Schindler's List/YMMV

"Today is history. Today will be remembered. Years from now, the young will ask with wonder...about this day. Today is history, and you are part of it."
 * Adaptation Displacement: Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark was hardly an obscure book, having won the Booker Prize in the year of its publication, but the movie is on a whole different level; subsequent reprints of the book have even changed the title to match the film.
 * Spielberg made several changes from the source material; in particular, he exaggerated Schindler's journey from money-grubbing Jerkass to hero. In the book and in real life, Schindler was trying to save as many Jews as possible almost from the moment the Final Solution was implemented. He even traveled to Hungary and met with representatives of Jewish organizations there to tell them what was happening in Poland as early as 1942.
 * Award Snub: The director of Four Weddings and A Funeral felt guilty when he won best foreign film at an award film instead of this film. That's right, the director who won an award felt this happened. To say nothing of what everyone else at the ceremony said.
 * Awesome Music: Of course, do we expect anything less from John Williams?
 * John initially refused to do the film because he didn't think he was good enough. Spielberg's reply? "Anyone who is better is dead."
 * Not to mention Itzhak Perlman, the Jewish violinist who provided the theme. At first, he said he wasn't going to be involved in such a movie...and then he saw how well Spielberg did it.
 * Complete Monster: Goeth.
 * Germans Love Schindler's List: While the film didn't do poorly anywhere, Germans (understandably) liked the sympathetic portrayal of a German in a Holocaust movie that nevertheless portrayed the overall monstrosity of the Nazi regime and condemned its actions in no uncertain terms. There was an uproar the first time the film was to be broadcast on German television when the network announced that it would take two commercial breaks; in the end, the network agreed to show only one break, with only a few ads and a short newscast. Today, the film is always broadcast uncut with no breaks.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: At least ironic in Hindsight. Goeth lectures his men before an Aktion.


 * A beind-the-scenes example is more straightforward; at one point Mel Gibson expressed interest in playing Schindler.
 * Hype Backlash: It is VERY popular on review websites such as IM Db to bash this film for being cloying, melodramatic and unrealistic, or simply just too well liked. Extra points of it's being criticized by a Neo-Nazi
 * Magnificent Bastard: Schindler himself, of course. He's not the only one though - step forward Itzhak Stern, who played an unspeakably huge role in getting a lot of people who would otherwise have been slaughtered early on into Schindler's Factory. Poldek also arguably qualifies, being cunning enough to survive both the failed escape attempt in the sewers at Krakow and moments later a direct encounter with Goeth. He even gets himself a job as Goeth's mechanic at Plaszow.
 * Moral Event Horizon: Goeth crosses this line within the first hour of the movie. He's definitely crossed it when he shoots prisoners for sport with a sniper rifle from his balcony.
 * Nightmare Fuel: Auschwitz, the ghetto massacre, the huge piles of burning Jewish bodies.
 * Paranoia Fuel: Because of the Nazis' gradually escalating efforts to exterminate the Jews, it means that there's very little keeping the Jewish characters from being killed at pretty much any moment. The worst example has to be when the women and children get shipped to Auschwitz instead of to Schindler's factory because of a typo...
 * Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: The only reason its not actually Anvilicious, is because some of the things shown were based on events that actually happened, which were often worse.
 * Tear Jerker: The entire movie. However, the most powerful scene would have to be Schindler's breakdown near the end of the film.
 * A close second would be Schindler seeing the body of the little girl in the red coat pass by him on the way to the crematorium.
 * For this troper, in an uncharacteristic moment of patriotism, the song "Jerusalem Of Gold" - an Israeli hymn of praise and longing for the (old) city - playing as the Schindler Jews walk hand in hand to freedom, just before their real-world counterparts come to pay their respect at Schindler's grave on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. This is really the only mention of the State of Israel - the final destination for many of the Schindler Jews - anywhere in the movie.
 * What an Idiot: At his 40th birthday party, a young Jewish woman and her daughter present Schindler with a small gift on behalf of the workers. Oskar, already a little tipsy, and used to feeling up any attractive woman he sees, absentmindedly gives the woman a kiss... in a room full of SS officers. Gilligan Cut to him waiting in a jail cell.
 * The Woobie: By the end of the film, every single one of the Jewish people.