When it comes to war films, Saving Private Ryan is often pitted as one of the most harrowing, particularly for its portrayal of the D-Day landings. But according to one Army historian, it’s far from the most accurate, and it didn’t even place in his top-five ranking.
Dave Hogan, who recently retired after 37 years at the US Army Centre for Military History, compiled a list of the top five movies that “accurately portray U.S. soldiers and combat operations”. And while the Omaha Beach scene in Saving Private Ryan is often praised for its authenticity, Hogan argues that one film, The Thin Red Line, truly captures the experience of US soldiers in combat.
For those unfamiliar, The Thin Red Line is a war movie based on James Jones’ novel about the 1943 Battle for Guadalcanal’s Mount Austen in the Solomon Islands.
It followed members of the 25th Infantry Division who disappeared and tried to live among native Melanesians.
The historian argued that the film was more convincing than Private Ryan, which he said felt like a “typical World War II movie” outside of the opening Omaha Beach scenes, which he praised.
He explained in an army news release: “I just felt that the whole premise, sending a unit deep behind enemy lines, through disputed territory to try to just notify this guy that he no longer had to serve, was just far-fetched.
“There was something about that movie, that I just found more convincing than [the 1998 World War II film] Saving Private Ryan in terms of how it portrayed the way Nick Nolte plays the officer and trying to make this advance against an unseen enemy.”
The other films on his list were: Fury; From Here to Eternity; Cold Mountain; and Black Hawk Down.
That said, military news outlet Task & Purpose had a different view, arguing that Saving Private Ryan’s brutal opening sequence alone, with its unflinching portrayal of the terrifying German machine guns, did something no movie had shown before.
While it accepted some aspects of Saving Private Ryan could be improved, it argued that the realism of combat was a game changer.