Most of the films on our list contain indelible sequences of combat. But it also showed war to be a hell that was (sometimes) necessary. And this lent Spielberg’s film a singular and spectacular ambivalence. Yet “Saving Private Ryan,” which built on the dizzying, you-are-there battle-field authenticity that had been brought to the screen by Kubrick, Coppola, and Stone, made a statement that couldn’t be categorized as “anti-war.” That’s because it was about a war that needed to be fought. The Vietnam movies were all about how cataclysmic and terrible and “insane” war could be. Many, if not most, of the greatest war films - like, for instance, “Paths of Glory” - are often characterized as “anti-war.” The reason is obvious: They’re message movies that depict the horrifying devastation of war, all as a way of saying, “The human race must figure out a way to stop this unfathomable cruelty.” You could say that’s the message embedded in every movie about the Vietnam War - the era when combat in film attained a new, searing, at times hallucinatory realism. Yet it’s worth noting just why Steven Spielberg’s wrenching combat masterpiece has earned such a singular place in the cinema of war. It’s a movie that figures high on our list of the 30 Greatest War Films.
Twenty-five years ago, on July 24, 1998, “Saving Private Ryan” was released.
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