Retrospective Film Review

Schindler’s List (1993) • 30 Years Later — a masterpiece of Good and Evil, igniting hope amidst tragedy

Steven Spielberg’s celebrated Holocaust film tells the story of an entrepreneur in Nazi-occupied Poland and his attempts to save local Jews.

Steven Spielberg may be known for dinosaur movies, but he’s directed twice as many films about World War II — there’s more depth to his filmography than some might expect. And though Saving Private Ryan (1998) might be the most popular of these war films, Schindler’s List stands as his most ambitious. Released the same year as Jurassic Park (1993), Schindler’s List helped Spielberg move past the lukewarm reception of Always (1989) and Hook (1991), and it also held personal significance, being the first of his movies to prominently explore his Jewish heritage, a theme he revisited more recently in The Fabelmans (2022).

Schindler’s List stands out for achieving both box-office and critical success, a feat attained by only a handful of other Holocaust films like Sophie’s Choice (1982)…