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The film Steven Spielberg will ultimately be remembered for, "Schindler's List" is essential viewing for any aspiring filmmaker or film scholar.  As Hollywood offers one Holocaust film after the other, from Tim Blake Nelson's "The Grey Zone" to Roman Polanski's "The Pianist," none can ever seem to match the emotional greatness of Spielberg's 1993 masterpiece, which was mostly shot in black and white.

The scene: Straddled on a horse, amidst a hilltop with a female companion, Nazi party affiliate Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) looks down at the liquidation of a ghetto.  The horrific site of Nazi soldiers dividing and swarming through the streets is only more terrifying when the sight of a lone young girl, no older than ten, can be seen walking through the chaos.  We can make her out because Spielberg decided to emulate the red color of her coat.  As the camera pans across the streets, from the hilltop view, we can see a line of male Jews executed in front of a wall, and others forced onto the backs of trucks which are gearing to go toward concentration camps.  And still, when the little girl comes even into the corner of the frame, our eyes wander to her, quietly hoping she makes it out.

Why we love it: Coupled with the heartbreaking music, this imagery of innocence threatened (the girl in the red coat) is perhaps the most potent and memorable scene of a film already heavily laced with tremendous, iconic imagery and cinematography.  The girl in red has taken on many meanings, but the most basic is perhaps the most powerful: she isn't saved.  If you study the cover or poster of "Schindler's List" it is easy to see that the hand reaching down from above is of an adult's and the child hand reaching from below comes out from a red coat sleeve.  That visual is shattering when a later scene in the film is considered: as Schindler follows the smoke of a nearby burning, he notices the burnt red coat being hauled toward the pile of human ash.  A life not saved.  Filmmaking in its highest regard.