8. Captain Miller - Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Let me start this one with a little story. I'm in school and my teacher is on a raised platform writing on the board. He misses his step, trips up and falls over. All very hilarious viewing for a teenage school boy. He then goes white as a sheet, grips his chest and rushes into his stockroom only to come out twenty minutes later in a mushroom sized cloud of cigarette smoke. This is not a man in his physical prime. This is not a guy who remains calm under pressure. This is a guy who quotes Byron, has a ruddy complexion and still lives with his mother. This is a giant nerd all grown up...a middle aged high school teacher. Which is exactly what Tom Hanks' Captain Miller turns out to be. After months of trying to figure out what their Captain did before the war, as part of a bet, his men joked he must have been assembled from dead G.I. parts. If they had kept an eye out for quotes from 18th Century romantic poets and outfits from the Gap they might've been in with a chance of winning that bet.