Schindler's List

In German-occupied Poland during World War II, Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazi Germans.

Price: $4.99 + taxes and fees

Winner of seven Academy Awards (including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay), Spielberg’s Holocaust drama is distinguished by its restraint as well as its documentary-like realism. Collapsing the horror of the Holocaust into the story of Oskar Schindler — a German industrialist who used his factories in occupied Krakow as a means of saving Jewish refugees from the death camps — Spielberg and screenwriter Steven Zaillian manage to craft a story about endurance and hope in one of the darkest moments of human history. Liam Neeson, in a star-making performance, plays Schindler as a charismatic enigma who uses his membership in the Nazi party to undermine it, enlisting Ben Kingsley’s skeptical accountant Itzhak Stern in his scheme while distracting Ralph Fiennes’ loathsome SS officer Amon Göth with gifts and flattery. Spielberg — working for the first time with cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, who also won an Oscar for his work here — re-creates the Plaszów concentration camp and forces us to witness as much of it as possible. Yes, it’s the one Holocaust story with a happy ending. But it makes us understand just how impossible that happy ending felt to the people inside of it.

NORM WILNER