The Story in Brief
Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist and Nazi party member, arrives in Kraków at the start of World War II to profit from the war and ends it having spent his entire fortune saving the lives of over a thousand Jewish workers. Thomas Keneally's novel — written as narrative non-fiction, blurring the line between history and fiction — won the Booker Prize in 1982. Steven Spielberg's film won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made. This is one of the very few entries on this site where the film wins outright.
Key Differences
Documentary vs narrative
Keneally wrote the book as "a novel" but in a documentary style — gathering testimony, blending composite characters, working from historical record. The result is authoritative but somewhat distanced; the book reads like richly written history rather than emotionally immediate fiction. Spielberg translates this material into direct narrative cinema, and the emotional impact is considerably more powerful.
Amon Göth
Ralph Fiennes' performance as the SS commandant Amon Göth is one of the great screen villains — charming, sadistic, delusional, capable of brief self-awareness that makes him more terrifying rather than less. Keneally's Göth is well-drawn but more clinical. The film's Göth is the film's most remarkable achievement, and it's an achievement that belongs entirely to cinema.
Schindler's transformation
Keneally presents Schindler's transformation from opportunist to saviour with appropriate historical caution — he doesn't fully explain it because no one fully understood it, including Schindler. Spielberg dramatises the transformation more explicitly, particularly in the iconic scene where Schindler watches the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto. This is one of those rare cases where dramatisation deepens rather than simplifies.
Black and white photography
Spielberg shot in black and white — a decision that distances the film from the present and anchors it in the visual language of historical documentation. The girl in the red coat, the only colour in the film until the ending, is one of cinema's most powerful images. No prose passage in the novel achieves what that image achieves.
Itzhak Stern
Ben Kingsley's Itzhak Stern is a composite character — the film condenses several historical figures into one — and Kingsley makes him the moral conscience of the film, the witness to Schindler's transformation. Keneally's more historically accurate account distributes this role across several characters, which is correct but less cinematically powerful.
Should You Read First?
For once, no — watch the film first. Spielberg's film is the more powerful and immediate experience, and it's the version that most people should encounter first. Read Keneally's book afterward as a historical companion piece — it adds detail, context, and historical grounding that the film necessarily simplifies. But the film is the destination here.
One of the very few times on this site the film wins without qualification. Spielberg made something that transcends its source — not because Keneally's book is poor, but because cinema can do certain things with this material that prose cannot. See the film. Read the book for the history. The film is the masterpiece.