Saving Private Ryan Reviews

I'm starting to think that everything that Speilberg touches turns to gold. This is probably considered one of the greatest movies of all time and it is directed by Speilberg. The movie is incredable. The beginning was horrifying. I couldn't believe how accurate it was and painful it was to watch. When I studied WW2 in high school, I thought no one could ever re-create the Beach of Normady. But Speilberg did. I felt like I was there with the soldiers. I felt their fear, pride, and love for their country. I couldn't believe how much dedication our armies put into fighting and winning the war. And whenever I go to visit Washington D.C., I have more American pride then ever. I am more than proud to give this movie a

10/10

This is definitely one of the more powerful war films out there, if not the most powerful. I will admit, when I first saw it at school, I found the first half-hour extremely upsetting to watch.

The acting is outstanding. Especially from Tom Hanks and Matt Damon, and the music alongside Schindler's List is John William's most haunting score I've heard.

It does drag in the middle and the dialogue doesn't always flow as well as it should, but what we have is a historically accurate, extremely well made and directed and unashamedly brutal film. I mean, in the stabbing scene, towards the end, my English teacher had to leave the room. It was like watching Frankenstein's monster tearing out Elizabeth's heart.

8.5/10 for a truly emotional and appropriately sombre war-film, that is a little slow at times. But it deserves to be in the top 250, really it is that good! Bethany Cox

one of the most realistic films of the war
especially in the first 30 minutes being that everything stood out the acting steven spielberg direction sound etc


besides being one of the best stories that can be about the Second World War one of the most played in the cinema

The Performances Are Highlighted And The Effects In War Movies Are Usually Very Important


and telling that they are realistic characters and the music that I put down by john williams

saving the soldier Ryan is one of the best movies of all time




uno de los filmes mas realistas de la guerra
sobretodo en los primeros 30 minutos siendo que todo se destaco la actuación la dirección de steven spielberg el sonido etc

ademas de ser una de las mejores historias que pueden haber sobre la segunda guerra mundial uno de los temas mas tocados en el cine

Las Actuaciones Son Destacadas Y Los Efectos En Películas De Guerra Suelen Ser Muy Importantes

y contando que son personajes realistas y la musica que enjaba de john williams

salvando al soldado ryan es una de las mejores peliculas de todos los tiempos

Steven Spielberg does a superb demonstration of great war movies with his direction in 'Saving Private Ryan' a movie that earned him an Academy Award for Best Director! This direction is his best!

Everyone says that the first 27 minutes of this movie are very, very shocking! Indeed! Blood, destructed bodies, red water! At the start of this movie, Captain John H. Miller (Tom Hanks) and his army end up on the beach which depicts the Omaha Beach assault of 6th June 1944. The shooting occurs at the start and is very unpleasant! This is bloody violent! It's realistic, it's amazing!

So, Miller and his army spend most of the movie searching for Private James Ryan (Matt Damon) who is believed to be dead at first! They do what it says in the title - saving Private Ryan! This title fits very well!

'Saving Private Ryan' features a solid performance from Tom Hanks, who proves he can carry out something as shocking as this! (it's a 15 and in fact, he's in the 18 rated 'Green Mile' movie too)

If you think it's 170 minutes of war violence, you're wrong because of the lack of shooting! The massive battles occur at the beginning and end of the movie! It's less violent than you think it will be! It's not like McDonalds where you know what it is going to taste like or how you know how awful 'Disaster Movie' will be!

This movie received 11 Academy Award nominations! It won 5 for Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Sound Effect Editing, Best Film Editing and Best Sound Mixing! But what about the art direction? Surely no movie of 1998 can look as amazing or shocking as 'Saving Private Ryan' is!

If this movie had been violent all the way, it probably would have received 18! This movie has no nudity but has strong bloody war violence at the beginning in particular! If the level of violence had been consistent, teens wouldn't be allowed to see it in the cinema! This movie is excellent for mature teens who are studying World War II in History! The History teacher may even show Year 10s and 11s this movie (hoping for parent's permission)! Adults, I recommend that you show this masterpiece to your mature teenage boys and girls! Definitely not for kids but it should be fine for mature teens 13 and up!

