A powerful and very moving film. Spielberg at his best.

Rating: 10/10 (11 December 2001)

Arguably Spielberg's finest film. The acting, direction & scripting are all superb. Spielberg's films sometimes suffer from being overly sentimental. Here he very wisely avoids sentimentality letting the story tell itself.
The unusual choice of black and white film helps here -- the film would not have had the same atmosphere shot in colour.
The protagonists in this story are all depicted as being thoroughly human, a fact which not only underlines the horror of the Nazi regime -- these were real people, not comic-book villains -- but also underlines the film's ultimately optimistic message. Even when humanity is acting at its most beastly, some people will find it within themselves to resist this and help others escape the worst of it. As the case of Schindler shows (he started out simply exploiting the situation for his own gain) this may sometimes spring from unexpected quarters.