Schindler's List

Spielberg employs all the emotive Hollywood tools at his disposal and the result is a remarkable film with wide appeal and real importance. Neeson is phenomenal, but matched by towering performances from Ben Kingsley and Ralph Fiennes.

Using every ounce of his awe some technical skill, the man who sent T. rex and Indiana Jones racing through our imagination brings us a story of human horror beyond imagination.

Once in a very great while, a movie insinuates itself so deeply into your consciousness that it offers not vicarious experience but instead, direct experience. Steven Spielberg's heartfelt, monumental Schindler's List is such a movie.

This is a movie that succeeds brilliantly not just in bringing a terrible chapter in history back to life, but in meticulously depicting the processes through which a self-obsessed and immature man becomes integrated and responsible.

There are enough "Spielbergian" set pieces and incidental touches to keep Schindler accessible to those who believe that the best Spielberg is the perky Spielberg of the E.T. and Indiana Jones romps.

Liam Neeson is a splendid Schindler, tall, handsome, devil-may-care and a poker-playing genius. Ben Kingsley, as Itzhak Stern, Schindler's accountant and chief aide, is as brilliant as ever, and Ralph Fiennes is evil and powerful as Amon Goeth.

It brought the Holocaust to a mass non-Jewish audience at a time when survivors were dying of old age, and testimony was at risk of being lost.

A great film, a powerful film, and even if it’s not the definitive American Holocaust film, it remains on the very short list of the most important ones. (30th anniversary)

This isn't your high-octane thriller; rather, acts of heroism unfold with a deliberate, strategic cadence.

Spielberg’s most personal film is also his finest and most altruistic.