

John Williams composed the score, and violinist Itzhak Perlman performed the main theme. Cinematographer Janusz Kamiński wanted to create a sense of timelessness. Spielberg shot in black and white and approached the film as a documentary. Principal photography took place in Kraków, Poland, over 72 days in 1993.

Universal Pictures bought the rights to the novel, but Spielberg, unsure if he was ready to make a film about the Holocaust, tried to pass the project to several directors before deciding to direct it.

Spielberg became interested when executive Sidney Sheinberg sent him a book review of Schindler's Ark. Poldek Pfefferberg, one of the Schindlerjuden, made it his life's mission to tell Schindler's story. Ideas for a film about the Schindlerjuden (Schindler Jews) were proposed as early as 1963. It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as SS officer Amon Göth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern. The film follows Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved more than a thousand mostly Polish–Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories during World War II. It is based on the 1982 novel Schindler's Ark by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally. Schindler's List is a 1993 American epic historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian.
