11. Schindler’s List (1993)

To call “Schindler’s List” a movie seems like an understatement, as few films have ever presented as effective—or harrowing—an accounting of the Holocaust as Steven Spielberg’s epic retelling of Oskar Schindler, the German business owner who saved the lives of thousands of concentration camp-bound refugees by offering them employment in his factories.

While many consider “Schindler’s List” the film that Spielberg was born to make, the director himself worried that he did not have the maturity to pull off such a massive undertaking, and so it was originally pitched to Roman Polanski, Sydney Pollack and Martin Scorsese.

But then Spielberg reconsidered. And from the moment he took the reins, he was clear about one thing: the film would be shot like a documentary, which meant that he did not want any stars in the key roles – both Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes were still relative unknowns at the time – and that it would be shot in black and white using mostly handheld cameras.

It would also be filmed in as many of the actual locations as possible, with the exception of Auschwitz, which they were forbidden from entering. And it’s from these elements precisely that “Schindler’s List” draws its cinematic power.