saving private ryan movie review essay

July 24, 1998 'Saving Private Ryan': A Soberly Magnificent New War Film Related Articles The New York Times on the Web: Current Film Forum Join a Discussion on Movies By JANET MASLIN hen soldiers are killed in "Saving Private Ryan," their comrades carefully preserve any message he left behind. Removed from the corpses of the newly dead, sometimes copied over to hide bloodstains, these writings surely describe some of the fury of combat, the essence of spontaneous courage, the craving for solace, the bizarre routines of wartime existence, the deep loneliness of life on the brink. Steven Spielberg's soberly magnificent new war film, the second such pinnacle in a career of magical versatility, has been made in the same spirit of urgent communication. It is the ultimate devastating letter home. Since the end of World War II and the virtual death of the western, the combat film has disintegrated into a showcase for swagger, cynicism, obscenely overblown violence and hollow, self-serving victories. Now, with stunning efficacy, Spielberg turns back the clock. He restores passion and meaning to the genre with such whirlwind force that he seems to reimagine it entirely, dazzling with the breadth and intensity of that imagination. No received notions, dramatic or ideological, intrude on this achievement. This film simply looks at war as if war had not been looked at before. Though the experience it recounts is grueling, the viscerally enthralling "Saving Private Ryan" is anything but. As he did in "Schindler's List," Spielberg uses his preternatural storytelling gifts to personalize the unimaginable, to create instantly empathetic characters and to hold an audience spellbound from the moment the action starts. Though the film essentially begins and ends with staggering, phenomenally agile battle sequences and contains isolated violent tragedies in between, its vision of combat is never allowed to grow numbing. Like the soldiers, viewers are made furiously alive to each new crisis and never free to rest. 'This film simply looks at war as if war had not been looked at before.' The film's immense dignity is its signal characteristic, and some of it is achieved though deliberate elision. We don't know anything about these men as they prepare to land at Omaha Beach on D-Day, which might make them featureless in the hands of a less intuitive filmmaker. Here, it means that any filter between audience and cataclysm has effectively been taken away. The one glimmer of auxiliary information is the image of an elderly visitor at a military cemetery, which opens and closes the film (though these brief sequences lack the film's otherwise shattering verisimilitude). Whoever the man is, he sees the gravestones and drifts into D-Day memories. On the evidence of what follows, he can hardly have gone to sleep since June 6, 1944, without reliving these horrors in his dreams. Though "Saving Private Ryan" is liable to be described as extremely violent for its battle re-enactments, that is not quite the case. The battle scenes avoid conventional suspense and sensationalism; they disturb not by being manipulative but by being hellishly frank. Imagine Hieronymus Bosch with a Steadicam (instead of the immensely talented Janusz Kaminski), and you have some idea of the tableaux to emerge here, as the film explodes into panoramic yet intimate visions of bloodshed. What's unusual about this, in both the D-Day sequence and the closing struggle, is its terrifying reportorial candor. These scenes have a sensory fullness (the soundtrack is boomingly chaotic yet astonishingly detailed), a realistic yet breakneck pace, a ceaseless momentum and a vast visual scope. Artful, tumultuous warfare choreography heightens the intensity. So do editing decisions that balance the ordeal of the individual with the mass attack under way. So somehow we are everywhere: aboard landing craft in the throes of anticipatory jitters; underwater where bullets kill near-silently and men drown under the weight of heavy equipment; on the shore with the man who flies upward in an explosion and then comes down minus a leg; moving inland with the Red Cross and the priest and the sharpshooter; reaching a target with the savagely vengeful troops who firebomb a German bunker and let the men burn. Most of all, we are with Capt. John Miller (Tom Hanks) in heights of furious courage and then, suddenly, in an epiphany of shellshocked confusion. Never have Hanks' everyman qualities been more instantly effective than here. When the battle finally ends, there are other unfamiliar sights, like the body of a soldier named Ryan washed up on the beach amid fish. (The film's bloody authenticity does not allow false majesty for the dead.) Next we are drawn into the incongruously small-scale drama of the Ryan family, with three sons killed and only one remaining, lost somewhere in Normandy. Miller and his unit, played with seamless ensemble spirit by actors whose pre-production boot-camp experience really shows here, are sent to find what the captain calls "a needle in a stack of needles" and bring him home alive. In another beautifully choreographed sequence, shot with obvious freshness and alacrity, the soldiers talk while marching though the French countryside. On the way, they establish strong individual identities and raise the film's underlying questions about the meaning of sacrifice. Spielberg and screenwriter Robert Rodat have a way of taking these standard-issue characters and making them unaccountably compelling. Some of that can also be ascribed to the fine, indie-bred cast that includes Edward Burns (whose acting prospects match his directing talents) as the wise guy from Brooklyn; Tom Sizemore as the rock-solid second in command; Giovanni Ribisi as the thoughtful medic; Barry Pepper as the devout Southern sharpshooter; Jeremy Davies as the timid, desperately inadequate intellectual; Vin Diesel as the tough Italian, and Adam Goldberg as the tough Jew. As the actors spar (coolly, with a merciful lack of glibness), the film creates a strong sense of just how different they are and just how strange it is for each man to find himself in this crucible. Yet "Saving Private Ryan," unlike even the best films about the mind-bending disorientation of the Vietnam War, does not openly challenge the moral necessity of their being forced to fight. With a wonderfully all-embracing vision, it allows for patriotism, abject panic and everything in between. The soldiers' decisions are never made easily, and sometimes they are fatally wrong. In this uncertainty, too, "Saving Private Ryan" tells an unexpected truth. The film divides gracefully into a string of well-defined sequences that lead inexorably to Ryan. Inevitably, audiences will know that he is played by Matt Damon and thus will be found alive. But the film still manages to create considerable suspense about when and how he will appear. When it finally comes, Damon's entrance is one more tribute to Spielberg's ingenious staging, catching the viewer utterly off-guard. There's the same effect to Ryan's impassioned reaction, in one of many scenes that prompt deep emotion, to the news that he can go home. Though "Saving Private Ryan" features Hollywood's most durable contemporary star in its leading role, there's nothing stellar about the way Hanks gives the film such substance and pride. As in "Apollo 13," his is a modest, taciturn brand of heroism, and it takes on entirely new shadings here. In Miller, the film finds a plain yet gratifying complex focus, a decent, strong, fallible man who sustains his courage while privately confounded by the extent that war has now shaped him. "Back home, I'd tell people what I do, they'd say, 'It figures,"' he explains to his men after an especially troubling encounter. "But over here, it's a big mystery, judging from the looks on your faces. I guess that means I've changed over here. I wonder sometimes if my wife is even going to recognize me, whenever it is I'm going to get back to her. And how I can possibly tell her about days like today." Among the many epiphanies in "Saving Private Ryan" are some especially unforgettable ones: the anguished ordeal of Davies' map maker and translator in a staircase in the midst of battle; the tranquil pause in a bombed-out French village, to the strains of Edith Piaf; the brisk way the soldiers sift through a pile of dog tags, momentarily forgetting that each one signifies a death. A man driving a tank looks up for a split second before a Molotov cocktail falls on him. Two of the film's principals huddle against sandbags at a critical juncture; and then, suddenly, only one is still breathing. The sparing use of John Williams' music sustains the tension in scenes, like these, that need no extra emphasis. But "Saving Private Ryan" does have a very few false notes. Like the cemetery scenes, the capture of a German soldier takes a turn for the artificial, especially when the man expresses his desperation through broad clowning. But in context, such a jarring touch is actually a relief. It's a reminder that, after all, "Saving Private Ryan" is only a movie. Only the finest war movie of our time. PRODUCTION NOTES: 'SAVING PRIVATE RYAN' Directed by Steven Spielberg; written by Robert Rodat; director of photography, Janusz Kaminski; edited by Michael Kahn; music by John Williams; production designer, Tom Sanders; produced by Spielberg, Ian Bruce, Mark Gordon and Gary Levinsohn; released by Dreamworks Pictures and Paramount Pictures. With: Tom Hanks (Captain Miller), Tom Sizemore (Sergeant Horvath), Edward Burns (Private Reiben), Barry Pepper (Private Jackson), Adam Goldberg (Private Mellish), Vin Diesel (Private Caparzo), Giovanni Ribisi (T/4 Medic Wade), Jeremy Davies (Corporal Upham), Matt Damon (Private Ryan), Ted Danson (Captain Hamill), Paul Giamatti (Sergeant Hill), Dennis Farina (Lieutenant Colonel Anderson), Joerg Stadler (Steamboat Willie), Harve Presnell (General Marshall) and Harrison Young (Ryan as Old Man). Running time: 170 minutes. "Saving Private Ryan" is rated R (under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Its graphic war scenes depict maimed bodies and shockingly sudden death. Young children aren't ready for it. Teen-agers who would think nothing of watching a grisly horror film will think more if they see this.

