10 Movie Characters Who Were Seconds Away From Surviving

Opening with one of the most harrowing scenes ever put to the big screen, Saving Private Ryan follows a US Army Rangers squad as they race through France in search of the titular private, who's the last of four brothers left alive on the frontline of the war.

By the end of the movie, Ryan has been located and the surviving members of the squad are preparing to hold their position against an incoming German assault, which leads to the deaths of most of the squad since they're so heavily outnumbered.

Perhaps the most distressing death scene in the final act belongs to Private Stanley "Fish" Mellish, who's ends up in a hand-to-hand fight with a Nazi soldier and, once overpowered, is slowly stabbed to death.

What makes Fish's death so troubling is the fact that shell-shocked, fish out of water Corporal Timothy Upham is in the room at the time, listening to Fish die but frozen with fear and unable to bring himself to save him. If he had found the courage to act (which, let's face it, few of us would have in his shoes), Fish probably would have survived the siege entirely.