Schindler's List - 1993

Schindler's List is a 1993 American biographical drama film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the novel Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally. It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as Schutzstaffel (SS)-officer Amon Göth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern.

The film was a box office success and recipient of seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Score, as well as numerous other awards (7 BAFTAs, 3 Golden Globes). In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked the film 8th on its list of the 100 best American films of all time (up one position from its 9th place listing on the 1998 list).

Welcome - 2009

The title of this film is misleading because the last thing Bilal feels in welcome as he travels miles to find and reunite with the girl he loves. The community of struggling illegal aliens in Calais is captured with authenticity, from the point of view of people who arrived there knowing nothing about France.

When authorities forbid young Kurdish refugee Bilal (Firat Ayverdi) from crossing the English Channel to reunite with his girlfriend in England, the 17-year-old resolves to swim to his love -- and finds an unlikely ally in the form of swim instructor Simon (Vincent Lindon). Facing an inevitable divorce from his wife (Audrey Dana), the middle-aged teacher takes the resolute youth under his wing in this stirring, beautifully acted French drama.

Defiance - 2008

This moving, dramatic film is based on actual events.  Daniel Craig stars as Tuvia Bielski, one of four Jewish brothers who escape from Poland into the forests of Belarus during World War II to lead a band of resistance fighters and create a safe haven for Jewish refugees.  The real-life sanctuary established by the Bielski brothers saved more than 1,000 Jews from persecution and death.  Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell and George MacKay also star.  I love this film.