'Saving Private Ryan' was made more than twenty years ago. Despite that, and despite all of the incredible film franchises that Steven Spielberg has been involved in over the many decades he's been involved in movies, it's still considered to be one of his greatest-ever works. That's especially impressive when you take into account the fact that he didn't even think about the wider audience when he was making the film. In fact, he was only looking to please and pay tribute to one man.
Spielberg's father, Arnold Spielberg, is a U.S. Army veteran, having served in the Signal Corps and seen action in Burma during World War II. The only reason Spielberg wanted to make a war film at all was to pay tribute to his father, and all of the brave men like him who had fought for the freedom of all of us during that war. We owe one of the best films of all time to the simple fact that a son wanted to make his dad proud.