Schindler’s List - Channel 5

Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler

Liam Neeson plays Oskar Schindler in this remarkable Holocaust drama. 5/5 stars

In Poland during World War Two, Nazi businessman Schindler uses Jewish slave labour in his factory only because it's the cheapest ('Poles cost more,' he comments coldly).

However, his attitude towards his workforce gradually changes...

Understanding with every fibre of his being that in the monstrous Nazi world of state-sponsored crooks, gangsters and killers, money is the only thing that talks, Schindler uses his unsurpassed talent for bribing Nazi officialdom to do good - and saved the lives of more than 1000 of his workers.

Neeson is excellent, Ralph Fiennes, as the murderous camp commandant, is indescribably cruel and Ben Kingsley is charismatic as Schindler's Jewish accountant.

Directing with an austere, unflinching realism that allows the horrors of Nazi rule to reveal themselves with stunning clarity, director Steven Spielberg's extraordinary testament and memorial to the Holocaust won seven Oscars, including Best Picture, and was nominated for five more.

Jason Best

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.