Greatest Film Scenes
and Moments



Schindler's List (1993)

 



Written by Tim Dirks

Title Screen
Movie Title/Year and Scene Descriptions
Screenshots

Schindler's List (1993)

In Steven Spielberg's Best Picture-winning historical epic of the Holocaust:

  • the crisp black and white cinematography
  • the opening restaurant/cabaret scene in which would-be war profiteer Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) wheeled and dealed his way into the pocketbooks of SS officers in a Krakow nightclub
  • the interview scene with eighteen pretty secretaries
  • the many scenes of random and indiscriminate killings including the one-armed worker and the female construction engineer - usually at point-blank range with a gun
  • the stunning and brilliant performances by the three male leads - Schindler, Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), and Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley)
  • the brutal scene of the clearing and liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto
  • the image of a girl in a drab red coat walking amidst the murderous chaos (and later spotted on a cart piled with corpses) as Krakow's ghetto was liquidated
  • the night-time follow-up hunt
  • the scene in which a shirtless, overweight Goeth fired his telescopic rifle from his villa's balcony perch above the Plaszow work camp at innocent prisoners
  • the hinge-making scene and its aftermath
  • Schindler's delivery of the speech about power with restraint
  • the disturbing sexual confrontation of Goeth with his trembling housekeeper Helen Hirsch (Embeth Davidtz) in her basement living quarters
  • the scene of the winnowing out of the healthy from the unfit with prisoners running naked before doctors in the medical examination scene
  • the image of children hiding waist-deep in latrine excrement
  • Schindler's birthday celebration including a sustained kiss of a young Jewess
  • the exhumation and incineration of the corpses in graves
  • the labored compilation and typing of 'Schindler's List' by Stern as Schindler desperately paced the room - including Stern's eloquent summation: "The list is an absolute good. The list is life. All around its margins lies the gulf"
  • the arrival of a boxcar of female workers at Auschwitz and the intense shower scene
  • Schindler's receipt of a golden ring
  • Schindler's emotional final address to his workers following the war, and his announcement of the unconditional surrender of Germany
Schindler's Farewell to His Factory Workers and Nazi Guards
  • Oskar Schindler's heart-wrenching goodbye to his accountant Itzhak Stern: ("I could've got more... I didn't do enough")

Stern: "I didn't do enough"

Film's Coda
  • the final coda (in color) pairing real-life survivors with their counterpart actors-actresses as they placed rocks on the real-life grave of Schindler

Introduction of War Profiteer Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson)

Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes)


Corpse of Girl in Red Coat on Cart


The Typing of 'Schindler's List'

Shower Execution Scene at Auschwitz

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