Following the Allied invasion of Normandy, a squad from the 2nd Ranger Battalion of the 29th Infantry Division go behind enemy lines to retrieve Private James Francis Ryan whose brothers have been killed in action.
22 September 1953, Brooklyn, New York, USA
1964
27 March 1971, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
17 December 1974, Los Angeles, California, USA
11 January 1921, London, England, UK
29 January 1968, Woodside, Queens County, New York, USA
4 April 1970, Campbell River, British Columbia, Canada
1962, Düsseldorf, Germany
7 July 1955, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
1926, Richmond, Surrey, England, UK
June 08, 2015
Saving Private Ryan is a masterpiece. It cements Steven Spielberg's reputation as one of the seminal filmmakers of the era.
August 19, 2014
If Steven Spielberg's emotional intelligence matched his visual genius, his harrowing, passionately felt and honorably flawed new film might qualify for one of the greatest American movies ever made about World War II.
August 02, 2013
Spielberg accomplishes these goals with a technical virtuosity that no other director, arguably in the history of the cinema, can even approach.
June 08, 2015
[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.
August 02, 2013
Dramatic lapses notwithstanding, Saving Private Ryan goes beyond technical dazzlement to put a new, indelibly terrible face on war.
August 19, 2014
The film is directed by Steven Spielberg, and breaks new ground in content and style. It merges some of the most realistically disturbing battle footage ever included in a feature film with a touching human story.
August 19, 2014
This is Spielberg's way of showing that these warriors were ordinary men -- men who, if they survived, became the grandfathers and great-grandfathers who, these days, pass largely unnoticed through life.
November 27, 2014
One of Spielberg's most difficult "problem" films.
June 08, 2015
The result, I am sorry to say, is that Saving Private Ryan seems almost banal in its achievement, a film that sacrifices humanity for technical wizardry.
August 19, 2014
Spielberg is telling his fellow Americans to appreciate the sacrifices their forebears have made and to act accordingly.
June 08, 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.
August 02, 2013
Calling it the greatest war movie ever made does a disservice to other, equally worthwhile, lower-profile films. But it's still an excellent movie, as effective in battle scenes as it is in that of soldiers ruminating on an Edith Piaf song.
