10 Best Black-And-White Movies From The Last 25 Years

7. Schindler's List

The ultimate must-see once AND ONLY ONCE drama, Schindler's List is one of the most detailed portrayals of the Holocaust ever captured on film. Stephen Spielberg's directing is masterful while the layered performance of Liam Neeson remains an important time capsule entry for an actor who's recently supplanted these kinds of nuanced roles with over-the-top action fluff. Though commonly viewed (somewhat unfairly) as Spielberg's desperate attempt to capture the Academy Award that had (also unfairly) alluded him until that point, the director never ventures too far outside his sweet spot. The story is boiled down to its core elements--the ploy of Oskar Schindler and the consequences of being a "savior"--and then forces audiences to stare down the brutal depictions of those themes that are played out with an unflinching, uncharacteristic frankness. Shooting the story in black and white is meant to give this all a stark, documentary-like energy deserved of an event of this magnitude, but it accomplishes more than that. In stripping away a typical, commercial layer, Spielberg made the acting and narrative structure stand on their own. Audiences would not be won over with its stylishness, nor would they be allowed the simple distraction of full-color cinematography as an escape from the atrocities occurring in front of their eyes. It made the movie, in part, an investment. The more viewers had to sink into it, the more that final punch was going to hurt. And anyone not teary-eyed by the final sequences were likely too disappointed by this decidedly non-Spielbergian display to be wrapped up in the many different shades of grey presented.