Great war film with amazing visuals, and cinematography. The strengths of this film lies with its breathtaking action sequences...and nothing more. Not as deep as The Thin Red Line.

Hanks teams up with Spielberg and Damon in this heart-wrenching war time drama in which Hanks leads a retrieval team to find and reunite a mother with her only remaining son.

When soldiers are killed in ''Saving Private Ryan,'' their comrades carefully preserve any messages they 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, Mr. 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,'' Mr. 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.

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 Mr. Hanks's 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. Mr. Spielberg and the 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, Mr. Damon's entrance is one more tribute to Mr. 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 Mr. 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 Mr. Davies's 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's 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.

Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 American war film set during the invasion of Normandy in World War II. It was directed by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay by Robert Rodat. The film is notable for the intensity of its opening 27 minutes, which depicts the Omaha Beach assault of June 6, 1944. Afterwards, it follows Tom Hanks as U.S. Army Captain John H. Miller and seven men (Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Vin Diesel, Giovanni Ribisi, Adam Goldberg, and Jeremy Davies), as they search for a paratrooper, Private First Class James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon), who is the last surviving brother of four servicemen.
Rodat conceived the film's story in 1994 when he saw a monument dedicated to eight siblings killed in the American Civil War. Rodat imagined a similar sibling narrative set in World War II. The script was submitted to producer Mark Gordon, who handed it to Hanks. It was finally given to Spielberg, who decided to direct. The film's premise is loosely based on the real-life case of the Niland brothers.
Saving Private Ryan was well received by audiences and garnered considerable critical acclaim, winning several awards for film, cast, and crew as well as earning significant returns at the box office. The film grossed US$481.8 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing domestic film of the year. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated the film for eleven Academy Awards; Spielberg's direction won him a second Academy Award for Best Director. Saving Private Ryan was released on home video in May 1999, earning $44 million from sales.


