Schindler's List Is Returning to Theaters for Its 25th Anniversary

Schindler's List was first released on December 15, 1993, and it's still regarded as one of the most important films about the Holocaust ever made. In honor of its 25-year anniversary, Steven Spielberg's classic is returning to theaters for a limited engagement beginning Friday, December 7, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The film follows Oskar Schindler (played by Liam Neeson), a member of the Nazi party who used his influence to covertly save the lives of more than 1000 Jews during World War II. Though the events of the film took place about 75 years ago, Spielberg emphasized in a recent interview that the story is still relevant—perhaps even more so today than when it premiered in the 1990s.

"I think this is maybe the most important time to re-release this film," the director said in a recent interview with Lester Holt on NBC Nightly News. Citing the spike in hate crimes targeting religious minorities since 2016, he said, "Hate's less parenthetical today, it's more a headline."

Spielberg thinks there's an important message he hopes today's audiences will take away from the film: "Individual hate is a terrible thing," he said. "But when collective hate organizes and gets industrialized, then genocide follows."

The 25th anniversary re-release of Schindler's List will be the same version viewers saw in 1993—only the sound has been remixed to accommodate new theater technology. The movie will be playing in the theaters from December 7 through the 13th.