Directed by:
Steven Spielberg

Starring:
Tom Hanks as Captain John H. Miller
Tom Sizemore as Sergeant Michael Horvath
Edward Burns as Private Richard Reiben
Barry Pepper as Private Jackson
Adam Goldberg as Private Mellish
Vin Diesel as Private Adrian Caparzo
Giovanni Ribisi as T/4 Medic Irwin Wade
Jeremy Davies as Corporal Timothy E. Upham
Matt Damon as Private James Francis Ryan
Ted Danson as Captain Fred Hamill

• As <blank> is dying on the bridge, Matt Damon can be clearly seen in the background. The next scene shows Matt Damon crouch on the side away from the bridge. - pat

• In one scene Capt. Millers group is seen walking through an open field. They hear a sound and duck down in the high grass just before a German half-track armored car appears in the field. Since the field is so big and open, the Germans would have seen the Americans before they hid. - Olav Westerman

• In the Normandy landing, notice that in several shots bullets keep hitting the exact same spots. This is clearly seen after tom hanks' first slo-mo/shellshock scene. Now some shots may hit in the same place twice in real life, but not this often. - David

• In the last battle, when all the soldiers are on the tank and come under heavy fire, the one soldier that later gets his head(?)blown off, is not moving at all. - David

• In the beginning of the film, when Tom Hanks gets shell-shocked and can't hear, he is on the beach, in the sand, but later when he "wakes up" he is back in chest-deep water. - farty mckrablice

• At the beginning of the film, in the water, there are a few under water shots, but one of them accidentally shows the bottom of the pool, however it is very hard to see. - David and don

• I haven't seen this movie (too violent), but my mother noticed Tom Hanks saying at one point, "Let's Rock and Roll!", a phrase that hadn't been invented yet.
  • Could be that Hanks says "Let's lock and load."

• In the D-day landing Cpt. Miller is talking to some guy with a typewriter. In the background you can see a guy get shot up. One of the shots hits him in the thigh, but when the angle changes the gunshot wound on the thigh is gone. - David

• In the part where Mike is talking to Miller at the end of the bridge after they have found Ryan, Mike's hand is on the gun when he talks but in the next shot his "talking" with his hand, moving it around, and then in the following shot his hand is on the gun again. - MacX

• In some of the beach-landing scenes the sloping logs with two support-legs obstacles are turned 180 degrees wrong. In real life they had the lower end pointed out to the see, so that the landing-boats, in high water, should run up on them and hit the mines placed on the top. - Olav Westerman

• The telephone in Mrs. Ryan's home is a wall phone which was not used in the 1940's, during the time period of the film. The telephone in the film was more likely introduced in the late 1960's. - Judimc
  • Addition: I know that someone noticed the wall phone in the farmhouse when the mother gets the bad news but the extending curl up type cord is very obvious. Not invented until the 1970's. - Jack

• Towards the end of the movie, when the troops are awaiting the tanks in the French village, there is a camera shot over their heads down the street. If you look closely at the end of the street you can see a stationary, angled barrel of a tank yet the "sound" leads the viewer into believing that the tank is approaching that street. When the tank enters the street so does it's "sound". - Alby

• I can't believe no one has submit this one yet! Right before the end battle scene Cpt. Miller is briefed on the paratroopers armament. It includes two (2) .30 caliber machine guns. As they are setting up for the battle you clearly see one being hoisted in to the bell tower with Jackson. Then later you see the other one being set up with Melish and Upahm. Both machine guns are accounted for. After checking the position of their gun Melish and Umpahm get up and start walking away (I forget to where). But as Melish is explaining about being "Johnny on the Spot" with the ammo and solider walks buy with a third .30 caliber machine gun! He even goes between the two soldiers and the camera. I think someone was getting sloppy. - Kurt

• I'm surprised that noone has spotted this obvious mistake. Near the end of the movie at the battle for the bridge, the coward/clerk carries around several belts of machine gun ammo. You can easily see that all of the primers for the shells are either missing altogether or are yellow plastic plugs. It is so glaringly obvious in the close-ups that I'm surprised that the weapons people or the director didn't catch the error, especially when such attention to detail was paid to uniforms and equipment. For me it really detracted from an otherwise outstanding movie. - Ken

• In the D-Day landing, many of the U.S. troops have their weapons sealed in what looks like polythene. Surely the weapons would have been wrapped in oilskin or something similar. Don't think polythene was around in 1944. (DVD) - Gary

• Bullets penetrating helmets blow off a large flake of paint around the (dented) hole. They do NOT make neat little sharp-edged holes. That one was a real spoiler for me. (DVD) - Gary

