armaments. He runs out of money in 1945, just as Germany surrenders.

As a Nazi Party member and war profiteer, Schindler must flee the advancing Red Army to avoid capture. The SS guards at the factory have been ordered to kill the Jewish workforce, but Schindler persuades them not to do so. Bidding farewell to his workers, he prepares to head west, hoping to surrender to the Americans. The workers give him a signed statement attesting to his role in saving Jewish lives and present him with a ring engraved with a Talmudic paraphrase: "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire". Schindler breaks down in tears, feeling he should have done more, and is comforted by the workers before he and his wife leave in their car. When the Schindlerjuden awaken the next morning, a mounted Soviet officer announces they have been liberated but warns them not to go east because "they hate you there". The Jews then walk into the countryside.

An epilogue reveals that Göth was executed via hanging for crimes against humanity; Schindler and his wife were declared Righteous Among the Nations and a tree was planted in his honor in the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations. Many of the surviving Schindlerjuden and the actors portraying them visit Schindler's grave and place stones on its marker (a traditional Jewish sign of respect for the dead), after which Liam Neeson lays two roses.

Poldek Pfefferberg, one of the Schindlerjuden, made it his life's mission to tell the story of his savior. Pfefferberg attempted to produce a biopic of Oskar Schindler with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1963, with Howard Koch writing, but the deal fell through. In 1982, Thomas Keneally published his historical novel Schindler's Ark, which he wrote after a chance meeting with Pfefferberg in Los Angeles in 1980. MCA president Sid Sheinberg sent director Steven Spielberg a New York Times review of the book. Spielberg, astounded by Schindler's story, jokingly asked if it was true. "I was drawn to it because of the paradoxical nature of the character," he said. "What would drive a man like this to suddenly take everything he had earned and put it all in the service of saving these lives?" Spielberg expressed enough interest for Universal Pictures to buy the rights to the novel. At their first meeting in spring 1983, he told Pfefferberg he would start filming in ten years. In the end credits of the film, Pfefferberg is credited as a consultant under the name Leopold Page.

Spielberg was unsure if he was mature enough to make a film about the Holocaust, and the project remained "on [his] guilty conscience". Spielberg tried to pass the project to director Roman Polanski, but he refused Spielberg's offer. Polanski's mother was killed at Auschwitz, and he had lived in and survived the Kraków Ghetto. Polanski eventually directed his own Holocaust drama The Pianist (2002). Spielberg also offered the film to Sydney Pollack and Martin Scorsese, who was attached to direct Schindler's List in 1988. However, Spielberg was unsure of letting Scorsese direct the film, as "I'd given away a chance to do something for my children and family about the Holocaust." Spielberg offered him the chance to direct the 1991 remake of Cape Fear instead. Scorsese would later admit in an interview that while he believed his version of the film might've been good, he had no regrets passing it to Spielberg stating that "it would not have been the hit that it became". Billy Wilder expressed an interest in directing the film as a memorial to his family, most of whom were murdered in the Holocaust. Brian De Palma also refused an offer to direct.

Spielberg finally decided to take on the project when he noticed that Holocaust deniers were being given serious consideration by the media. With the rise of neo-Nazism after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he worried that people were too accepting of intolerance, as they were in the 1930s. Sid Sheinberg greenlit the film on condition that Spielberg made Jurassic Park first. Spielberg later said, "He knew that once I had directed Schindler I wouldn't be able to do Jurassic Park." The picture was assigned a small budget of $22 million, as Holocaust films are not usually profitable. Spielberg forwent a salary for the film, calling it "blood money", and believed it would fail.

In 1983, Keneally was hired to adapt his book, and he turned in a 220-page script. His adaptation focused on Schindler's numerous relationships, and Keneally admitted he did not compress the story enough. Spielberg hired Kurt Luedtke, who had adapted the screenplay of Out of Africa, to write the next draft. Luedtke gave up almost four years later, as he found Schindler's change of heart too unbelievable. During his time as director, Scorsese hired Steven Zaillian to write a script. When he was handed back the project, Spielberg found Zaillian's 115-page draft too short, and asked him to extend it to 195 pages. Spielberg wanted more focus on the Jews in the story, and he wanted Schindler's transition to be gradual and ambiguous instead of a sudden breakthrough or epiphany. He also extended the ghetto liquidation sequence, as he "felt very strongly that the sequence had to be almost unwatchable."