Schindler's List/Tear Jerker

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • The scene that sets the tone for the rest of the film is the death of the one armed gentleman. Shortly after a scene where he praises Schindler and promises to work his hardest, he is taken aside while shovelling snow by the guards, all while blithley exclaiming "I work for Oskar Schindler!" before being shot. After that, we see Schindler, who had reacted with disdain after the man had left his office, angrily demand compensation, praising the worker for all he did.
  • Particularly one of the movie's final moments, where Schindler laments how he could have saved more Jews by pawning off more of his possessions. Throughout the entire film, more of his lapsed morals come roaring back to the forefront, but he's hit by a wave of guilt at the end that he didn't realize what needed to happen sooner.
  • The little girl in the red coat. She walks past death, vaguely aware of the violence around her. To make matters worse, when Schindler sees the little girl take refuge (unnoticed) in an abandoned place, Schindler leaves implying to himself "she's all right." Then he discovers that she joins the cremating scene.
  • The scene where the mothers are cheerfully getting dressed after being selected. Then the children are lured out presumably to be thrown in the gas chambers. As the children gleefully wave good-bye to their parents, a rampage of parents howling and running toward them helplessly is triggered.
  • A more understated one is where the stone path in the camp is shown to be made of Jewish gravestones. Those were gravestones that people had put up in memory of their loved ones who had passed away, and the Nazis had nonchalantly pulled them up and put them where they would be regularly trod upon. Its probably significant that the very last shot of the film shows these gravestones with the credits overlayed over them.
  • Stern and Schindler finally sharing a drink just after they've learnt that all the Plaszow inmates, including Stern, are to be sent to Auschwitz and almost certain death.

Oskar: Someday... this is all going to end, you know. I was going to say "we'll have a drink then".
Itzhak (with tears in his eyes): I think I'd better have it now.

  • The ending scene at Schindler's Grave, with all the real survivors respectfully placing stones at it.
    • One notable scene is where the elderly Emile Schindler is wheeled away and she can't stop staring at Oskar's grave. It's real.
    • The last person in the procession places a flower on Schindler's grave. That man is Liam Neeson.
  • The girl in the red coat being carried off in a cart full of corpses.
  • The biography of Oskar Schindler made me cry more than the movie...
  • The gift of the ring at the end. And Oskar's Heroic BSOD right after kills me.

Schindler: I could have gotten more...

  • The end of the movie where some of the actual people, or members of their family, Schindler was able to save file past his actual grave to give their respects. It would be over the top melodrama if it just weren't so damn painful to know that these are real, flesh and blood people, people with friends and family, none of whom would be there except for Oskar.
  • And then when it tells you that the Schindler Jews and their descendants outnumber the Jewish population of Poland...drive home the scale of the tragedy, why don't you?
  • Two Nazi soldiers were holding a boy by his arms and another soldier shot the boy. And the scene where parents got to see their children being carried off for medical exams...
  • A scene in the beginning shows a man with one arm missing coming up to thank Schindler for letting him work in the factory. He seems so pleased because he feels a sense of importance, a purpose even though he has only one arm. However, in a later scene, when the Nazi's stop the ghetto members from going to work to shovel the snow from the street. This moment isn't necessarily significant until you realize that the Nazis are trying to weed out the people who are physically infirm. The one armed man from earlier is then taken, while he tries to defend that he's important to the factory so that they won't shoot him.
  • Just listen to the soundtrack- that alone is enough to bring tears to the eyes of many who have seen the movie.