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The soldiers assigned to find Pvt. Ryan and bring him home can do the math for themselves. The Army Chief of Staff has ordered them on the mission for propaganda purposes: Ryan's return will boost morale on the homefront, and put a human face on the carnage at Omaha Beach. His mother, who has already lost three sons in the war, will not have to add another telegram to her collection. But the eight men on the mission also have parents--and besides, they've been trained to kill Germans, not to risk their lives for publicity stunts. "This Ryan better be worth it," one of the men grumbles.

In Hollywood mythology, great battles wheel and turn on the actions of individual heroes. In Steven Spielberg 's "Saving Private Ryan," thousands of terrified and seasick men, most of them new to combat, are thrown into the face of withering German fire. The landing on Omaha Beach was not about saving Pvt. Ryan. It was about saving your skin.

The movie's opening sequence is as graphic as any war footage I've ever seen. In fierce dread and energy it's on a par with Oliver Stone's " Platoon ," and in scope surpasses it--because in the bloody early stages the landing forces and the enemy never meet eye to eye, but are simply faceless masses of men who have been ordered to shoot at one another until one side is destroyed.

Spielberg's camera makes no sense of the action. That is the purpose of his style. For the individual soldier on the beach, the landing was a chaos of noise, mud, blood, vomit and death. The scene is filled with countless unrelated pieces of time, as when a soldier has his arm blown off. He staggers, confused, standing exposed to further fire, not sure what to do next, and then he bends over and picks up his arm, as if he will need it later.

This landing sequence is necessary to establish the distance between those who give the order that Pvt. Ryan be saved, and those who are ordered to do the saving. For Capt. Miller ( Tom Hanks ) and his men, the landing at Omaha has been a crucible of fire. For Army Chief George C. Marshall ( Harve Presnell ) in his Washington office, war seems more remote and statesmanlike; he treasures a letter Abraham Lincoln wrote consoling Mrs. Bixby of Boston, about her sons who died in the Civil War. His advisors question the wisdom and indeed the possibility of a mission to save Ryan, but he barks, "If the boy's alive we are gonna send somebody to find him--and we are gonna get him the hell out of there." That sets up the second act of the film, in which Miller and his men penetrate into French terrain still actively disputed by the Germans, while harboring mutinous thoughts about the wisdom of the mission. All of Miller's men have served with him before--except for Cpl. Upham ( Jeremy Davies ), the translator, who speaks excellent German and French but has never fired a rifle in anger and is terrified almost to the point of incontinence. I identified with Upham, and I suspect many honest viewers will agree with me: The war was fought by civilians just like him, whose lives had not prepared them for the reality of battle.

The turning point in the film comes, I think, when the squadron happens upon a German machinegun nest protecting a radar installation. It would be possible to go around it and avoid a confrontation. Indeed, that would be following orders. But they decide to attack the emplacement, and that is a form of protest: At risk to their lives, they are doing what they came to France to do, instead of what the top brass wants them to do.

Everything points to the third act, when Private Ryan is found, and the soldiers decide what to do next. Spielberg and his screenwriter, Robert Rodat , have done a subtle and rather beautiful thing: They have made a philosophical film about war almost entirely in terms of action. "Saving Private Ryan" says things about war that are as complex and difficult as any essayist could possibly express, and does it with broad, strong images, with violence, with profanity, with action, with camaraderie. It is possible to express even the most thoughtful ideas in the simplest words and actions, and that's what Spielberg does. The film is doubly effective, because he communicates his ideas in feelings, not words. I was reminded of "All Quiet on the Western Front." Steven Spielberg is as technically proficient as any filmmaker alive, and because of his great success, he has access to every resource he requires. Both of those facts are important to the impact of "Saving Private Ryan." He knows how to convey his feelings about men in combat, and he has the tools, the money and the collaborators to make it possible.

His cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski , who also shot " Schindler's List ," brings a newsreel feel to a lot of the footage, but that's relatively easy compared to his most important achievement, which is to make everything visually intelligible. After the deliberate chaos of the landing scenes, Kaminski handles the attack on the machinegun nest, and a prolonged sequence involving the defense of a bridge, in a way that keeps us oriented. It's not just men shooting at one another. We understand the plan of the action, the ebb and flow, the improvisation, the relative positions of the soldiers.

Then there is the human element. Hanks is a good choice as Capt. Miller, an English teacher who has survived experiences so unspeakable that he wonders if his wife will even recognize him. His hands tremble, he is on the brink of breakdown, but he does his best because that is his duty. All of the actors playing the men under him are effective, partly because Spielberg resists the temptation to make them zany "characters" in the tradition of World War II movies, and makes them deliberately ordinary. Matt Damon , as Pvt. Ryan, exudes a different energy, because he has not been through the landing at Omaha Beach; as a paratrooper, he landed inland, and although he has seen action he has not gazed into the inferno.

They are all strong presences, but for me the key performance in the movie is by Jeremy Davies, as the frightened little interpreter. He is our entry into the reality because he sees it clearly as a vast system designed to humiliate and destroy him. And so it is. His survival depends on his doing the very best he can, yes, but even more on chance. Eventually he arrives at his personal turning point, and his action writes the closing words of Spielberg's unspoken philosophical argument.

"Saving Private Ryan" is a powerful experience. I'm sure a lot of people will weep during it. Spielberg knows how to make audiences weep better than any director since Chaplin in " City Lights ." But weeping is an incomplete response, letting the audience off the hook. This film embodies ideas. After the immediate experience begins to fade, the implications remain and grow.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film Credits

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Rated R For Intense Prolonged Realistically Graphic Sequences Of War Violence, and For Language

170 minutes

Tom Sizemore as Sgt. Horvath

Edward Burns as Pvt. Reiben

Tom Hanks as Capt. Miller

Barry Pepper as Pvt. Jackson

Adam Goldberg as Pvt. Mellish

Directed by

• Steven Spielberg
• Robert Rodat

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Saving Private Ryan review – war epic still hits with sledgehammer force

The horror of battle is given visceral power in Steven Spielberg’s dazzling fusion of audacity, action and human drama

A present participle in the title usually promises a film with light, ironical flavour: Driving Miss Daisy, Being John Malkovich, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. Not here. Screenwriter Robert Rodat imagined this colossal second world war blockbuster with absolute seriousness, loosely inspired by the real-life case of Sgt Frederick Niland, recalled to the US from the Normandy campaign on emergency compassionate grounds because all his brothers were believed (wrongly, as it turned out) to have been killed in action.

With this movie, re-released 21 years on, Steven Spielberg created one of his greatest films, an old-fashioned war picture to rule them all – gripping, utterly uncynical, with viscerally convincing and audacious battle sequences. It was a staggeringly effective action film with a potent orchestral score by John Williams , candidly inspired by Elgar’s Nimrod. And it was based on a redemptive, quietist premise: the point of the mission is not to engage the enemy but to rescue an American soldier and spirit him away out of danger. Yet when the time of great trial comes, of course, no one is ducking the fight.

After a gruelling half-hour sequence depicting the beach landings, which reminded a new generation of filmgoers how terrifyingly low the life expectancy was for those in the first wave, we are introduced to our everyman hero, Captain Miller ( Tom Hanks ), whose mission has been ordered from the very top: find Private Ryan (Matt Damon) on the field of battle, inform him of the terrible news about his brothers and order him home. Miller assembles a crack band of brothers: Horvath (Tim Sizemore), Reiben (Edward Burns), Jackson (Barry Pepper), Mellish (Adam Goldberg), Caparzo (Vin Diesel), Upham (Jeremy Davies) and Wade (Giovanni Ribisi) and they set off behind enemy lines on a desperately dangerous mission whose rationale the men not-so-secretly despise: it is Fubar – fucked up beyond all recognition.

The sweaty, traumatised faces of Captain Miller’s men are unforgettable. Some of these actors have gone on to become more famous than others, but for me, Ryan is a moment of equal triumph for each. There are stunning moments in this film and the biggest comes near the beginning when the Ryan brothers’ mother sees the official army car driving up to the house, and staggers with shock on realising what it must mean. (She is played by Amanda Boxer; the only other substantial woman’s role is Ryan’s wife in old age, played by Kathleen Byron.) It is strange now to recognise other actors – Paul Giamatti, Bryan Cranston – in minor roles.

Other moments have a sledgehammer force, particularly the grotesque mix-up when other men with the title of Private Ryan present themselves. There are expertly shaped crises, leading up to a horrible situation when the unit, who are not in a position to take prisoners, have to decide whether or not to execute a German soldier who has surrendered. There follows a huge, cathartic revelation from the fatherly Captain Miller – an outrageously hammy war-movie moment, perhaps, but superbly controlled.

Revisiting this film after two decades, some things do look a little broad. It’s certainly a traditional Hollywood war movie – right down to making it clear how irrelevant the Brits are. Captain Hamill (Ted Danson) takes time to express to Miller his view that General Monty (the “t” given full derisive pronunciation) is “overrated”. Some of the bonding scenes between the men are a little sugary. Another war film, perhaps even one made well before 1998, might want to contrive a “good German” for humanistic sympathy. But not here. Spielberg and Rodat probably did well to avoid the fence-sitting cliche. War is not glamorised in Saving Private Ryan , but the spectacular inferno is brilliantly created.

