Cast and Crew: Steven Spielberg (Director); John Williams (Score); Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg, Vin Diesel, Giovanni Ribisi, Jeremy Davies, Ted Danson, Paul Giamatti, Dennis Farina, Nathan Fillion

What It’s About: A unit of U.S. Army Rangers is sent on a mission to find Private Ryan (Matt Damon), one of four brothers in the service and the only one yet to be killed in action, and bring him back from the front alive.

Why Watch it Today?: Saving Private Ryan is most famous for its intense opening sequence depicting the landing at Omaha Beach on D-Day, which occurred today in 1944.  Although the film becomes a more traditional “squad on a special mission” story after the intense opening, the opening sequence is justly famed as a brutal recreation of the intense fighting that day.