Hi guys i have just watched saving private ryan for the 100th time-and was thinking this is the best ww2 film ever made. What do you guys think?

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"Fortune Favours The Brave"

This has been talked about before. Some parts of it, epic, some parts, not so much. But it all depends on the watcher. I for one, enjoy the heck out of this movie. For what it's worth, I also enjoy Memphis Belle even though fiction left truth beat up in the men's room in that particular film.

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Kicking up dust since 1978

I don't think so, the opening scene is cool but everything else is bogus! Band of Brothers (yes, I know) is pretty good despite some of the liberties they take with the book, stories, etc. Stalingrad is a great example, one review I read said something like "other films tell you how bad war is but later show you heroic battles taking place, Stalingrad stays consistent throughout".

Cross of Iron is another example of a great war film, The Big Red One is another as well.

In other words, their are a lot of great war films, in my opinion, Saving Private Ryan is not one of them.

I can't get past the Big Red One having the guy from Revenge of the Nerds in it. I did not enjoy that movie at all. Every film is going to take liberties...that's a fact, especially if you have read extensivley about the war. SPR was a good movie in the aspect that it showed the horrors of war. The opening sequence is one of the best in any war movie, ever.

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Kicking up dust since 1978

I agree ; in fact I'd go further and say that IMPO the opening scene is one of the most extraordinary war movie scenes ever made. Sadly, the rest of the movie just does not live up to the opening......

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

I agree with the majority here in saying that SPR aint the greatest war movie made. Stalingrad, certainly is one fo the best even if it aint made in hollywood. But since its only a matter of opinion, im not complainin'. ;-)) I have my favs too as well as everyone else here. At least we can agree that it aint the worst war movie ever made ;-))

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

I gotta go with the others as well, not the best of all time but in the top ten maybe. Not above the Longest Day, Big Red One, To Hell and Back, Walk in the Sun, The Quick and the Dead, and Enemy Below.

Perhaps one of the best of the "new" movies, certainly superior to that lame and regrettable Pearl Harbor!

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Happy Trails,
Clint.

It is great to the public as we see a small group of Americans killing a poopload of Germans with little loss to themselves. I could rant about how this movie is dissapointing. (A big example is the Skinhead Nazi look for every German in the movie)

But its ability to be enjoyed makes it one of the top movies and with good reason.

However this movie is nothing compared to masterpeices like Das Boot, Stalingrad and Downfall.

Making a rash Statement like that means you need to see more of the Classics

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-Dustin

DOWNFALL, now that movie is i believe the most realistic, the suicide is pretty gruesome. especially the part when the guy walks in and says "germany has surrendered" and 3 of the officers in the room drop themselves, sick but could be true. as for SPR i think the first scene is great but it makes D Day look worse than it really was (no offence to the men that were there),but looking at it from a politicians point of view the amount of dead they show is like the entire allied casualties for the day + the abscense of any brits or canadians is a downer.

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In other news arnotts have anounced that there will be 50% more tim in your tim tams.
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I vote for "The Longest Day"...more faithfull to the truth. Fictionalizations like "Ryan" and the like are OK, but nothing can beat an honest attempt at truth. "Band of Brothers" comes in a close second.
JeffinMNUSA

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"Best" is a somewhat abiguous term. Best in what way?

It certainly was outstanding in it's portrayal of small unit combat and even though it was a work of fiction, it included some interesting ideas. Visually, I would agree that it probably was one the most vivid portrayals of that part of the war and while it was a fictional story, the producers did appear to make efforts to be accurate in most aspects, within budgetary constraints.

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Best Regards,
JW

What do you base this one? I spoke to an Omaha Beach veteran several years ago, who is now deceased, and he said it was very accurate from what he saw and remembered.

I would not expect a movie centered on Juno Beach and beyond to have any US soldiers milling about, either.

If I remember correctly, The Big Red One didn't show any British or Commonwealth soldiers or sailors either

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Best Regards,
JW

War movies tend to fall into different categories: Most historically correct, most realistic looking, and stuff that could be used to make any war historian tell all of their country's secrets they're so bad (Midway and Pearl Harbor fall into that last category).

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"I love deadlines. I love the 'Whooshing' noise they make when they go by." - Doug Adams

Have you seen The Longest Day?

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Hi Jeff, The Big Red One actually did show some scenes with British Soldiers as well as I THINK A French naval officer when: the Sergeant, was in the hospital recooperating from his wounds he got when he fought at the Kasserine Pass, and was talking to the GI who was from the 18th Inf Rgmt who had been looking for soldiers from the big red one. They were in a German hospital in Tunis and the place was captured using a mixture of soldiers but, you do se some Brits for sure ;-)) Now as for Invasion Beach Scenes-all you see are Amis ;-))

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

SPR is entertaining; but, it's no "Battle Cry". I will gladly switch off Saving Private Ryan for Battle Cry or Wake Island.

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"Logos, Philos, Arete"

Private Ryan is an excellent movie, but I cannot call it the best. I really can't call any war movie "the best," because I've learned over the years that every soldier experiences war differently; some soldiers have seen the war just like it was presented in Private Ryan, and some have not, because that's not the way they experienced the war. You can't simply take millions of human experiences and put them into a 2 and a half-hour long film.

However, I think for the most part this movie is pretty accurate with a few minor details gone wrong. I still find the movie to be extremely touching and a testament to those who died.

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Best Regards, Hufflepuff

Sorry about the double post, but I would put this on Par with Private Ryan any day. Another excellent movie.

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Best Regards, Hufflepuff

Just wanted to say that I accidently placed the recooperating "Big Red One" Sergeant in El Quttar, but that German Hospital was in Tunis. Mistake corrected now for continuities sake.

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

Yes, I gotta say "love" the landing part but after getting outta the beach the movie loses its momentum somewhat. I have watched the first twenty minutes some trillion times though...

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Only?

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Smithson;
And Sergei Bondakchuk's "War and Peace" gets my vote as the best war movie of all time.
YouTube - "War & Peace" - Part 3 - 1812 - Borodino
What does this have to do with WWII? Well the memories of the Great Patriotic War were pretty fresh in people's minds and large numbers of the cast were veterans. Russians have a keenly felt sense of history and the War on Napoleon had a huge influence on the War on Hitler.
JeffinMNUSA

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Of course the fact that it portrayed an American unit on Omaha Beach would have precluded Brits or Canadians. Though I agree many American War movies show everything from a US point of view.

omg yes its omaha beach. i get that.
but what about the rest of the movie, you dont see any british considering this roaming 7 are going all over the place seeing americans everywhere but no british.

see plenty of american paras but no brit paras. so where are they in this movie?
and wouldnt the americans have a british and canadian liason? with there big shots in the blown out bunker?(just after the beach scene when miller is given the assignment)



also to be a stick in the mud, wasnt that scene from the utah beach? omaha was rangers landing and climbing cliffs, and omaha recieved the worst casualties correct? utah beach recived less casualties.

and what about the pictures from americans landing on utah beach (in the landing craft) wow the whizzing machine gun bullets and bunkers are so visible in that picture and men are lying everywhere with disfigured bodies and americans are hiding behind czech hedgehogs while the machine guns are raking the beaches and killing 9/10 men.

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News today, a man has fallen into a chocolate vat in the arnotts factory

In other news arnotts have anounced that there will be 50% more tim in your tim tams.
(p.s. only aussies will get this joke)

There were no British soldiers on Omaha....

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Best Regards, Hufflepuff