• Saving Private Ryan
• Steven Spielberg

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Saving Private Ryan Analysis: Propaganda Through Immersion

• Jack Walters
• March 1, 2022

Through its immersive narrative and stylistic direction, Saving Private Ryan r eminds us of the indiscriminate terror of trench warfare.

This article contains spoilers for ‘Saving Private Ryan’ (1998) .

Since the birth of the medium, film has been used as a catalyst for social, political and functional change. Whether that’s through creative narratives that explore otherwise unspoken topics, or even through outwardly exposing audiences to the difficulties of the world, there’s something about film that makes it intrinsically suitable for this kind of social commentary . And one of the topics that filmmakers seem unable to resist, however uncomfortable it is, is war. But it’s not just during wartime conflicts that these films come about. Some of the most iconic and prolific war films there have ever been – think Apocalypse Now or Paths of Glory – are products of a different era, drawn from a time that gives filmmakers more creative liberty, and crafted with the blessing of hindsight. Spielberg’s often-cited ‘masterpiece’ of war cinema Saving Private Ryan is one of these films – a piece of media that, despite depicting a time that is long gone, makes every attempt to immerse its audience in the dark and bloody realities of conflict in order to make these times real again. And by doing so, Spielberg makes one thing excessively clear – there are no winners in war , just those who die and those who don’t.

The first half an hour of Saving Private Ryan is one of the most effective and engaging sequences that Spielberg has ever directed – and that’s tough competition. It follows Tom Hanks’ Captain Miller and his squadron as they land on Omaha Beach and suffer immense casualties after being ambushed by enemy soldiers. The thing that makes this scene so memorable and captivating is the exact same thing that Spielberg uses throughout the movie to promote his personal anti-war ideologies – intense, unrelenting immersion into the scene. We never break away from Hanks’ character for a second, following him with unbroken scrutiny as he navigates the beach and witnesses a huge chunk of his team die and suffer in extremely gruesome ways. But the scene keeps moving, the characters keep on pushing, and the battle is eventually won. It’s hard to imagine a sequence that could make you feel more like a soldier under fire than this one – it defies everything that we’d expect from Hollywood filmmaking and instead opts for violence, chaos and endless bloodshed.

Now, it would be unfair to claim that Spielberg was the first to do this – war films have always had elements of violence and brutality, and it would be pretty difficult to make one that didn’t. But where he deviates from tradition is in the complete lack of spectacle that surrounds the warfare in Saving Private Ryan . There are no theatrically dramatic cries or pristine cinematic explosions in Spielberg’s vision, but rather his soldiers die with a complete lack of fanfare or even sometimes recognition. In doing so, he steps away from the sensationalist nature of moviemaking and makes a very clear statement – his film isn’t just entertainment, it’s real life. The brave soldiers that get shot down on Omaha Beach aren’t just characters in a story – the camera barely even notices them as they lose limbs and writhe in pain – they’re real people and their deaths aren’t just plot points to be dramatized. By making this clear choice to avoid sensationalizing warfare, Spielberg makes it even easier for audiences to feel as though they’re really there on those beaches, rather than watching a constructed film. 

Saving Private Ryan is clearly an anti-war film , and you can tell that just by reading the plot summary. It’s about the futility of warfare, the injustice of sending so many inexperienced soldiers to their deaths, and the pure terror that’s bred on the battlefield. But Spielberg doesn’t just show you that, he makes you feel it. His immersive action sequences and clear stylistic choices make you truly feel like you’re there – and that’s the best kind of propaganda there is. It’s one thing to learn about the horrors of war, but to see the carelessness with your own eyes and feel the fear with your own heart, that’s something else – and it makes all the film’s arguments about war so much more persuasive. Audiences rarely connect with films that are too overt with their deeper ideologies, particularly when they’re as political and uncomfortable as Saving Private Ryan ’s. But by placing the audience within the confines of the film, Spielberg breaks down that barrier between fiction and reality, making the film’s true meaning impossible to escape from.

Although it’s near-impossible to boil down the ‘meaning’ of Saving Private Ryan into one sentence, Captain Miller’s dying words to Private Ryan himself sum it up best. As he faces his own mortality on the battlefield, Miller lets out two simple but profound words that say more than anybody else ever could – “earn this.” It comes after an absolutely devastating attack from the enemy that sees several of his men killed, even more injured, all in the name of protecting Ryan and bringing him home. It’s one small mission in comparison to the whole of the war, but it’s everything for these men. And that’s exactly what’s so special about Saving Private Ryan . It doesn’t try and condemn war by just showing a huge-scale battlefield with dramatic deaths and big explosions, but it takes the time to develop a small, intimate story that speaks volumes about the personal trials and tribulations that soldiers faced on a daily basis during the war. These men might not have won the war themselves, but they suffer and persevere just as much as those on the front line, and as Miller’s dying words command, they earn their place in history. 

Saving Private Ryan is now available on Digital, Blu-ray & DVD. Read our reviews of Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans , West Side Story , Jaws , Jurassic Park , Duel , Schindler’s List , E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial , and The Terminal , and find out why Catch Me If You Can is a Christmas Movie .

• TAGS: Close analysis , genre: war drama , Steven Spielberg

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EMPIRE ESSAY: Saving Private Ryan Review

01 Jan 1998

170 minutes

EMPIRE ESSAY: Saving Private Ryan

THERE IS A MOMENT OF TRUE cinematic greatness towards the end of Saving Private Ryan. As the Panzers roll in to crush the embattled enclave of war-weary American troops, Private Mellish (Adam Goldberg) is locked in a desperate hand-to-hand struggle with a bear-like German soldier on the upper floor of a bombed-out ruin. Below on the stairs, the petrified interpreter Corporal Upham (Jeremy Davies) whimpers, unable to summon the strength to save his comrade. At last, the German gains the upper hand, and with terrible slowness eases his knife into the American. What is unforgettable about the scene is the tenderness of the moment of killing: the German gazes lovingly into his adversary's eyes, and quietly shushes him like a baby. Upham never even makes it to the top of the stairs. As the German gathers himself up, something unspoken passes between them; he leaves the snivelling Corporal unharmed.

For sheer dramatic intensity, this is perhaps the most important scene in Spielberg's peerless war drama, because in this moment, everything that the film has been trying to say suddenly makes sense. It is reminiscent of the equally poignant trench scene in that first great war movie, All Quiet On The Western Front (1930), as well as Wilfred Owen's poem Strange Meeting. What Owen, who died in the trenches of the 1914-18 conflict, described as "the pity of war" is when men kill each other even though they don't want to.

When Saving Private Ryan opened in the summer of 1998 its impact was uniquely powerful. Cinema patrons might have gone through the emotional wringer for James Cameron's Titanic, but Ryan was a different kind of blockbuster; one which left viewers feeling shellshocked, blown apart.

The 25-minute opening segment depicting the wholesale slaughter of the US army's D-Day assault on Omaha beach on June 6,1944 is, unquestionably, the greatest battle sequence ever filmed. Seeing it in the cinema was like being trapped on some terrifying fairground ride and not being allowed to get off. Tales abounded of WWII veterans breaking down as the sheer realism and authenticity brought awful memories flooding back. Private Ryan may be unique among war films for making a generation truly thankful that they didn't have to endure what their parents and grandparents went through. A reviewer for CNN.com caught the mood perfectly: "The defiantly brutal battle sequences that frame the story are almost too visceral to bear, but you owe it to the people who were actually there to watch as they unfold."

Prior to Ryan, Spielberg had been playing mogul as one third of the DreamWorks SKG superteam, producing glossy commercial smashes like Men In Black and The Mask Of Zorro. In 1997, he directed both Amistad and The Lost World — fine examples of Spielberg the thinker and entertainer, but for his next directorial outing, the maestro was determined to construct something truly monumental. As an education in the horror of 1939-45, Ryan is a worthy expansion of what Spielberg achieved a few years earlier with Schindler's List.

Arguably, however, the great man's D-Day opus is not the perfectly self-contained work that Schindler is. Between the carnage that opens the film and the desperate battle that ends it, Ryan is a traditional "men on a mission" movie — albeit with deft Spielbergian subversions of the genre's cliches — that sometimes struggles to provide a meaningful discourse on war. The Observer's Philip French wrinkled his nose at what he deemed "flaccid discussion", while Empire noted "cheesy sinkholes in the script".

Whatever the shortcomings of Robert Rodat's script, the cast are superb. As Captain Miller, Tom Hanks exudes decency and humane intelligence, while Tom Sizemore excels as the robust Sergeant Horvath. The remainder of Miller's platoon are played by the cream of young Hollywood talent, including Edward Burns, Barry Pepper and Giovanni Ribisi. The mission leads Captain Miller's squad across war-ravaged Normandy to the titular Private Ryan (an impossibly wholesome, utterly likeable Matt Damon). Ryan's three brothers have been killed in action and the military authorities have ordered that he be returned to his grieving mother. The mission is successful, but Miller and his squad perish.

