The Best War Movie of All Time Becomes a U.S. Streaming Hit

What movie fans choose to watch on streaming services tends to boil down to two specific categories: what’s the latest original film arriving on the streamer, or is there a classic movie that just returned after an extended absence? It’s why the Top 10 on platforms like Netflix is typically filled with whatever their latest new film is, plus a classic film that fans may not have watched in a while. There’s a wrinkle that occurs every time there’s a holiday, though, and it’s fans deliberately seeking out specific movies en masse to mark the occasion. As a result, movies that everyone knows suddenly skyrocket on the charts, despite no specific plan to get them there.

Case in point, this week, with Memorial Day in the United States, film fans have clearly been seeking out not only movies that pay tribute to fallen military heroes, but they’ve done so with no specific qualms about what era or conflict they look for them. Paramount+ appears to be the hotspot for this, as subscribers have pushed some classic movies to the top of the charts. Among them is Steven Spielberg’s war epic, and arguably one of the best war movies ever made, Saving Private Ryan, which has climbed into the Top 10 out of nowhere.

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Saving Private Ryan Climbs Streaming Charts for Memorial Day

Saving Private Ryan made a splash when it debuted for a few major reasons. The first is its iconic opening sequence, depicting the violence and chaos of the D-Day invasion in a way that had never really been shown in a feature film before. Though that became the most famous element of the film, like Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket and the extended “basic training” side of the story, the larger narrative of Saving Private Ryan offered even more than just a hyper-realistic display of war. Across its story, Saving Private Ryan humanizes the soldiers who fought in the conflict, not only in how they selflessly carry out their mission, but in how it affected them for the rest of their lives.

Saving Private Ryan is also not the only war/military movie to make the cut on Paramount+, either, as subscribers have clearly found out that it’s the home to some others. Naturally, Top Gun: Maverick remains the #1 movie on the platform, and though it’s certainly possible that it got a Memorial Day bump, that film has been hanging onto the Top 10 charts on Paramount+ for almost two full years. In addition, Michael Bay’s 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi has also climbed into the Top 10, sitting just above Saving Private Ryan and the original Top Gun.

Upon its release, Saving Private Ryan was a critical and commercial success. Bringing in over $480 million at the global box office, Spielberg’s highest-grossing movie since 1993’s Jurassic Park. As a result, the film was in a prime position to win big at the Academy Awards, and it did, with Spielberg taking home his second Best Director Oscar, with wins for Best Cinematography, Film Editing, and more. Though many expected the film to take home Best Picture as well, a stunning upset occurred, with Shakespeare in Love taking the prize instead.

When it debuted in 1998, no one could have predicted how influential Saving Private Ryan would be not only on war movies as a whole, but in how it would help redefine Tom Hanks’ career. Though already a two-time Oscar winner for his roles in dramas Philadelphia and Forrest Gump, the success of the film would not only spur larger cultural interest in World War II, but also in Hanks himself. After the film, Hanks and Spielberg would go on to produce three World War II-themed miniseries, starting with Band of Brothers in 2001, continuing with The Pacific in 2010, and finally, Masters of the Air just two years ago. Hanks also provided narration for Ken Burns’ World War II documentary, The War, and was even named a Knight in the French Legion of Honor due to his work in support of World War II veterans.