One of the Greatest War Movies of All Time Is Officially Being Cut From Streaming Next Week

Starting November 1, it’s going to be even harder to stream one of the most acclaimed war movies ever made. Released in 1998, the WWII classic features a star-studded cast that helped propel it to Oscar glory. Of course, it also didn’t hurt that the film had one of the best directors of all time at the helm: Steven Spielberg.

Tom Hanks Leads an All-Star Cast of Actors Into Battle

Hitting theaters on July 24, 1998, Spielberg’s epic war thriller focuses on a group of soldiers given the unusual assignment of locating a paratrooper whose three brothers have been killed in combat. Led by Tom Hanks as Captain John Miller, the squad ventures deep into enemy territory, confronting German forces while wrestling with the moral cost of risking several lives to save one.

Featuring one of the most harrowing opening sequences in cinema history, the film in question is, of course, Saving Private Ryan. Matt Damon stars as the missing paratrooper, Private James Francis Ryan, while names like Vin Diesel, Bryan Cranston, Nathan Fillion, Edward Burns, and Tom Sizemore make up just some of the supporting cast.

Grossing $482 million at the box office, Saving Private Ryan was also nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including one for Best Picture. Though it lost the grand prize to Shakespeare in Love, Spielberg did take home the Oscar for Best Director.

As if that wasn’t enough, Saving Private Ryan also has the distinction of holding near-perfect scores across the board on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics gave it a Certified Fresh rating of 94%, while audiences gave it 95% and called it everything from “a monumental war epic” to “one of the greatest films of all time.” With praise like that, its removal from streaming next week is all the more heartbreaking.

‘Saving Private Ryan’ Is Officially Being Wiped From Peacock

Currently, Saving Private Ryan is available to stream in the United States on both Peacock and Paramount+. All that will change next week, though, as the film is set to depart Peacock on Nov. 1, meaning the last day to watch it will be Oct. 31. These things regularly happen in the streaming world as licenses expire and things shift around, which only makes the argument for preserving physical media that much more important.

There’s no word yet on whether the film will also be removed from Paramount+ in the near future, so it’s best to give it a first or tenth viewing before it’s too late. That is, if you don’t already own it (and you really should).

Next up for Hanks following the massively successful Toy Story 5 this year is the sports comedy The Comebacker. Also starring Callum Turner, the film focuses on a pitcher whose life is upended when he’s hit in the head by a line drive on the mound (that’s not very funny). You can look for it to open nationwide on July 30, 2027.