Spielberg requested that no one could gain admittance to the movie after the beginning, where an elderly Ryan returns to the French war cemetery where his fallen saviours are interred. The film's ending also takes place here with Ryan, his children and his children's children standing together among the countless gravestones of the dead.

On its release, Empire granted Ryan a five-star rating. A year later, its video release was again awarded the coveted five stars. Clearly, this was a landmark both for Spielberg and for cinema. Controversially, the 1999 Oscar for Best Picture went to Shakespeare In Love, although Spielberg took Best Director (Ryan's Janusz Kaminski and Michael Kahn won the awards for Cinematography and Editing). A kind of vindication came in January 2000, when Ryan was voted second best film of the 90s by the Broadcast Film Critics Association. Only Schindler's List garnered more votes.

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Movie review: ‘Saving Private Ryan’

“Saving Private Ryan” takes place during World War II, starting with America’s invasion of the Omaha Beaches during the Battle of Normandy.

Darcy Bergstein , Arts and Entertainment Editor | May 19, 2021 | 543 Views

War movies have been a major genre in the spectrum of film since the early 1900s.

War movies have been a major genre in the spectrum of film since the early 1900s. They hold so much importance in the industry because they depict one of the most intense experiences a human being can go through. However, the approach that these films take to show that the experience can vary, especially in Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” which came to theaters in 1998.

One criticism that war films have received in the past is that they glorify war, and that they shy away from the brutality and intensity of battle to make it seem better than it actually is. Some examples of war films that have been heavily criticized with this concept are “Top Gun” (1986), “Red Dawn” (1984), and “Rambo” (1972). Nevertheless, this is always up to interpretation. 

“Saving Private Ryan” immediately shatters this criticism with its very first scene, which is one of the most well-known and praised scenes in war film history. This first scene is absolutely horrifying and right from the get-go, the watcher gets a sense of the overall tone of the film and what it’s going to present.

This scene definitely isn’t for the weak-hearted, but it does illustrate the massive impact and tragedy of war, which makes that much more effective. 

One of the best parts of “Saving Private Ryan” is the cinematography and its direction. Spielberg collaborated with cinematographer Janusz Kamínski on the project (who Spielberg also collaborated with on “Amistad” (1997), “Minority Report” (2002), “Catch Me If You Can” (2002), and more), who enhanced the full experience of the first scene immensely with his dynamic camera choices and gritty shots. 

When talking about how he framed the opening scene of the film, Kamínski explains, “We wanted to create the illusion that there were several combat cameramen landing with the troops at Normandy. I think we succeeded in emulating the look of that footage for the invasion scenes, which we achieved with both in-camera tricks and other technological means. 

“First off, I thought about the lenses they had back in the 1940s. Obviously, those lenses were inferior compared to what we have today, so I had Panavision strip the protective coatings of a set of older Ultraspeeds. Interestingly, when we analyzed the lenses, the focus and sharpness didn’t change very much, though there was some deterioration; what really changed was the contrast and color rendering.”

The cinematography wasn’t the only impeccable aspect of “Saving Private Ryan”; the elements of storytelling in the film were extremely well written and devastating. 

“Saving Private Ryan” takes place during World War II, starting with America’s invasion of the Omaha Beaches during the Battle of Normandy. Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) is assigned the treacherous task of rescuing Private James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon), the only surviving soldier of four brothers, and bringing him back to his family.

Miller works with his squad of soldiers: Private Richard Reiben (Edward Burns), Technical Sergeant Mike Horvath ( Tom Sizemore), Private Adrian Caparzo (Vin Diesel), Medic Irwin Wade (Giovanni Ribisi), and three others in order to accomplish the mission, going through enemy lines and risking their lives in the process. 

The pacing of the film is excellent; while being almost three hours long, “Saving Private Ryan” never feels too drawn out like a lot of movies with the same length. Every scene has a purpose, whether it’s to expand on the characters or progress the story. 

The character writing is also fantastic with every member of Miller’s squad, especially Miller himself, being fleshed out and realistic. There’s a nice familial bond that forms between all of them by the end of the film.

“Saving Private Ryan” did a great job of emphasizing the little things. Even though these are hardcore soldiers who are trained in the extremity of war, they’re still people who are scared, and people who want to make it out of this alive no matter what. One of the ways Spielberg showed this was through Miller himself, where the film focuses a lot on his hands involuntarily shaking.

“Tom [Hanks] was the adult in the story,” Spielberg stated, “Tom has played adults and sometimes as an adult he’s played a kid. In this case, he brought something to the movie that I hadn’t seen Tom bring to any other movie before, and that was a stillness. I felt safe around him; I felt safe around his character. So when his handshakes — and we played that handshaking a lot — it was meant to discombobulate the audience.”

Reception-wise, the film reached massive success in the box office, making about $482.3 million in total. “Saving Private Ryan” is known as one of the most iconic war films to date, which is absolutely deserved. It’s one of those films that everyone needs to experience. 

“In my opinion, Saving Private Ryan is an absolute masterpiece,” Hills junior Sara Galbraith says, “and one of the best war movies I’ve ever seen. Steven Spielberg’s direction is fantastic, and I love how he made a movie that refuses to shy away from any of the gritty, disgusting details of war. It’s a fantastic anti-war film, and one I would recommend to anybody.”

Hills senior Darcy Bergstein is looking forward to her second year as a member of the Trailblazer. Before she became an Arts and Entertainment Editor, Bergstein wrote articles for the section as a staff writer. She is excited to edit for Arts and Entertainment alongside Kaitlyn Verde and write more articles in her final year at Hills. Fun fact: Bergstein's favorite T.V. shows are "Breaking Bad" and "Mad Men."

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Jeremiah Agware • Dec 6, 2021 at 9:46 AM

I do spend most of my free time watching movies and TV series. It’s almost like I don’t have a life after work and movies ??? I agree with you on this and keep up the good work.

Saving Private Ryan

By steven spielberg, saving private ryan analysis.

These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Written by Timothy Sexton

Saving Private Ryan is an Oscar-winning film written by Robert Rodat and directed by Steven Spielberg which was released to great acclaim in 1998. While the focus of most critical attention was devoted to the legendary harrowing D-Day landing sequence, that is only one small section of a film that has much to say and ask about the ultimate justification for war.

Less than halfway through the movie, it becomes quite obvious that every single major character is potentially targeted for an on-screen death. The mission of these characters is to, as the title indicates, save one Private Ryan who has recently become the last surviving member of four Ryan brothers fighting in World War II. Concerned with the potential public relations nightmare that would result from every single member of the family being killed in action, political powers in Washington decide to send a detachment of soldiers into the thick of battle with the solitary goal of bringing Private Ryan back home alive and well to his grieving mother. The story thus follows that mission which sees that detachment of soldiers chosen especially for this objective, who do not even know Ryan, picked off one by one as they make their way to the private’s position dangerously within enemy territory.

Director Steven Spielberg has gone on record as denying that this mission is justified in any way since it is basically one in which many are sacrificed simply to save a single soldier for no compelling strategic reason. The film therefore raises questions about themes related to heroism, political influence during wartime, and the whole rationalization of sending soldiers off to war in the first place. The argument over whether the mission to put multiple soldiers at risk for the sole purpose of saving one ultimately becomes the focus of this debate over the justification of war itself.

In essence, the mission which sees eight soldiers with families of their own back home sacrificing their lives to save another soldier they have never met is the entire concept of war in miniature. The film is what is any war but people sacrificing themselves for other people they don’t know and will never even meet. Private Ryan becomes a metaphor for every single soldier who ever returns home from battle alive while the members of the squad sent to save him are a metaphor for all those soldiers who are not so lucky.

At one point, the soldiers believe they have found their target only to learn that this Private Ryan is not the Private Ryan they are sent to save. This scene underscores the difficulty of justifying the mission in the movie and the idea of war in real life by asking what is the difference between the two Private Ryans. Both have people waiting for them back home so why should one gain priority over the other. That scene connects with the multiple sequences in which individual members of the detachment lose their lives as they face various encounters with the enemy. Not only is it difficult to justify the life of one Private Ryan being more important than the life of another Private Ryan, but it also impossible to justify Private Ryan’s life being more precious than those of Private Jackson or Corporal Wade or, especially, Captain Miller. If one were to justify putting eight men in danger to save just one, Captain Miller would be the most obvious choice since he has proven himself an inspirational leader whose actions in war can easily be termed more strategically essential than Private Ryan’s. If there is any justification in the sacrificing of some soldiers to save the lives of others, the comparison of Miller and Ryan would clearly be the starting point. Under any objective consideration, then, the life of Miller is most certainly not worth putting in jeopardy for the purpose of saving the life of Ryan.

It is impossible to conceive of the film ending with Miller surviving while Ryan is lost during the treacherous path back to safety. It is equally impossible to imagine them both surviving. The whole point of the film is that men like Miller die for the sake of saving men like Ryan. That is the central unfair inequity of war. Many people die whose lives would be deemed more worthy of saving than many of those who survive. The subtext, of course, is that Ryan, despite being a soldier in the battle, also represents everyone back home who never put on a uniform or spend a single day in combat. Saving Private Ryan thus becomes a metaphor for saving all the other concepts forwarded as justifications for going to war.

