If only one masterpiece were to be allotted to a director, then Schindler’s List is Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece. There were films about the holocaust before, and there have certainly been films on the subject since, but Schindler’s List, filmed documentary style in shimmering black and white, remains the one all others are now measured against.

The film has been given a Blu-ray upgrade for its 20th Anniversary that does full justice to the sights and sounds of the film that won seven Oscars and seventy other international awards.

Liam Neeson stars as Oskar Schindler, a German businessman and member of the Nazi party who employs Jews in his manufacturing business because they are cheap labor. Once the Nazis rout the Polish city of Krakow, however, Schindler develops a genuine concern for his worker and spends the remainder of the war saving 1,200 Jews – men, women and children alike from the death camps, losing all his money in the process. His only regret in the end is that he didn’t do more.

In addition to Neeson, there are standout performances from Ben Kingsley as Itzhak Stern, Schindler’s accountant; Ralph Fiennes as trigger happy Nazi commandant Amon Goeth and Embeth Davidtz as Helen Hirsch, a prisoner plucked out a line-up by Goeth to be his housemaid.

The film counterbalances unspeakable horror with random acts of kindness, always keeping you on the edge of your seat. The film’s legendary coda features real life survivors of the war and the actors who played them as they place stones on Schindler’s grave. At the time of the film’s 1993 release, there were only 4,000 Jews living in Poland. The Schindler Jews and their descendants totaled 6,000 at that point.

There are no extras on the Blu-ray. All the extras from the original DVD release have been retained on the second disc of the accompanying upgraded DVD.

Fans of the popular 2012 French impact, The Intouchables, were aghast when the film failed to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. Frankly, I don’t understand what all the fuss was about. The film is a decent, if unremarkable character study about an aristocrat who becomes a quadriplegic after a paragliding accident, and the poor man from the slums he hires to take care of him. Francois Clouzet as the aristocrat and Omar Sy as his caretaker are perfectly fine, but the song I was humming when it all ended was Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is?”

The Intouchables is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Another film whose popularity has me scratching my head is Wreck-It Ralph, a 2012 Best Animated Feature contender that many predicted would win the Oscar in that category. Thankfully it didn’t.

The film is about a villain in a thirty year old video arcade game who wants to be a hero. Um, OK, but a two year-old could have figured how it would end after the first two minutes. The references to beloved video arcade game characters of the past were lost on me. My next visit to an arcade will be my first.

The Oscar winning animated short, Paperman, which is included as an extra, is the best part of the package.

Wreck-It Ralph is available in three formats: Blu-ray 3-D; standard Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Fox Cinema Archives continues to release their classic films at a fast pace. That’s the good news. The bad news is most of the releases are made-for TV which are decent enough if you’re not too picky. There are no extras, not even a trailer for any of the films.

Old, pre-widescreen black-and-white films come off best. Color films tend to look a bit faded. Cinemascope films are generally pan-and-scan, but there are exceptions.

The 1956 musical The Best Things in Life Are Free never had much to offer, but it deserves a better release than this. There are scenes where the film’s four stars, Gordon MacRae, Dan Dailey, Ernest Borgnine and Sheree North are all on screen at the same time, or at least are supposed to be, but with pan-and-scan you only get part of them. This was annoying in the pre-widescreen TV era. It’s inexcusable today.

Bing Crosby’s return to the cloth in 1959’s Say One for Me was no Going My Way or The Bells of St. Mary’s, but Father Bing, Debbie Reynolds, Robert Wagner and Ray Walston deserve better treatment than that which pan-and-scan has to offer.

Der Bingle’s parish is a fictionalized version of the famed Church Around the Corner catering to Broadway denizens. It has some nice moments including a sentimental wind-up on a TV show that recallsWhite Christmas. The songs are pleasant if not particularly memorable.

1962’s Tender Is the Night is a sleep-inducing version of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel with Jennifer Jones, Jason Robards, Joan Fontaine and Tom Ewell doing themselves no favors. Pan-and-scan doesn’t help, but doesn’t really hinder the film which doesn’t register anyway.

Four new releases that get proper letterboxing include three so-so comedies and one under-rated drama.

1957’s Oh, Men! Oh, Women! is a deadly dull comedy about a psychiatrist (David Niven) and his patients. Ginger Rogers, Dan Dailey, Babrara Rush and an actually funny Tony Randall co-star.

Claudette Colbert and Charles Boyer lent their considerable class to the Broadway run of The Marriage-Go-Round which made a star of Julie Newmar as the exchange student who wants to have Boyer’s baby. Susan Hayward and James Mason try but fall short in the 1961 film version which also features Newmar, but at least the film looks good in widescreen and glowing color.

A sort of poor cousin to Fox’s 1954 smash hit, Three Coins in the Fountain 1959’s Holiday for Lovers finds Clifton Webb and Jane Wyman as a psychiatrist and his wife doing a poor job of chaperoning daughters Jill St. John and Carol Lynley through South America. It’s a pleasant enough time killer which does look gorgeous in vibrant color, but you’re not likely to remember much about it an hour after you’ve seen it.

The gem is 1962’s Lisa which was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture-Drama, losing to Lawrence of Arabia.

The film stars Dolores Hart as a Dutch Auschwitz concentration camp survivor whose dream is to relocate to Palestine. The victim of medical experimentation, she is almost persuaded to go the Nuremberg trials as a witness instead of moving to Palestine, but is convinced to stick to her dream.

Stephen Boyd co-stars as the Dutch police inspector who helps her along the way, as do Leo McKern, Hugh Griffith, Harry Andrews, Robert Stephens, Finlay Currie and others.

Hart has said that it was the humanity portrayed in this film, not Francis of Assisi as is widely thought, that convinced her to become a nun. It makes a worthy companion piece to Schindler’s List.

Among the pre-cinemascope era films being released in the latest Fox wave are two of the studio’s rare color films of the 1940s, 1944’s Wilson and 1948’s Apartment for Peggy.

Nominated for ten Oscars, and winner of five, Daryl F. Zanuck’s production of Wilson deserved to be a bigger hit than it was. It should also be better remembered than it is.

Along with Nixon and the recent Lincoln, this is one of only three theatrical films to chronicle the life of a U.S. President while in the White House. Alexander Knox is outstanding as Woodrow Wilson and Ruth Nelson as his first wife and Geraldine Fitzgerald as his second, stand out amidst the huge supporting cast.

Edmund Gwenn followed up his Oscar winning role in 1947’s Miracle on 34th Street with his suicidal retired philosophy professor in Apartment for Peggy. A way too chirpy Jeanne Crain and a subdued William Holden get top billing as newlyweds living in Gwenn’s attic in this comedy-drama, but it’s Gwenn film all the way and he’s every bit as good as he was in Miracle.

Gwenn is back in black-and-white in 1950’s Mister 880 for which he received a second Oscar nomination for his delightful portrayal of a crafty counterfeiter. Burt Lancaster and Dorothy McGuire get top billing, but once again Gwenn steals the show. This one is officially classified as a comedy.

New releases this week include Life of Pi and Hitchcock.