• Hanks is questioning an injured paratrooper with a severe leg wound in the small French Town about where the air unit drops were supposed to be, the soldier shows Hanks on his map. At the end of the movie defending the bridge, the same wounded soldier is seen pulling a detonation wire inside the building. As the German tanks and troops move down the street past him he looks out an opening and detonates mine. - Phil

• After parachuting behind enemy lines and spending several days in combat, Ryan (Matt Damon) does not need a shave and still has dazzlingly white teeth. - bombadil

• The old man at the cemetery in the beginning leads us into the flashback of the beach landing during WWII. That character was not one of the soldiers on the beach though, so the entire movie is set up wrong. Only one other character could have been the old man in the cemetery. This flub, in my opinion, is on par with no one being in the room to hear Charles Foster Kane say "rosebud," which is what the reporter in "Citizen Kane" is trying to find the meaning of. - Jamed

• (Factual errors) The challenge and password for US Forces on D-Day was the word "Flash" followed by the word "Thunder". This is documented in many history books and is correctly shown in Band Of Brothers. In Saving Private Ryan when they link up with the Paratroopers from the 101st they keep getting the challenge and password backwards by saying "Thunder"..."Flash". - Gator6

Debated Goofs

• In one scene, after about one third of the movie, the soldiers are walking on a field. They are being filmed from a helicopter. It's unbelievable that even though one of the seven men was killed couple of minutes ago there are still seven of them! Can it be that no one else has noticed?! - Juhani Mykkänen
  • Correction: Someone said that "even though a soldier had died a minute ago there were still all of the original seven soldiers walking through a field" when in fact there were eight original soldiers and the one that was killed is missing to make seven. - Joe
  • Comment: Both Juhani Mykkänen and Joe were correct on this scene. They did originate as eight men, but in this scene there are again eight--after Caparzo got killed. - Reddfoxx

Commented Goofs

• In the Omaha-Beach-scenes there are far too few ships in the Channel, but not even Steven Spielberg could afford to hire the Royal Navy. - Olav Westerman
  • Comment: About too many ships and other things at the beginning that was all computer generated except for six boats that were used to bring the actors and the stand in to the beach. - Ash

Corrected Goofs

• Tom Hank's character wears his Captains bars on his helmet while operating in enemy territory. Wouldn't that have made a very inviting target for a German sniper? - thatjerryguy
  • Correction: The fact Tom Hanks character has his Captains Bars painted on his helmet is correct. That was the standard for that Army at that time. The reason he would not be a target for a sniper is that fact that it is still somewhat of a subdued insignia. (as opposed to a brass insignia which would reflect light thus producing glare--what a sniper looks for) Today's Army still wears rank on all of its field headgear, however it is painted black for tactical reasons. - SGT. Matt
  • Comment: Snipers do not just look for rank insignia, they also watch for a commanding type like an officer or a sergeant. - Brandon

• In the D-day scene, some guy screams to Cpt. Miller "They're killing us and we don't have a f---in' chance and that ain't fair!". In the middle of this sentence the angle changes and the guy disappears, but the sentence keeps going. - David
  • Correction: I disagree with David about the guy who says "they're killing us and we don't have a f-----g chance and that ain't fair."  David, you think that he disappears in a separate angle in the middle of the sentence, when he clearly doesn't disappear he's just halfway behind Tom Hanks. - Joe Toler
    • Correction: Actually, the position where the guy's head is changes, and the guy is in a completely different position no longer saying the sentence, but the sentence still goes on. Either way it's a case of sloppy editing. - David

• In one scene, Private Ryan tells Capt. Miller a story involving his brothers, adding at the end "That's the last time we were all together.", because the oldest one left for basic training the following day. Yet in an earlier scene in the Ryan home, when Mrs. Ryan is watching the Army staff car approach, there's a photograph on the wall of all the brothers together--all in uniform. - Kevin Mc
  • Correction: "Kevin Mc" brings up the story told by Matt Damon about "the last time all the brothers were together before one left for basic training," versus the presence of the photo on the wall in the Ryan home of all the uniformed brothers together. 33 minutes into the film, in the scene where the officers are discussing the Ryan brothers, one Pentagon official states that, "the Ryan brothers were broken up after basic training, after the five Sullivan brothers were killed on the (USS) Juneau." The statement indicates to me that the Ryan brothers completed basic training at about the same time and at the same location, giving them ample opportunity to be photographed together, and does not invalidate Matt Damon's line. - Kieth Moreland