The film opens as an elderly World War II veteran and his family visit the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial at Colleville-sur-mer; Normandy, France. The scene cuts to the morning of June 6, 1944, the beginning of the Normandy invasion, as American soldiers prepare to land on Omaha Beach. They struggle against dug-in German infantry, machine gun nests, and artillery fire, which cut down many of the men. Captain John H. Miller, the company commander of Charlie Company, 2nd Ranger Battalion, survives the initial landing and assembles a group of soldiers to penetrate the German defenses, leading to a breakout from the beach.
The scene then shifts to the United States where General George Marshall is informed that three of four brothers in the Ryan family have all died within days of each other and that their mother will receive all three notices on the same day. He learns that the fourth son, Private First Class James Francis Ryan of Baker Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division is missing in action somewhere in Normandy. After reading to his staff Abraham Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Bixby, Marshall orders that Ryan be found and sent home immediately because of the Sole Survivor Policy.
Back in France, three days after D-Day, Miller receives orders to find Ryan. He assembles six men from his company (Horvath, Mellish, Reiben, Jackson, Wade, and Caparzo), plus one detailed from the 29th Infantry Division (Upham), a clerk who speaks fluent French and German, to accomplish the task. With no information about Ryan's whereabouts, Miller and his men move out to Neuville. On the outskirts of Neuville they meet a platoon from the 101st. After entering the town, Caparzo is wounded by a sniper in the chest, and slowly bleeds to death, since nobody can go out into the open without getting hit. Jackson is able to kill the sniper after Caparzo dies. They locate a Private James Frederick Ryan from Minnesota, but soon realize that he's not their man. They find a member of Charlie Company, 506th, who informs them that his drop zone was at Vierville and that Baker and Charlie companies had the same rally point. Once they reach it, Miller locates a friend of Ryan's, who reveals that Ryan is defending a strategically important bridge over the Merderet River in the town of Ramelle.
On the way to Ramelle, Miller decides to take the opportunity to neutralize a small German machine gun position close to an abandoned radar station, despite the misgivings of his men. Wade, their medic, is fatally wounded in the ensuing skirmish. The last surviving German, known only as "Steamboat Willie", incurs the wrath of all the squad members except Upham, who protests to Miller about letting the squad shoot the German soldier. The German pleads for his life and Miller decides to let him walk away, blindfolded, and surrender himself to the next Allied patrol. Viewing Miller's decision as letting the enemy go free, and no longer confident in Miller's leadership, Reiben declares his intention to desert the squad and the mission, prompting a confrontation with Horvath. The argument heats up, until Miller defuses the situation by revealing his pre-war occupation as an English teacher, a question upon which the squad had set up a betting pool. Reiben then reluctantly decides to stay.
The squad finally arrives on the outskirts of Ramelle, where they come upon three paratroopers ambushing a German half-track. Among the paratroopers is Ryan. After entering Ramelle, Ryan is told of his brothers' deaths, and their mission to bring him home, and that two lives had been lost in the quest to find him. He is distressed at the loss of his brothers, but does not feel it is fair to go home, asking Miller to tell his mother "when you found me I was here, and I was with the only brothers I have left," looking at the small band whose duty it was to defend a bridge and destroy an approaching German mechanized unit. Miller decides to take command and defend the bridge with what little manpower and resources are available.
The Germans arrive in force with more than 50 men supported by armor. In spite of inflicting heavy German casualties and even destroying two tanks with stiky bombs, most of the men—including Jackson, Mellish, and Horvath—are killed. While attempting to blow the bridge, Miller is shot and mortally wounded. Just before a Tiger I reaches the bridge, an American P-51 Mustang flies over and destroys it, followed by more Mustangs and advancing American infantry and M4 Sherman tanks who rout the remaining Germans. Upham, who was cut off from the Americans and hid in a ditch positioned next to German soldiers, executes "Steamboat Willie" upon finding him with a group of surrendering Germans and after witnessing him being the one who shot Miller. Ryan, Reiben, and Upham are the only survivors of the battle. Ryan is with Miller as he dies and says his last words, "James... earn this. Earn it."
Back in the present, the elderly veteran is revealed to be Ryan at Miller's grave. He asks his wife to confirm that he has led a good life and that he is a "good man" and thus worthy of the sacrifice of Miller and the others. He then salutes Miller's grave as the camera pans down the gravestones to a placid American flag.


In 1994, Robert Rodat saw a monument in Putney Corners, New Hampshire, memorializing those who had died fighting from the Civil War to Vietnam. He noticed the names of eight siblings who died during the American Civil War. Inspired by the story, Rodat did some research and decided to write a similar story set in World War II. Rodat's script was submitted to producer Mark Gordon, who liked the story but only accepted the text after 11 redrafts. Gordon shared the finished script with Hanks, who liked it and in turn passed it along to Spielberg to direct. A shooting date was set for June 27, 1997. Before filming began, several of the film's stars, including Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Vin Diesel, Adam Goldberg, Giovanni Ribisi, and Tom Hanks, endured ten days of "boot camp" training and work on the film set to prepare for their roles. Matt Damon was not brought into the camp intentionally, to make the rest of the group feel resentment towards the character.
Spielberg had already demonstrated his interest in World War II themes with the films 1941, Empire of the Sun, Schindler's List, and the Indiana Jones series. Spielberg later co-produced the World War II themed television miniseries Band of Brothers and its counterpart The Pacific with Tom Hanks. When asked about this by American Cinematographer, Spielberg said, "I think that World War II is the most significant event of the last 100 years; the fate of the Baby Boomers and even Generation X was linked to the outcome. Beyond that, I've just always been interested in World War II. My earliest films, which I made when I was about 14 years old, were combat pictures that were set both on the ground and in the air. For years now, I've been looking for the right World War II story to shoot, and when Robert Rodat wrote Saving Private Ryan, I found it."
The D-Day scenes were shot in Ballinesker Beach, Curracloe Strand, Ballinesker, just east of Curracloe, Wexford, Ireland. Filming began June 27, 1997, and lasted for two months. Some shooting was done in Normandy, for the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer and Calvados. Other scenes were filmed in English locations such as a former British Aerospace factory in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, London, Thame Park, Oxfordshire, and Wiltshire. Production was due to also take place in Seaham, County Durham, but government restrictions disallowed this.