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Saving Private Ryan Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Saving Private Ryan is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Study Guide for Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan study guide contains a biography of director Steven Spielberg, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Saving Private Ryan
• Saving Private Ryan Summary
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Essays for Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Saving Private Ryan, directed by Steven Spielberg.

• The Anti-War Themes of Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan

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Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Movie Review — Hero’s Journey in Steven Spielberg’s Movie “Saving Private Ryan”

Hero's Journey in Steven Spielberg's Movie "Saving Private Ryan"

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‘saving private ryan’: thr’s 1998 review.

On July 24, 1998, Steven Spielberg brought the World War II film to theaters.

By Michael Rechtshaffen

Michael Rechtshaffen

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On July 24, 1998, Steven Spielberg brought Saving Private Ryan to theaters, where the film would become a summer hit and go on to win five Oscars. The Hollywood Reporter’s original review is below: 

War is hell. While Gen. Sherman may have said it first, Steven Spielberg makes one of the most convincing cases yet in the uncompromisingly powerful Saving Private Ryan .

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'deadwood': thr's 2004 review, 'family guy': thr's 1999 review.

Still, there are moments that come awfully close to perfection. While the pull-no-punches graphic violence that resulted in an R rating may limit initial audience potential, the Spielberg-Tom Hanks combination makes for a potent draw. Traditional wisdom may have favored a Christmas release, but Saving Private Ryan is certain to make the Oscar front line.

After a brief framing scene at a modern WWII memorial site, Spielberg plunges viewers smack in the middle of the D-Day landing at Omaha Beach (with the Irish coastline effectively doubling for Normandy), and it’s a baptism by hellfire. Shot newsreel-style with hand-held cameras and staccato cutting capturing the chaotic confusion of the ill-fated mission, it’s a horrific sequence that, as seen through the eyes of key audience identifier Capt . John Miller (Hanks), takes on an almost surreal quality — a blood-soaked freak show of death and dismemberment.

Meanwhile, back home, as a pool of secretaries busily types letters to be dispatched to families of those killed in the line of duty, it’s discovered that three of the war dead were brothers who perished within days of each other. The fourth sibling, Pvt . James Ryan, is missing in action, and the enigmatic but by-the-book Miller has been ordered to take his men behind enemy lines to return him alive.

As actors, all have the right stuff, but Rodat (who co-wrote Fly Away Home ), seems content with a Greek chorus full of archetypes rather than something more vividly original, which his able players could have really sunk their teeth into.

Even Hanks, displaying a winning James Stewart fragility certain to secure him an Oscar nomination, could have used a couple more layers in the character complexity department. Late arrival Matt Damon, as the elusive Pvt . Ryan, does strong work in a much more limited capacity.

But if words occasionally fail the picture, the images speak indelible volumes. Working with a team of ace technicians — including director of photography Janusz Kaminski (an Academy Award winner for Schindler’s List ), editor Michael Kahn (another Schindler  Oscar winner), production designer Tom Sanders, special effects supervisor Neil Corbould and sound designer Gary Rydstrom  — Spielberg does some truly amazing work.

The unforgettable D-Day scene aside, there’s a tension-riddled closing sequence in which Miller and his surviving outfit lie in wait for advancing German troops in the middle of a bombed-out French town. The distant, menacing sound of an approaching tank echoes that of the first rampaging dinosaurs in Jurassic Park to chilling effect.

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“Saving Private Ryan” by Steven Spielberg Essay

The film directed by Steven Spielberg, “Saving Private Ryan,” has been awarded five Oscars and is rightly considered one of the best pictures about the Second World War. The film is based on real events and aptly portrays the senseless brutality of war with the help of realistic footage. In it, Spielberg aims to instill the feeling of horror and abhorrence for war in the viewers.

The first footage shows the soldiers inside the amphibian a minute before landing. Some pray, others vomit. The captain gives direct instructions and the back wall of the amphibian reclines. Viewers see soldiers running down the gangplank, some falling, wounded, and killed, others jumping up, throwing grenades, and shooting. The footage shows how the entire first row of soldiers is mowed down by machine gun fire, then the second row, more and more… Soldiers fall into deep water and stain it with blood, drowned by the weight of ammunition. Someone crawls ashore to be finished off there. The first scenes of the film are profoundly realistic and portray the feelings of soldiers at the front, bewildered, terrified, and still doing their best to defeat the enemy. Instead of glorifying war, viewers feel terror and resentment at the lives lost, young people, killed before they took their first steps on the beach and the injustice of war.

The idea of war as a real horror is further developed as the film progresses. The scene of bloody chaos on Omaha Beach in Spielberg’s film lasts twenty-six minutes, but it seems that the time stops as viewers are shattered by the emotions the film generates. As for me, when I saw the film, I was so emotionally depressed I could hardly speak. I believe the film won awards not because of its rather commonplace plot but because Spielberg managed to show all the horrors of war. I genuinely believe that people who saw the film will never want to resolve problems through naked force and will seek to find compromise instead. Perhaps this would be the best tribute to the film created by Spielberg as well as to the people who fought for the nation in the Second World War.

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IvyPanda. (2024, April 23). "Saving Private Ryan" by Steven Spielberg. https://ivypanda.com/essays/saving-private-ryan-by-steven-spielberg-essay-examples/

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IvyPanda . (2024) '"Saving Private Ryan" by Steven Spielberg'. 23 April.

IvyPanda . 2024. ""Saving Private Ryan" by Steven Spielberg." April 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/saving-private-ryan-by-steven-spielberg-essay-examples/.

1. IvyPanda . ""Saving Private Ryan" by Steven Spielberg." April 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/saving-private-ryan-by-steven-spielberg-essay-examples/.

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IvyPanda . ""Saving Private Ryan" by Steven Spielberg." April 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/saving-private-ryan-by-steven-spielberg-essay-examples/.

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Saving Private Ryan Reviews

Not for the squeamish, “Saving Private Ryan” is a film that does not shy away from realistic violence and paints the most vivid portrait of war on film that I’ve seen.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 4, 2023

Saving Private Ryan’s most impressive and lasting feat remains its ability to remind us about the soldiers we lost — and more importantly, who they were as human beings.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

The 24-minute sequence at the start of Steven Spielberg’s Second World War drama is one of the greatest pieces of combat cinema yet made.

Full Review | Jul 11, 2022

Arguably Spielberg's most visceral and inspired work, Saving Private Ryan speaks to devout patriotism, sacrifice and unflappable camaraderie. Sadly, these might be ideals our currently politically-divided country might never see eye-to-eye on again.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 25, 2021

A masterpiece across the board. Steven Spielberg's war epic revolutionized the genre and medium since its release. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 3, 2021

Despite my disproportionally emotional response to this film, I really enjoyed watching it again...

Full Review | Mar 26, 2021

One of the most impactful, immersive war movies of all time, Steven Spielberg's cinematic achievement takes us as close to the front line as possible offering a human take on the chaos of war.

Full Review | Oct 27, 2020

The opening moments on Omaha Beach are surely the most memorable of the entire film.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Sep 24, 2020

After a gut-wrenchingly graphic opening that re-stages the D-Day landing in a numbing fine detail - arguably the greatest war-movie scene of them all - it is impossible not to be caught up in this classic drama for the long haul.

Full Review | Apr 24, 2020

An old-fashioned war picture to rule them all - gripping, utterly uncynical, with viscerally convincing and audacious battle sequences.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 6, 2019

The story raises hard moral questions relating to the relative value of human lives and the overwhelming debt that may be felt by those who benefit when others sacrifice.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 21, 2019

Spielberg is at his absolute best here, with the true stroke of genius being the camera work and editing.

Full Review | Original Score: A+ | Jan 29, 2019

A masterpiece in every sense of the word .

Full Review | Original Score: A+ | Nov 4, 2018

Not simply a 1990s classic or among the better prestige films of my generation, Saving Private Ryan is a stone cold masterpiece ranking among the very best war films of all time.

Full Review | Nov 2, 2018

No audience can resist it. You may walk out of the theater rich with indignation at the shamelessness of it all, but you cannot get rid of the lump in your throat.

Full Review | Aug 17, 2018

Steven Spielberg's war film, Saving Private Ryan, not only redefined the genre for war movies but the film holds up on the 20th anniversary.

Full Review | Jul 24, 2018

After a generation of films revisiting Vietnam, Steven Spielberg steered Hollywood back to the pride and accomplishment of "the greatest generation."

Full Review | Oct 6, 2017

The visual masterwork finds Spielberg atop his craft, weaving heart-pounding action and gut-wrenching emotion that will leave viewers silently shaken... If words occasionally fail the picture, the images speak indelible volumes.

