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.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.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.
- Won 5 Oscars
- 79 wins & 75 nominations total
Max Martini
- Corporal Henderson
- (as Maximilian Martini)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe two "German" soldiers who are shot trying to surrender were speaking Czech. They were saying, "Please don't shoot me, I am not German, I am Czech, I didn't kill anyone, I am Czech!" They were members of what the Germans called Ost [East] Battalions, men, mostly Czech and Polish, taken prisoner in eastern European countries invaded by Germany and forced into the German army. The closed captioning for the film on VHS and DVD/Blu-ray bears this out with the language being labeled as Czech.
- GoofsThroughout the movie American characters are shown saying "thunder" to identify friendlies, and waiting for the response "flash". But in actuality the challenge word was "flash", and "thunder" the response. The word order is important, as "thunder" was chosen as the password because of its "th" sound. (There is no such sound in German, thus a German soldier would likely be unable to hide his accent if he tried to answer the challenge.)
- Quotes
[weakly mutters something after being mortally wounded]
Private Ryan: [leans in closer] What, sir?
Captain Miller: James, earn this... earn it.
- Crazy creditsThere are no opening credits after the title is shown.
- Alternate versionsIn the German-dubbed version of the movie, they were unsure how to distinguish dialog between the German and the American soldiers, since they would all be speaking German. In the end, they decided to address all the American soldiers by their English titles, such as "Sergeant" and "Captain".
Featured review
Numbing experience of SPR redeems baby boomers...
It's been over a year since first seeing Saving Private Ryan -- it's a worthy effort by Speilberg--his best since Shindler's List by far. You've probably heard about the amount of violence, blood, and gore and that's all true--it's got the Viet Nam movie style violence (and then some) but it's not gratuitous. Were it sanitized like early WWII movies, modern audiences probably wouldn't take it as seriously.
The movie has that trademark Speilberg style--the structure is all tied up and unified from beginning to end, the emotional symbols abound, the music swelling when he's working at your emotions, the hand held camera that worked so well in Shindler's List to give you a feeling of participation, camera angles and periods of silence to disorient you (like Shindler), suspense techniques learned from Hitch... It's a movie that stays with you for a period afterwards.
Hanks will be the early front runner for Oscar after this flick--Academy members like him AND it IS his best acting job ever. While Speilberg will likely be criticized for attempting to manipulate the audience's emotions while keeping a distance from the inner core of his characters, Tom Hanks reveals a really complex military leader in this story, and does so without overacting--somehow it comes from within. While you may not empathize deeply with many of the platoon, you will still feel something because of the relationship that is formed with Hanks.
After the initial set-up, you will have the opportunity to participate in the D-Day operation and experience the horror of it. Those who have been in a real war can comment about how realistic or not Speilberg captures its chaotic horror in this scene.
In my case I again feel very lucky that my draft number was high, so I never had to face Nam like many of my classmates. Speilberg reminds us brutally in "Saving Private Ryan" that we All have a debt to pay to the brave souls who have sacrificed so much for us. What Tom Hanks does with his performance is to remind us of this debt in a very personal way.
The movie has that trademark Speilberg style--the structure is all tied up and unified from beginning to end, the emotional symbols abound, the music swelling when he's working at your emotions, the hand held camera that worked so well in Shindler's List to give you a feeling of participation, camera angles and periods of silence to disorient you (like Shindler), suspense techniques learned from Hitch... It's a movie that stays with you for a period afterwards.
Hanks will be the early front runner for Oscar after this flick--Academy members like him AND it IS his best acting job ever. While Speilberg will likely be criticized for attempting to manipulate the audience's emotions while keeping a distance from the inner core of his characters, Tom Hanks reveals a really complex military leader in this story, and does so without overacting--somehow it comes from within. While you may not empathize deeply with many of the platoon, you will still feel something because of the relationship that is formed with Hanks.
After the initial set-up, you will have the opportunity to participate in the D-Day operation and experience the horror of it. Those who have been in a real war can comment about how realistic or not Speilberg captures its chaotic horror in this scene.
In my case I again feel very lucky that my draft number was high, so I never had to face Nam like many of my classmates. Speilberg reminds us brutally in "Saving Private Ryan" that we All have a debt to pay to the brave souls who have sacrificed so much for us. What Tom Hanks does with his performance is to remind us of this debt in a very personal way.
helpful•226109
- janesbit1
- Jan 25, 2000
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- Private Ryan
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $70,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $217,049,603
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $30,576,104
- Jul 26, 1998
- Gross worldwide
- $482,349,603
- Runtime2 hours 49 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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