Test Your Knowledge of Schindler's List

Schindler's List: A 1993 Film Directed by Steven Spielberg

• Schindler's List is a 1993 American epic historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian.

• The film follows Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories during World War II.

• It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as SS officer Amon Göth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern.

• Ideas for a film about the Schindlerjuden (Schindler Jews) were proposed as early as 1963, and Poldek Pfefferberg, one of the Schindlerjuden, made it his life's mission to tell Schindler's story.

• Spielberg became interested when executive Sidney Sheinberg sent him a book review of Schindler's Ark.

• Principal photography took place in Kraków, Poland, over 72 days in 1993, with Spielberg shooting in black and white and approaching the film as a documentary.

• The film premiered on November 30, 1993, in Washington, D.C. and was released on December 15, 1993, in the United States.

• The film received universal acclaim for its tone, acting, atmosphere, and Spielberg's direction and was a box office success, earning $322 million worldwide on a $22 million budget.

• It was nominated for twelve Academy Awards, and won seven, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score.

• The film won numerous other awards, including seven BAFTAs and three Golden Globe Awards.

• In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked Schindler's List 8th on its list of the 100 best American films of all time.

• The film was designated as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress in 2004 and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry."Schindler's List" Summary:

• "Schindler's List" is a 1993 American historical drama film directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg.

• The film is based on the novel "Schindler's Ark" by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally.

• The film explores the theme of good and evil, using as its main protagonist a "good German", a popular characterization in American cinema.

• The opening scene features a family observing Shabbat, which Spielberg said would start the film with a normal Shabbat service before the juggernaut against the Jews begins.

• While the film is shot primarily in black and white, a red coat is used to distinguish a little girl in the scene depicting the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto.

• The film was shot like a documentary, and 40% of it was shot with handheld cameras.

• Spielberg spent several hours each evening editing "Jurassic Park" while filming "Schindler's List."

• John Williams composed the score for the film, and Itzhak Perlman performs the theme on the violin.

• The film was released on December 15, 1993, in the United States and December 25 in Canada.

• "Schindler's List" received acclaim from both film critics and audiences, with Americans such as talk show host Oprah Winfrey and President Bill Clinton urging others to see it.

• Some academics criticized the film for perpetuating stereotypical views of Jewish life and for not exploring further the link between violence and sexuality.

• Following the success of the film, Spielberg founded the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, a nonprofit organization with the goal of providing an archive for the filmed testimony of as many survivors of the Holocaust as possible, to save their stories.Schindler's List: Filmmaker's peers praise the movie for its perfection and objective portrayal of the Holocaust. Stanley Kubrick drops his own Holocaust project after seeing Schindler's List. Filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard accuses Spielberg of using the film to make a profit out of a tragedy while Schindler's wife, Emilie Schindler, lived in poverty in Argentina. The film grossed $96.1 million in the United States and Canada and over $321.2 million worldwide. The film won numerous awards worldwide. The film was initially banned in Malaysia. The film was broadcast virtually unedited on American television, causing controversy. The Vatican named Schindler's List among the most important 45 films ever made. The city of Krakow bought Oskar Schindler's Enamel Factory in 2007 to create a permanent exhibition about the German occupation of the city from 1939 to 1945.