Full Review | Jul 24, 2017

[Saving Private Ryan] accomplishes something I had been taught was most difficult -- making an action-filled anti-war film or, at least, one that doesn't in some way glorify or lie about combat.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 8, 2015

Steven Spielberg's film is not perfect: it plays its strongest card first, the middle section is slightly uneven, and there are sallies into sentimentality. But it is a modern war classic.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 8, 2015

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Saving Private Ryan

• Following the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.
• Opening with the Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944, members of the 2nd Ranger Battalion under Cpt. Miller fight ashore to secure a beachhead. Amidst the fighting, two brothers are killed in action. Earlier in New Guinea, a third brother is KIA. Their mother, Mrs. Ryan, is to receive all three of the grave telegrams on the same day. The United States Army Chief of Staff, George C. Marshall, is given an opportunity to alleviate some of her grief when he learns of a fourth brother, Private James Ryan, and decides to send out 8 men (Cpt. Miller and select members from 2nd Rangers) to find him and bring him back home to his mother... — J.Zelman
• After the invasion of fortress Europe on June 6th 1944, Cpt. Miller leads his squad from the 2nd Ranger Battalion of the 29th Infantry Division, on a mission to find and bring home Private James Francis Ryan after the death of his brothers. The mission takes them through Nazi occupied territory to establish contact with Ryan's unit, an element of the 101st Airborne Division. This exciting war thriller brings the reality of history's bloodiest war into the homes of ordinary people, but also brings to light the reality of broken and lost families in a time of total and encompassing war. — Pvt. Maher, HHC 29th Aviation Brigade, 29th Infantry Division, Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD
• The film opens with the Allied invasion on the Normandy beach on June 6, 1944. Cpt. Miller and members of the 2nd Ranger Battalion fight to secure the beachhead. During the invasion, two brothers are killed in action. Earlier, the third brother was killed in New Guinea. The mother of the brothers is about to receive the grave telegrams at the same day. The United States Army Chief of Staff, George C. Marshall, is given an opportunity to alleviate some of her grief when he finds out that there was also a fourth brother, Private James Ryan, who went missing somewhere in France. He sends Cpt. Miller and seven other people from the 2nd Ranger Battalion to go look for him and bring him back to his mother. — ahmetkozan
• During WWII, Chief of Staff, General Marshall is informed that three of a woman's sons have been killed and that she's going to receive the notifications of their demise at the same time. And when he learns that a fourth son is still unaccounted for, the General decides to send a unit to find him and bring him back, despite being told that it's highly unlikely that he is still alive and the area that he was known to be at is very dangerous. So the unit consisting of 8 men are sent to find him but as stated it's very dangerous and one by one, they are picked off. Will they find him and how many of them will still be alive? — [email protected]
• An American flag back-lighted by the afternoon sun gently flaps in the breeze. The camera pulls back to reveal the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial on the English Channel in the north of France. An elderly man ( Harrison Young ) approaches the cemetery and walks among the rows of gravestones, which are mostly marble crosses, with an occasional Star of David marking the grave of a Jewish soldier. He is accompanied by his wife, his daughter and her husband, and three teenage granddaughters. He searches the crosses and stops at a specific one, where he falls to his knees, crying. His family walks up behind him and tries to comforts him. The camera slowly zooms in on his face, stopping at an extreme close up of his eyes. June 6, 1944, Omaha Beach, Dog Green Sector: On the choppy waters of the English Channel, American Ranger soldiers are headed to Omaha Beach in landing vehicles. The captain of one unit, John H. Miller ( Tom Hanks ), tells his men to, upon landing, "clear the murder holes" and check their rifles for sand and water when they exit the boats. Miller's right hand shakes nervously. The moment the landing ramp at the front of the boat opens, a number of men are immediately struck down by machine gun fire from concrete German bunkers and machine-gun nests built into the cliffs overlooking the beach. To avoid the machine gun fire, other men jump over the gunwales of the landing boats and into the surf. Some drown under the weight of their heavy gear, others are hit by enemy fire underwater. Upon gaining the beach, many take refuge behind the wooden landing craft obstacles and the thin flanks of the steel tank obstacles blocking approaches to the beach, which offer almost no protection from incoming fire and mortar rounds. As Miller crawls up the sand, a mortar shell hits nearby and the blast temporarily stuns him, knocking his helmet off. Miller's is stunned and his hearing is reduced to a dull, muddled noise. He watches as men around him are hit by bullets or the blast of mortar rounds, or are simply too scared to move. One private looks Miller in the eye and asks him what to do. Miller's hearing slowly returns and he orders his sergeant, Mike Horvath ( Tom Sizemore ) to move his men up the beach and out of the line of enemy fire. As Miller staggers up the beach, he drags a wounded man. The man is hit by a mortar blast and is killed; Miller suddenly discovers that he's been dragging less than half the man's dismembered remains. The German barrage kills most of the US Army troops and leaves twice as many wounded; many of the wounded are eviscerated or missing limbs and slowly bleed to death on the beach, despite the efforts of medics to treat them. Whomever is left in Miller's platoon assembles at a sandbar that provides very little cover from the German bombardment. Miller orders his men to use "bangalore" explosives to clear out the barbed wire and mines behind the sandbar for their advance. The men make it to the nearest concrete bunker where a machine gun nest on a nearby cliff keeps them from moving further. After sending a few of his men into the fire zone where they're cut down immediately, Miller has his sniper, Pvt. Daniel Jackson ( Barry Pepper ), run into the fire zone and take out the men in the machine gun nest with two precise shots. Jackson's efforts are successful and Miller moves his men behind the bunker where a soldier with a flamethrower sets the bunker ablaze. On the beach, one soldier yells to the others to let the German soldiers burn to death as they jump out of the bunker. Miller's men engage other German soldiers in the trenches behind the bunker, quickly creating an exit route from Omaha for the rest of the battalion. Miller also watches as a few men mercilessly execute a few surrendering German and Czech soldiers. Pvt. Adrian Caparzo ( Vin Diesel ) finds a Hitler Youth knife which he gives to his friend, Pvt. Stanley Mellish ( Adam Goldberg ) (a Jew); Mellish begins to sob. Horvath collects a handful of dirt in a small metal can marked "France" and puts it into his haversack alongside cans marked "Italy" and "Africa". Horvath comments to Miller that the beach commands "quite a view"; it is covered with the bodies of thousands of dead and wounded American soldiers. On the backpack of one of them is the name "S. Ryan". At the War Department in the United States, rows of secretaries are typing death notices to be sent to the families of the men killed in various battles around the world. One of the women typing discovers three letters for three men from the same family. The three men are all brothers from the Ryan family of Iowa and their mother will receive all three letters at the same time. The fourth and youngest son of Mrs. Ryan, James Francis, is part of the 101st Airborne Division, dropped into Normandy ahead of the beach invasion and his whereabouts are unknown. The letters are brought to the attention of General George Marshall ( Harve Presnell ) who, after reading a poignant letter sent by Abraham Lincoln to a family under similar circumstances during the Civil War, orders his officers to find James and have him brought home immediately. Back in Normandy, three days after D-Day, Miller meets with his commanding officer and reports on a difficult mission that cost the lives of many of his men. Lieutenant Colonel Anderson ( Dennis Farina ) gives him new orders; Miller is tasked with taking a squad into Normandy to find Pvt. James Francis Ryan and bring him back. Miller gathers what men he can and finds Corporal Timothy E. Upham ( Jeremy Davies ) in the camp press box to accompany the squad as a translator - Upham speaks fluent French and German, to replace his previous interpreter. The squad sets out in the French countryside. Upham tries to talk to Mellish and Caparzo but, because he's the "new guy" in the squad, finds them unfriendly and even insulting, despite his higher rank. The squad's medic, Irwin Wade ( Giovanni Ribisi ), asks Upham about a book he plans to write about the bonds of friendship among soldiers (which Mellish immediately mocks). Richard Reiben ( Edward Burns ), a hotheaded private from Brooklyn, questions the mission, wanting to know if the effort to find Ryan is worth the lives of men who should be fighting more important battles to liberate France and Europe. Miller himself is also skeptical about the mission but understands that his current orders are more important and encourages his squad to discuss the mission. The squad arrives in a small French village where Army units are currently at a standstill with the German forces they're fighting. Miller asks the nearest sergeant if Ryan is among his unit, but he's not. In an attempt to get information from the Army unit on the other side of town, they send a runner across the battlefield. The runner is cut down almost immediately. They cross the town via some side roads and come across a French family trying to escape their bombed home, but are trapped in the crossfire. The father insists the squad take his young daughter to safety; Miller refuses but Caparzo steps out from cover to take her, against orders. He is shot in the chest by a sniper and falls, still alive, caught in the open. The squad takes cover, unable to pull Caparzo to safety. Jackson quickly identifies the town's bell tower as the sniper's likely shooting position. He finds a nearby pile of rubble that he uses for cover to take out the sniper. As the sniper looks for another target among the squad, he sees Jackson a moment too late, and is shot through his own scope. Caparzo dies, having bled to death. Miller looks down on his body and harshly tells his men that this is why they follow orders and "don't take children." Wade retrieves a blood-stained letter from the body that Caparzo had been writing to his father. In another part of the village, the squad and the other soldiers sit down inside a bombed building to rest. A sergeant sends one of his men to find their CO. When the sergeant sits down, he knocks over a weakened brick wall that reveals a squad of German soldiers inside the building. A standoff ensues, with both sides aiming their weapons at each other, and both demanding the other put down their guns. The impasse is unexpectedly ended when the Germans are cut down by machine-gun fire from the unit's Captain ( Ted Danson ) and the soldier sent to find him. Miller asks the captain if he has a Pvt. James F. Ryan in his unit. The captain confirms that he does, and Ryan ( Nathan Fillion ) is brought to Miller who tells him his brothers are dead. The man breaks down and asks how they died and Miller tells him they were killed in combat. Ryan is incredulous, telling Miller that his brothers are still in grade school. Miller confirms the man's full name, and learns that he is James "Frederick" Ryan from Minnesota; Miller, exasperated, tells Ryan he's sure his brothers are just fine. From another private being treated for a leg wound, also from the 101st, the squad learns that the