‘Saving Private Ryan’ 25th anniversary: Remembering Steven Spielberg’s 5-time Oscar winner

Brian Rowe
·5 min read
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One of the most celebrated movies of 1998 was “Saving Private Ryan,” starring Tom Hanks, Jeremy Davies and Matt Damon. Written by Robert Rodat and directed by Steven Spielberg, the war film tells of a group of U.S. soldiers who are ordered to retrieve a man whose three brothers have all been killed in action. Released 25 years ago on July 24, 1998, “Saving Private Ryan” was a massive commercial success, making $217 million in the United States and $482 million worldwide. The first team-up of Spielberg and Hanks went on to win five Oscars, though infamously not Best Picture. Read on as Gold Derby celebrates the “Saving Private Ryan” 25th anniversary.

Most critics loved the film, including Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times, who called it “a powerful and impressive milestone in the realistic depiction of combat.” Wendy Ides in Times (UK) said that the opening 24-minute war sequence “is one of the greatest pieces of combat cinema yet made.” And Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian wrote that “Saving Private Ryan” was “an old-fashioned war picture to rule them all—gripping, utterly uncynical, with viscerally convincing and audacious battle sequences.”

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With Hanks in the lead role, Spielberg behind the camera, and the film’s commercial and critical success, “Saving Private Ryan” was no doubt going to be a huge awards player going into 1999. It became the Oscar frontrunner after it was nominated for five awards at the Golden Globe Awards and won two: Best Drama and Best Director. Hanks lost Best Actor to Jim Carrey for “The Truman Show,” but “Saving Private Ryan” getting the final two victories of the night signified good things to come for the epic war movie.

“Saving Private Ryan” went on to win Best Picture and Best Director at the Critics Choice Awards, and it received two nominations at the Screen Actors Guild Awards: Best Actor for Hanks and Best Ensemble. In addition, it received a WGA Award bid, won the DGA Award and PGA Award, and earned 10 BAFTA Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Film. Despite its summer release, Spielberg’s movie remained popular with critics and audiences for months and looked poised to receive lots of Oscar nominations.

At the 71st Academy Awards, “Saving Private Ryan” made it into 11 categories, including Original Screenplay, Actor for Hanks, Director and Picture. It didn’t receive a surprise second acting nomination — Davies, for example, had been singled out by many critics and won the Best Supporting Actor prize from the Kansas City Film Critics — but for the most part it received all the nominations it could. The question was, could “Saving Private Ryan” go all the way and take the Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture?

Only one movie was a potential threat — “Shakespeare in Love,” John Madden’s period comedy-drama starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes and Judi Dench. It won four prizes at the Golden Globes — Screenplay, Comedy Actress for Paltrow and Comedy Picture. A bigger victory came at the SAG Awards, where it beat out “Saving Private Ryan” for Best Ensemble. “Saving Private Ryan” had been out of theaters for months, while “Shakespeare in Love” kept adding to its number of theaters throughout the 1999 awards season, gaining in steam with each passing week.

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“Shakespeare in Love” didn’t take DGA or PGA, but it did win WGA, and after receiving an astonishing 15 nominations at BAFTA, where it won Best Picture, it appeared like “Saving Private Ryan” wasn’t going to coast to easy wins in the top categories at the Academy Awards. “Shakespeare in Love” received 13 Oscar nominations, two more than “Saving Private Ryan.”

I would argue Spielberg’s second Best Director Oscar was never in jeopardy — as popular as “Shakespeare in Love” was, many thought of the film more as an actor’s showcase than a director’s showcase, and the film’s director Madden was relatively new to theatrical movies. But Best Picture was likely a close race, both titles winning at the Golden Globes, “Saving Private Ryan” taking the PGA Award and “Shakespeare in Love” named Best Picture at BAFTA.

At the Academy Awards on March 21, 1999, both titles had their share of wins. In technical categories, “Saving Private Ryan” won Sound Effects Editing, Film Editing and Cinematography, while “Shakespeare in Love” won Score, Art Direction-Set Direction and Costume Design. Original Screenplay went to Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard for “Shakespeare in Love” over Rodat for “Saving Private Ryan,” which might’ve shown momentum shifting to the former film. Also, Paltrow claimed Best Actress and Dench took Best Supporting Actress for “Shakespeare in Love,” while “Saving Private Ryan” earned no acting prizes. However, Spielberg of course won Best Director, saying once he reached the stage, “Am I allowed to say I really wanted this?”

Harrison Ford presented the Best Picture trophy, and he looked surprised when he opened the envelope and announced, “Shakespeare in Love.” The underdog comedy-drama did it, and it has been a controversial Picture win ever since. Despite its Oscar loss in the top category, however, “Saving Private Ryan” has endured for 25 years as one of the greatest war movies ever made, and certainly one of Spielberg’s and Hanks’ finest efforts. Susan Stark in Detroit News called the film “as compelling, intimate, and brutally realistic an account of men at war as you’ve ever seen.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

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