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It was 26 years ago when Tom Hanks starred as Captain John H Miller in Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan.
The Oscar-winning war epic, considered one of the greatest films ever made, recreated the horrors of the D-Day landing at Omaha Beach 80 years ago today.
Now the star and director have reunited this morning to attend the US ceremony marking Operation Overlord, when the Allies invaded Nazi-occupied France and went on to defeat Hitler less than a year later.
The film saw Hanks’ officer ordered to go search for Matt Damon’s Private Ryan, to have him sent home since his other brothers had all be killed in action.
Since the release of the blockbuster classic, which is streaming for free on Channel 4 for the next 18 days, Hanks and Spielberg have reunited on three World War II miniseries.
Hanks and Spielberg created 2001’s Band of Brothers which dramatised the history of the 101st Airborne Division from training through D-Day to the end of World War II.
The miniseries is easily one of the greatest TV shows ever created and starred the likes of Damian Lewis, David Schwimmer, Dominic Cooper, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Graham, Tom Hardy, James McAvoy, Dexter Fletcher, Simon Pegg and Andrew Scott – most of whom were unknowns at the time.
This was followed in 2010 with The Pacific, which dramatised American troops fighting the Japanese in the Pacific theatre of World War II and featured an unknown Rami Malek.
Most recently a third miniseries has been released this year called Masters of the Air.
Starring Austin Butler, Callum Turner, Anthony Boyle, Barry Keoghan and Ncuti Gatwa, this one recounts the 100th Bomb Group of the American Air Force. Here’s hoping they’ll eventually do one on the Navy too.
Band of Brothers and The Pacific are streaming on NOW and Masters of the Air on Apple TV+.