Airborne's rallying point is nearby and that Ryan may have gone there. The squad spends a few hours resting in a church. Wade rewrites the blood-stained letter Caparzo wanted to send to his father. Horvath and Miller talk about how many men Miller has lost under his command. Miller accepts that men die in combat for the greater good. Cpl. Upham talks to the captain about a betting pool the men have going where they try to guess Miller's occupation before the war began. Upham and Miller come to a humorous silent agreement that when the pool is big enough, Miller will tell him the answer. The squad arrives at a rally point near a wrecked troop glider. The rally point is filled with dozens of wounded GIs. Sitting among the men is the pilot of the glider who tells them he doesn't know where to find Pvt. Ryan. The pilot's glider went down after being towed because steel plates had been welded to its underside to protect a general he was transporting, making the glider too heavy to fly. The glider crashed, killing the general. The squad reflects on the efforts to protect only a single man. The pilot gives Miller a bag full of dog tags taken from dead soldiers. Miller has his men go through them looking for Ryan. They do so rather callously while men from Army Airborne units march by. Wade walks over and starts snatching up the tags, muttering that his comrades are acting rather coldly in front of the passing Airborne soldiers. Miller concludes that Ryan isn't among them and in a minor fit of desperation, begins to question the passing soldiers, asking if any of them know Ryan. He gets lucky with one man who is from Ryan's unit and has lost his hearing from a grenade blast, so he yells his answers. The man tells him that Ryan was assigned to a mixed unit that's guarding a bridge across the Merderet River in the nearby village of Ramelle. Miller determines that the bridge is of vital importance to the Army and the Germans because it will allow either to drive their tank units across the water. The squad sets out again. They spot two dead GIs in a field and confirm that none of them are Ryan. Miller and Horvath spot a machine gun nest near a partially destroyed radar dish. Though it would be easier, as Reiben suggests, to keep their distance from the machine gun and slip quietly around it, Miller resolves to take out the German's position so that the next Allied unit will not be surprised and killed. The squad is opposed to the plan, but he won't relent, and gives them their assignments. Upham is instructed to stay behind with their gear. The squad attacks the machine gun emplacement, while Upham watches through one of Jackson's rifle scopes. When the skirmish is over, the men yell frantically for Upham to bring their gear. When Upham reaches them, he sees that Wade has been shot several times in the lower chest and is rapidly bleeding to death. The men frantically try to save his life but Wade dies, saying he wants to go home. One of the Germans ( Joerg Stadler ) is captured alive and in retribution, the squad rushes around him, beating him. Miller is undecided how to dispose of the German POW, and orders that he dig graves for Wade and the two GIs they saw in the field. When Upham protests that prisoners aren't to be treated like slaves, Miller coldly orders Upham to help the German. As the German digs the graves, Miller sits off to one side where he cries, his right hand shaking again. He slowly recovers his composure and returns to the squad. Miller's squad wants to kill the remaining German, excepting Upham, who has mildly befriended the German while he dug the graves. The German begs for his life, insisting he loves America, saying "Fuck Hitler!!". The men are unmoved and prepare their weapons to kill him when Miller intervenes. He blindfolds the German and, to the astonishment of the squad, lets the man walk off, directing Upham to tell him to surrender to the next Allied unit. Reiben in particular is offended by Miller's compassion and threatens to desert, saying that their mission has gotten two of their comrades killed. Horvath orders Reiben to fall into formation and threatens to shoot him. The entire squad begins to argue heatedly and Miller suddenly asks Upham the total of the pool on him. Miller reveals that he's an English composition teacher in a small Pennsylvania town. The men stop arguing, completely astonished. Miller says the war has changed him and he's not sure if his wife will recognize him and if he'll be able to resume his former life when he returns home. He reasons that if finding and bringing Ryan back ensures that he'll be able to get home sooner, then it's his job to complete the mission. The squad finishes burying Wade and the other GIs together. The exhausted squad approaches Ramelle. While crossing a field, they spot a German half-track. Miller orders everyone to take cover while the vehicle passes. The half-track is suddenly hit by bazooka fire. Miller's squad is momentarily confused, uncertain who is firing, but moves in and kills Germans as they attempt to escape the destroyed vehicle. A small group of American soldiers emerge from their positions in the field and identify themselves as paratroopers from various Airborne units. One of them identifies himself as Pvt James Ryan ( Matt Damon ) . In the ruins of the village of Ramelle, Miller's squad learns that Ryan and his comrades are guarding one of two remaining bridges across the Merderet River. Their commanding officer had been killed a few days before. Miller tells Ryan that his three brothers are dead and that he's been given a ticket home. Ryan is devastated by the news of his family but refuses to leave, saying that it's his duty to stay with his unit and defend the bridge until relief arrives. Ryan says his mother would understand his desire to remain at the bridge with the "only brothers [he] has left." Miller can't change Ryan's mind. Miller and Horvath reflect on Ryan's refusal and they decide to stay and help the unit defend the bridge. The half-track they destroyed was part of a German probe to investigate the forces guarding the bridge so the unit knows the Germans will mount a large assault. Miller inventories their few remaining weapons and supplies and outlines a plan to lure German tanks on the main street of Ramelle, where the rubble from destroyed buildings creates a narrow choke point that will channel the armor and German troops into a bottleneck and allow their unit to flank the Germans. Their plan includes Reiben riding out on a German half-track motorcycle to lure the German unit into the bottleneck. Miller suggests they improvise "sticky bombs," socks stuffed with Composition B explosives and coated with grease. They'll use the sticky bombs to blast the treads off one of the tanks, turning it into a roadblock. Upham is given the job of running ammunition to the two Browning machine gun positions manned by Mellish and 101st paratrooper Parker ( Demetri Goritsas ). Jackson and Parker take position in the church tower to provide sniper cover and for Parker to stand as a lookout, reporting on the German approach. The men wait for the Germans to arrive, listening to "Tous es Partout" by Edith Piaf, while Upham interprets -- his new comrades seem more accepting of him and listen intently while he translates, even joking him and recounting their own personal stories. Ryan tells Miller that he can remember his brothers but he can't see their faces. Miller suggests he "think of a context", something they've all done together. Miller tells Ryan when he wants to remember his wife, he thinks of her trimming rosebushes. Ryan tells the story of how he and his brothers nearly burned down the barn on their farm when they snuck up on their oldest brother, Danny, while he was trying to have sex with a local girl in the hayloft. James laughs and stops when he realizes that the incident was the last time they were all together, over two years ago, before any of them had gone to basic training. When Ryan asks Miller to tell him about his wife and the rosebushes, Miller politely refuses, saying that memory is for him alone. The squad feels the ground beginning to rumble, indicating that the German column has arrived. Jackson signals from the church tower that there are two Panzer tanks (which turn out to be Marder III self-propelled guns) and two Tiger I heavy tanks. There are also at least 50 German troops. Miller orders everyone to their positions and Reiben rides out to act as "the rabbit" to lure the Germans into town. One of the Tiger tanks proceeds down the main street, and one of the soldiers attempts to plant a sticky bomb on the tank. He waits too long and the bomb blows up, killing him. The German troops following the tank are cut down by the soldiers and by mines planted along the sides. Two men plant the Comp B bombs on the wheels of the Tiger, blasting it's tread apart, eventually bringing it to a halt. When they advance on the tank to take out it's crew, they are fired upon by a small German squad with a 20 millimeter flak cannon that brutally takes out several more men. Ryan and Miller's squads open fire and shift positions several times during the battle. Though they take the Germans by surprise, several of the men are killed. Jackson is discovered in his perch and is hit by tank fire. Mellish and Corporal Henderson (Maximilian Martini) man a .30 caliber machine gun to cut off any flanking action by the Germans. Henderson is killed and then Mellish is attacked by a German soldier (Mac Steinmeier) who overpowers him in hand-to-hand combat, slowly driving a bayonet into Mellish's chest. Immediately outside the room on the stairs, Cpl. Upham sits, frozen with terror, unable to move to rescue Mellish. The German soldier kills Mellish and marches out, indifferent to the terrified Upham. Reiben is able to flank the 20mm cannon and takes out its operators. Sgt. Horvath is wounded during this time when he and another soldier corner each other. They each chuck helmets at each other, then shoot each other with their pistols. The German soldier here is killed and Horvath is injured. He grabs Upham and retreats when Miller orders everyone to cross the bridge to their "Alamo" position, where they'll make their last stand. The surviving 60-ton Tiger tank follows, unstoppable despite Horvath shooting several bazooka rockets at it. Horvath is shot in the chest as he pulls back and dies a few minutes later. Miller prepares to destroy the bridge when a shell from the Tiger hits the building behind him, blowing the detonator out of his hands. He staggers across the bridge to retrieve it and is shot in the chest by the same German soldier ( Joerg Stadler ) he'd set free at the radar station. Upham witnesses the shooting while hiding behind a pile of rubble. Miller falls, unable to continue. He draws his .45 pistol and begins to shoot vainly at the Tiger tank, which has begun to cross the bridge. After a few shots, the tank impossibly explodes. A small squadron of P-51 Mustang fighters suddenly zoom into view, having bombed the tank and several enemy targets. Reiben and Ryan rush to Miller's side and call for a medic. Upham, still on the other side of the bridge, is undetected by the enemy squad. He reveals himself and takes the entire squad prisoner. The man who shot Miller recognizes Upham and calls him by name. After a moment's hesitation, Upham fires his weapon for the first time, killing the man. The soldier's body thumps to the ground and Upham sharply orders the rest of the prisoners to disperse. As Miller lays dying, Ryan tells him that the Mustangs are "tank busters." Miller calls them "Angels on our shoulders." He beckons Ryan closer and with his dying breath, tells him "Earn this... earn it." In a voiceover, General George Marshall's voice reads a letter to Ryan's mother, informing her that her son is returning home. He quotes a passage from Lincoln's letter about the cost of war. Ryan stands looking at Miller's body. The camera focuses on Ryan's young face as it morphs into Ryan in the present. He is standing at Captain Miller's grave. He tells Miller that he hopes he's lived up to Miller's wish and been worthy of all that Miller and his men did for him. He asks his wife to tell him that he's led a good life and that he's a good man. The elder Ryan ( Harrison Young ) salutes Miller's grave. An American flag back-lighted by the afternoon sun gently flaps in the breeze.

