Schindler's List

"It's a stunning achievement, a film that re-creates the Holocaust not as something abstract, but as felt knowledge."

"The film's epic sweep and grasp of detail are exemplary, while some scenes could make even a lump of granite weep."

"With seemingly effortless grace and skill, Schindler's List balances fear and exaltation, humor and horror, love and death."

"Ultimately, the film is memorable as much for simple testimony as for the cinematic art it displays."

"Few American movies since the silent era have had anything approaching this picture's narrative boldness, visual audacity, and emotional directness."

"More than any previous non-documentary Holocaust movie, this one convinces through the accumulation of such detail."

"It's a noble achievement, and essential viewing."

"An indelible picture of the Holocaust."

"This often-stunning work puts the Holocaust into bracing perspective."

"Evinces an artistic rigor and unsentimental intelligence unlike anything the world's most successful filmmaker has demonstrated before."

"But the film Schindler's List, directed with fury and immediacy by a profoundly surprising Steven Spielberg, presents the subject as if discovering it anew"

"Schindler's List, despite blatant compromises, is a rending historical document. But the film's near-certain victory is based less on merit than on the marketing of its ambitious intentions. The academy doesn't judge movies, it weighs them by subject matter. On that basis, Spielberg's epic tips the scales."

"What is most amazing about this film is how completely Spielberg serves his story. The movie is brilliantly acted, written, directed and seen. Individual scenes are masterpieces of art direction, cinematography, special effects, crowd control."

"Overall this film is truly a triumph, its greatness being revealed in its tiny moments - the close-up of a swastika badge that introduces Neeson or the bungled defiance of Fiennes at his hanging."