Schindler's List

Steven Spielberg shot Schindler's List largely in stark black-and-white on handheld cameras, borrowing the grammar of newsreel and documentary to stop the Holocaust from looking like a movie - the few color inserts, the girl in the red coat above all, land as ruptures precisely because everything around them refuses color. The arc belongs to Oskar Schindler, a Nazi party member and war profiteer who staffed his enamelware factory with Jewish labor because it was cheap, and who ended the war having spent his fortune keeping roughly 1,200 people alive. Spielberg took no salary, calling it blood money. Seven Oscars from twelve nominations, including Best Picture, Spielberg's first Best Director, and Janusz Kaminski's cinematography.