Teacher Guide
Learning goals, teaching notes, and answer keys.
View Teacher NotesPaper & online answer keysSchindler’s List Movie Guide
Choose the format that fits your classroom, then explore the film through focused questions and evidence.
About the Film
The film follows Oskar Schindler’s movement from wartime profiteering toward efforts to protect Jewish workers. Study those choices alongside Jewish individuals’ agency and the wider history of Nazi persecution and genocide.
Movie at a Glance
- Release year
- 1993
- Genre
- Historical drama
- U.S. rating
- R
- Runtime
- Approx. 195 minutes
- Director
- Steven Spielberg
- Screenplay
- Steven Zaillian
- Based on
- Thomas Keneally’s historical novel Schindler’s Ark, published in the U.S. as Schindler’s List
- Music
- John Williams
- Featured cast
- Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Caroline Goodall & Embeth Davidtz
- Historical setting
- German-occupied Poland and Brünnlitz, 1939–1945 · A later memorial epilogue
Check your edition when planning class periods; cuts and playback speeds can change runtime.
Content to Preview
- Graphic executions, killings, persecution of children, bodies, and sustained genocidal violence.
- Nudity during dehumanizing inspections and sexual situations; sexual coercion or assault.
- Strong language, antisemitic abuse, terror, separation, and trauma. Preview the entire assigned edition.
Preview your edition, follow school viewing and permission policies, and provide an appropriate alternative assignment. Suggested grades 11–12 are Teach Arcade’s classroom recommendation, separate from the film’s U.S. rating.
Classroom Connections
Connect Social Studies with English language arts through perspective, evidence, and visual storytelling. Historical dramas should be paired with sources beyond the film.
Film details, advisories & historical context: Amblin credits · Content advisory (spoilers) · USHMM: Oskar Schindler · USHMM teaching guidelines