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20 facts you might not know about 'Saving Private Ryan'

Posted: May 10, 2024 | Last updated: May 10, 2024

Steven Spielberg has spent his career mixing popular blockbusters with Oscar fare. Sometimes, he has been able to combine the two into one movie. Saving Private Ryan is one of those films. It’s a war epic with massive star power, perhaps the last war film to also serve as a real crowd-pleaser (even if it was also brutal at times). Here are some facts you might not know about Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan .

The screenwriter was inspired by a non-fiction book

Screenwriter Robert Rodat was given the book D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II by Stephen Ambrose. In addition to being a big book for colons, it also helped inspire Rodat — along with a monument he saw to lives lost in various wars. There was a family, the Nilands, mentioned in Ambrose’s book that gave Rodat the hook about multiple sons from the same family in World War II.

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Spielberg was the first director approached

Rodat pitched his idea to producer Mark Gordon, who pitched the idea to Paramount. There was no script at the time, but Paramount liked the idea and commissioned a script from Rodat. Once the script was finished, Spielberg and his agent read the script and liked it. Spielberg agreed to direct it, and no other director’s name was ever attached.

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Spielberg had an affinity for World War II stories

Prior to making Saving Private Ryan , Spielberg had already directed 1941 , Empire of the Sun , and Schindler’s List . Heck, even two of the Indiana Jones movies have World War II connections. Clearly, Spielberg had an interest in the subject.

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The director had a specific plan for the cast

When casting his film, Spielberg said he wanted to cast actors who would look the part. Specifically, he believed that people during World War II looked different than people in the ‘90s. In short, Spielberg wanted the cast to “match the faces I saw on the newsreels" (h/t Roger Ebert ).

This was the first collaboration between Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg

These days, Spielberg and Hanks are tied together. In addition to their multiple films, they produced two World War II TV shows together, Band of Brothers and The Pacific . While Hanks said he and Spielberg had wanted to work together, Saving Private Ryan marked their first project together.

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Hanks wasn’t a lock for the role

When making a movie on a grand scale, you can’t merely settle on one actor you want and hope for the best. In addition to Hanks, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, and Pete Postlethwaite were considered for the role of Captain Miller.

Matt Damon was definitely not the first choice for the titular Private Ryan

Rising star Edward Norton was the first choice for the role of Ryan, the soldier that Miller’s entire squad is pressed into finding and saving so that he can be sent home on account of the fact all his brothers have died in battle. However, he turned down the role for a larger starring role in American History X . Then, they wanted Noah Wyle for the role, but he had to turn it down due to his contract with ER . Thus, Damon stepped into the role.

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Some actors that would become much bigger in the future had roles in the movie

Hanks was already a big star, but the rest of the cast was relatively star-free. That being said, you will definitely recognize some faces. Vin Diesel, in the first feature film that he didn’t write, is a private and a member of Hanks’ squad. Nathan Fillion has an even more minor role, and there is a brief appearance from Andrew Scott, perhaps best known as the hot priest from Fleabag .

One actor was on a short leash

Tom Sizemore’s problems are well known. While filming Saving Private Ryan , he was trying to kick a drug addiction. Things were so severe Spielberg had him drug tested every day. He would have been recast on the spot if he had failed a test.

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The cast went through an intense boot camp

As is often the case with war movies, an intensive 10-day boot camp was implemented by the production for the cast. However, Spielberg did not do it to teach them proper military techniques. Instead, he told Roger Ebert he wanted them to “respect what it was like to be a soldier.”

Damon was not included in the boot camp

While Damon did train before the film, he did not train alongside his castmates. This was an intentional decision by Spielberg. He did not want Damon to bond with the cast and wanted to create a potential feeling of resentment in the actors playing Captain Miller’s squad. This was to reflect the way the squad felt toward Private Ryan in the film.

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The leader of the boot camp had a small role in the movie

Marine veteran Dale Dye and his company Warriors Inc. were the ones who handled the training for the cast of Saving Private Ryan . That was not all he did for the movie. Dye plays an unnamed war department colonel in the film.

The D-Day sequence was an immense undertaking

The showpiece of Saving Private Ryan is the landing at Omaha Beach in Normandy for the D-Day scene. It’s the movie's second scene and lasts a full 20 minutes. Spielberg searched high and wide for a beach that could replicate Omaha and ended up at Ballinesker Beach in Ireland. This scene alone cost $12 million and used over 1,500 extras.

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And yet, it was still chaotic in many ways

Despite all the money spent and extras hired, Spielberg did not plan the Omaha Beach landing to a tee. Spielberg didn’t even storyboard the scene. He said he wanted spontaneous reactions and let the action inspire his camera shots, not the other way around.

The film was purposefully desaturated

Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski were really into the whole “newsreel” thing. That’s how they wanted the whole movie to look. They didn’t want a bright, colorful film about the war in the 1940s. Kaminski removed the protective coating from the camera lenses to change how light would react with the cameras so that the film would look more like footage from the ‘40s.

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'Saving Private Ryan' was all too real to some veterans

Critics loved Saving Private Ryan , and the movie was lauded for its veracity. However, the realism and intensity did not sit well with everybody. Many World War II veterans said it was the most realistic depiction of the war they had ever seen, but many veterans also had to leave theaters during the D-Day scene due to PTSD reactions.

Despite the intensity, the movie was a huge success

Saving Private Ryan opened atop the U.S. box office and remained the top film in the country for four weeks. By the end of its run, it had made $216.5 million in the United States and Canada and $481.8 million worldwide. It was the highest-grossing film in the United States and the second-highest-grossing movie worldwide.

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The movie was an Oscars success, but on the wrong side of a surprise

Saving Private Ryan was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won five. They were more on the technical side, but Spielberg did take home his second Best Director award. However, in what was a huge upset, Saving Private Ryan did not win Best Picture. That went to Shakespeare in Love .

Even Academy members regret that Best Picture decision

In 2015, some Academy members were polled and asked about past controversial Best Picture choices. You know, stuff like saying they would have taken Brokeback Mountain over Crash . In that poll, Academy voters said that, given a second chance, they would vote Saving Private Ryan as Best Picture of 1998.

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'Saving Private Ryan' was briefly a Veteran’s Day staple

In three different years — 2001, 2002, and 2004 — ABC aired Saving Private Ryan on Veteran’s Day. Not only that, they aired it uncut and with limited commercial interruptions. That meant keeping the violence and the language intact. The reason 2004 might have been the final year is that that year a lot of ABC stations decided to preempt airing of the film. The speculation is that they were afraid of being fined for language by the FCC in the wake of that year’s Super Bowl halftime show controversy surrounding Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson. While no complaints were filed and no fines were levied,  Saving Private Ryan was no longer a Veteran’s Day screening after that.

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