Let's just come out and say it: the whole movie is a Tear Jerker, and is considered one of the biggest Tear Jerker Films in Cinematic History. There's a reason why it won the Oscar for Best Picture.
The film
- 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 blithely exclaiming "I work for Oskar Schindler!" before being shot. After that, we see Schindler, who had harshly criticized Stern for hiring him and demanded never to be put in such a position again, angrily demanding compensation and insisting that the man was an essential worker: "Quite skilled."
- After Schindler manages to get Stern off the train and save him from being sent to a camp, we see all the suitcases that were taken from the Jewish people, supposedly to be sent on at a later date, and instead being opened and the belongings being confiscated. There are mountains of spectacles, shoes, children's toys; shelves full of candlesticks and menorahs that are likely going to be melted down; boxes full of photographs and watches. The material possessions of the Jewish people are being disassembled, just as their rightful owners will be. Even worse, the people doing the sorting are also Jewish, obviously forced into this dire job. It all culminates with the silent disbelief of a jeweler when he's suddenly given an entire pouch of golden teeth and dentistry fillings to assess, as if it was just another tranch of precious metal.
- Helen's monologue to Schindler about life in the camp. Embeth Davidtz performs it terrifically.
- 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. What really sells it is just how utterly broken he sounds when he laments the fact that he didn't get more.
- One brief yet gut-wrenching part comes just before Schindler's breakdown. Right after he says, "I could have got more out," Itzhak slowly shakes his head, with a sad expression on his face. He knows what's about to happen.
- The tragedy of his Heroic BSoD is best conveyed by the scene where Schindler risks his life to rescue his workers from being mistakingly sent to Auschwitz. It is a truly courageous moment for he had saved many lives. But then the camera pans towards the other Jews, those unfortunate without Schindler's protection, heading toward their fate in the camps...
- At one point he takes off and holds up his gold Nazi Party pin, saying that he could have sold it and used the money to buy another Jew out of Auschwitz.Oskar: This pin... two people. This is gold; two more people. He would've given me two for it. At least one, he would've given me one, one more. One more person. A person, Stern. For this.
- The last part of Oskar's line is muttered. It sounds very much like Schindler is saying "what person was that" or "that person is dead" instead of "a person, Stern, for this." Coupled with his staring into space, imagine the eyes and faces of every Jew he saw in the camps are now flashing through his head when he sees that he truly could have saved at least one more person. What person would he choose? How could he have chosen?
- Schindler breaks down while Stern and a lot of his other workers all go in to hug him.
- The most powerful scene in the movie
.- Even more powerful in German, which would have been spoken between Schindler and the workers in real life. Ready your tissues, all.
- Even more powerful in German, which would have been spoken between Schindler and the workers in real life. Ready your tissues, all.
- The little girl in the red coat. note 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, thinking she'll be all right. Then he discovers her in the cremating scene.
- The entire scene of the Płaszów Ghetto being liquidated. The entire scene is chaotic, filled with the Nazis going into homes and either looting homes or massacring Jews en masse. The residents of the ghetto are terrified and doing everything they can to hide and/or survive.
- Rather than be brutally shot to death, many bedridden hospital patients are given poison to drink by the nurses to make their deaths more peaceful.
- One scene has a man beg for the soldiers to help his wife, who is non-respondent. A Nazi tells the man to let go of his wife, and when he doesn't calmly puts a bullet in the woman's head before telling the man to get in line. What's worse is that this could have been a mercy so that the man would have a chance to live.
- The whole scene is so devastating that Schindler's mistress, who is watching the entire ordeal from a hill and is not indicated to have any initial distaste for the Nazi regime's policies, can barely look at it.Schindler's mistress: (on the verge of crying) Oh, please, let's go. Let's go, please.
- To add to this, the Nazis return at night to finish off any Jews who survived the first slaughter by hiding. The night is filled with dozens of Jews being found out and massacred just as they thought it was safe to come out. Their corpses make a large pile in the streets, which highlights the true loss of life and how casual it is achieved by the Nazi exterminators.
- The scene where the mothers are cheerfully getting dressed after being selected. Then the children are lured out onto trucks presumably to be sent to either the gas chambers or to the killing fields. As the children gleefully wave good-bye to their parents, a rampage of parents heads howling and running toward the trucks in a desperate attempt to save them, all while "Mamatschi" plays over the loudspeakers.
- 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. It's 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 Płaszów 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 Emilie 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 and silently watches over his resting place. That man? Liam Neeson.
- The horrifying scene where human corpses are cremated at the Hujova Gorka in Płaszów, and Schindler, shocked, wipes the ashes off the wheel of his car as if they were falling snow. One of the SS men makes scary faces at the Jews carrying the corpses to the fire and laughs.
- Especially for Jews and Israelis, the scene at the end where the Schindlerjuden march away from the camp as "Yerushalayim shel Zahav" ("Jerusalem of Gold") plays in the background. It eventually fades into the remaining survivors marching toward Schindler's grave.
- 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.
- During the scene where the children get taken away onto the trucks, some either ran away or hid from the guards. One boy tries to find a hiding spot, but every place he looks is already occupied by one or two other kids. This eventually leads him to hide down a latrine, completely filled with crap. The real kicker? It was already occupied by two kids.
- The scene where Stern tells Schindler that he's broke. This man did so much to save all those people, bankrupting himself for their sake.
- The epilogue stating that the Schindler Jews and their descendants outnumber the Jewish population of Poland, serving to drive home the scale of the tragedy even more.
- 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.
- The fact that, barring some Artistic License, everything depicted in the movie actually happened. Some events were even worse in real life.
