An astonishingly unforgettable war epic heads deep behind enemy lines on streaming

Every single motion picture has been conceived and created with the intention of being an unforgettable experience, but it’s a status that very few have ever managed to attain. There are some things that will never leave your memory once you’ve seen them, though, and the opening scene of Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan fits the bill and then some.

It wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination or even remotely hyperbolic to call the extended D-Day set piece one of the single greatest scenes ever committed to celluloid, but it’s arguably even more remarkable that the classic war epic never dips in quality until the credits fade to black after the last of its monumental 169 minutes.

A $485 million haul at the box office made it the highest-grossing World War II movie of all-time, a record it held onto for almost 20 years before Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk came along. Saving Private Ryan would also land five Academy Awards from 11 nominations including Best Director, and it remains one of the biggest snubs in the ceremony’s history that Shakespeare in Love ended up emerging as the shock Best Picture champion.

Even now, the immersive and visceral deep dive into both the brutalities and banalities of war can engage streaming subscribers watching on the device of their choosing. Per FlixPatrol, the inimitable jaw-dropper has returned to prominence as one of the most-watched titles on Paramount Plus, and don’t rule it out of soaring even higher as we head into the weekend.