For those that find in them a certain joy every time the orchestra of film kicks, when those studio logos lighten the dark of the screen and the familiar trumpet notes sound, you know what I mean when I say that the greatest films ever made are a must see for everyone. Those top 100 or 200, or 500 films that everyone should see before they die. Film is subjective though, and there are many lists. Fortunately for us, the American Film Institute compiled a list of the top 100 films of the 20th Century. From top to bottom, the list compiles the greatest American films released in the first 100 years of cinema.

The ninth greatest film of the 20th century according to the AFI is Schindler’s List. Adapted from the novel, Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally, Schindler’s List is one of the truly great films by director Steven Spielberg. Released in 1993, the film was originally adapted for the screen by Steven Zaillian and went on to win pretty much every award offered that year, from the Oscars to the Golden Globes, to the Grammys.

The film itself is a moving tale of how a factory in Germany employed and saved a thousand or more Jews from the concentration camps. The title character, a Czechoslovakian businessman by the name of Oscar Schindler originally comes to Germany in seek of cheap slave labor and an ample market in the German Army. He becomes an avid member of the Nazi party and a common fixture in the back pocket of many SS officers and politicians.

When he attempts to find the financing to start his factory though he is forced to enlist the services of Itzhak Stern, a member of the Jewish Council who uses the opportunity to bring in as many Jewish workers as possible and offer them worker status to escape the careful eye of the Gestapo.

After seeing the atrocities committed by the Nazis, Schindler slowly beings to change his view of things, unable to fathom that they would treat a child the same as a grown man and kill her merely for her race. He eventually does all in his power to save each and every name on his list of factory workers, all 1100 workers.

In the end of the film, a touching tribute to Schindler is portrayed as the cast and their real life counterparts march across the screen in tribute to Schindler’s grave. The film strives not only to show one man’s realization of evil but the nature of the evil itself, in the camps and in the men and women who suffered it.

The film was originally to be directed by Roman Polanski, himself a survivor of the Krakow Ghetto but he passed on it as he thought he’d be too emotionally involved. Scorcese was another name on the list but he passed as he believed it should be filmed by a Jewish director. Finally Spielberg was given the role for which he refused payment. The film went on to win seven academy awards including best picture and best director.

The film’s place in history is still being etched, but it is widely considered by many to be the greatest film of the 1990s and one of the most important films ever made. It was the first to unerringly show the plight in the Nazi concentration camps and is now listed on most all lists of the greatest films of all time.