Saving Private Ryan has been critically noted for its realistic portrayal of World War II combat. In particular, the sequence depicting the Omaha landings was voted the "best battle scene of all time" by Empire magazine and was ranked number one on TV Guide's list of the "50 Greatest Movie Moments".[13] The scene cost US$12 million and involved up to 1,500 extras, some of whom were members of the Irish Reserve Defence Forces. Members of local reenactment groups such as the Second Battle Group were cast as extras to play German soldiers.[14] In addition, twenty to thirty actual amputees were used to portray US soldiers maimed during the landing.[15] Spielberg did not storyboard the sequence, as he wanted spontaneous reactions and for "the action to inspire me as to where to put the camera".[16]
The historical representation of Charlie Company's actions, led by its commander, Captain Ralph E. Goranson, was well maintained in the opening sequence. The sequence and details of the events are very close to the historical record, including the seasickness experienced by many of the soldiers as the landing craft moved toward the shoreline, significant casualties among the men as they disembarked from the boats, and difficulty linking up with adjacent units on the shore. The contextual details of the Company's actions were well maintained, for instance, the correct code names for the sector Charlie Company assaulted, and adjacent sectors were used. Included in the cinematic depiction of the landing was a follow on mission of clearing a bunker and trench system at the top of the cliffs which was not part of the original mission objectives for Charlie Company, but which they did undertake after climbing the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc.[17]
The landing craft used included twelve actual World War II examples, 10 LCVPs and 2 LCMs, standing in for the British LCAs that the Ranger Companies rode in to the beach during Operation Overlord.[17][18] The film-makers used underwater cameras to better depict soldiers being hit by bullets in the water. Forty barrels of fake blood were used to simulate the effect of blood in the seawater.[15] This degree of realism was more difficult to achieve when depicting World War II German armored vehicles, as few examples survive in operating condition. The Tiger I tanks in the film were copies built on the chassis of old, but functional Soviet T-34 tanks. The two vehicles described in the film as Panzers were meant to portray Marder III tank destroyers. One was created for the film using the chassis of a Czech-built Panzer 38(t) tank similar to the construction of the original Marder III; the other was a cosmetically modified Swedish SAV m/43 assault gun, which also used the 38(t) chassis.
Inevitably, some artistic license was taken by the filmmakers for the sake of drama. One of the most notable is the depiction of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, as the adversary during the fictional Battle of Ramelle. The 2nd SS was not engaged in Normandy until July, and then at Caen against the British and Canadians, one hundred miles east. Furthermore, the Merderet River bridges were not an objective of the 101st Airborne Division but of the 82nd Airborne Division, part of Mission Boston. Much has been said about various "tactical errors" made by both the German and American forces in the film's climactic battle. Spielberg responded, saying that in many scenes he opted to replace sound military tactics and strict historical accuracy for dramatic effect.
To achieve a tone and quality that was true to the story as well as reflected the period in which it is set, Spielberg once again collaborated with cinematographer Janusz Kamiński, saying, "Early on, we both knew that we did not want this to look like a Technicolor extravaganza about World War II, but more like color newsreel footage from the 1940s, which is very desaturated and low-tech." Kamiński had the protective coating stripped from the camera lenses, making them closer to those used in the 1940s. He explains that "without the protective coating, the light goes in and starts bouncing around, which makes it slightly more diffused and a bit softer without being out of focus." The cinematographer completed the overall effect by putting the negative through bleach bypass, a process that reduces brightness and color saturation. The shutter timing was set to 90 or 45 degrees for many of the battle sequences, as opposed to the standard of 180 degree timing. Kamiński clarifies, "In this way, we attained a certain staccato in the actors' movements and a certain crispness in the explosions, which makes them slightly more realistic."

