10 War Movie Plot Twists That Nobody Saw Coming

"James...earn this. Earn it."

Saving Private Ryan is one of the greatest cinematic productions of all time and contentiously the finest war film ever conceived. Steven Spielberg's epic WWII offering follows a group of soldiers on a mission to locate the eponymous Private and bring him home safely after his three brothers are killed in combat.

Spielberg's picture is bookended by scenes featuring an old man attending a WWII cemetery with his family. The film's beginning immediately segues into the first scenes set during the war, depicting the hellish arrival of Tom Hanks' Captain Miller and Co. on Omaha Beach. Accordingly, the initial assumption is that the old man is an elderly version of Miller himself, a supposition reinforced by his resemblance to Hanks.

In a narrative bombshell as heart-rending as it is uplifting, the veteran is later revealed to be none other than Private Ryan himself, with his facial features in the aftermath of the movie's climactic engagement morphing into that of his older self. Ryan is in fact visiting the grave of his fallen comrade, the aforementioned Miller, who died in battle attempting to carry out his mission.

A poignant twist of the highest order, with a notable sense of heartwarming relief that Ryan made it home, juxtaposed against a sense of poignant loss at the notion that Miller and much of his squad weren't so lucky.