The film was distributed by DreamWorks in North America and by Paramount Pictures internationally. As a result of Paramount's 2005 acquisition of DreamWorks, Paramount has gained North America distribution rights as well (though still through the DreamWorks division). Saving Private Ryan was a critical and commercial success and is credited with contributing to a resurgence in America's interest in World War II. Old and new films, video games, and novels about the war enjoyed renewed popularity after its release. The film's use of desaturated colors, hand-held cameras, and tight angles has profoundly influenced subsequent films and video games. Saving Private Ryan was released in 2,463 theatres on July 28, 1998, and grossed $30.5 million on its opening weekend. The film grossed $216.5 million in North America and $265.3 million on other territories, bringing its worldwide total to $481.8 million and making it the highest grossing domestic film of the year.

Critical reception for the film was generally positive, with much praise for the realistic battle scenes[29] and the actors' performances,[30] but earning some criticism for the script and for ignoring the contributions of several other countries to the D-Day landings in general and at Omaha Beach specifically.[31] The most direct example of the latter is that during the actual landing the 2nd Rangers disembarked from British ships and were taken to Omaha Beach by Royal Navy landing craft (LCAs). The film depicts them as being United States Coast Guard-crewed craft (LCVPs and LCMs) from an American ship, the USS Thomas Jefferson (APA-30).[17][32][33] This criticism was far from universal with other critics recognizing the director's intent to make an "American" film.[34] The film was not released in Malaysia after Spielberg refused to cut the violent scenes;[35] however, the film was finally released there on DVD with an 18SG certificate much later in 2005. It currently scores 91% "Certified Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes[36] and 90% on Metacritic,[37] two film review aggregate sites. Many critics associations, such as New York Critics Circle and Los Angeles Film Critics Association, chose Saving Private Ryan as Film of the Year.[38] Roger Ebert gave it four stars out of four and called it "a powerful experience".[30]
Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino has expressed admiration for the film and has cited it as an influence on his 2009 war epic, Inglourious Basterds.[39] In an interview, Tarantino told interviewer Samuel Blumenfeld, "Spielberg is doing something unheard of with the opening of this movie. When you watch the sequence of the landing, it’s no longer possible to look the same way at The Longest Day, or even Samuel Fuller's The Big Red One... Saving Private Ryan made me aware of some issues raised by the cinema of war that I was unable to ask on my own. The idea that forty men on a boat are exterminated in seconds by a volley of machine gun fire is terrifying. Can you imagine the most atrocious carnage? Obviously, yes. Except that throughout the scene, you are persuaded to attend the worst slaughter in history. The sequence of the knife fight between a U.S. soldier and a Nazi at the end of the film is also as notable as the landing. I hate war movies where they show a soldier killing his opponents without sweating, as if it were insignificant. If I was fighting to save my skin, I think it would be a little more difficult. It's hard to kill someone, it takes sweat, and even with this, you have no guarantee of reaching your goals. Spielberg managed admirably to stage this scene with that dimension."
The actor Richard Todd, who performed in The Longest Day and was amongst the first of the Allied soldiers to land in Normandy, said the film was "Rubbish. Overdone." Other WWII veterans, however, stated that the film was the most realistic depiction of combat they had ever seen.The film was so realistic that combat veterans of D-Day and Vietnam left theaters rather than finish watching the opening scene depicting the Normandy invasion. Their visits to posttraumatic stress disorder counselors rose in number after the film's release, and many counselors advised "'more psychologically vulnerable'" veterans to avoid watching it.
The film was later nominated for eleven Academy Awards, with wins for Best Cinematography, Best Sound, Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Film Editing, and Best Director for Spielberg, but lost the Best Picture award to Shakespeare in Love, being one of a few that have won the Best Director award without also winning Best Picture. The film also won the Golden Globes for Best Picture – Drama and Director, the BAFTA Award for Special Effects and Sound, the Directors Guild of America Award, a Grammy Award for Best Film Soundtrack, the Producers Guild of America Golden Laurel Award, and the Saturn Award for Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film. In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "Ten Top Ten"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Saving Private Ryan was listed as the eighth best film in the "epic films" genre.

THE definitive WWII movie. Period.

After E.T., I think this is his best film. Very intense.