Tom Hanks plays Captain John H. Miller in Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan.
Captain Miller leads a small group of U.S. soldiers sent behind enemy lines to find Private James Francis Ryan and bring him home. Ryan’s three brothers have already been killed in the war, so military commanders want to prevent the family from losing another son.
Miller is portrayed as a former schoolteacher whose wartime identity remains partly hidden from his men. The mission forces the unit to weigh military orders, personal responsibility, and the lives of soldiers who must carry them out.
Saving Private Ryan was released in 1998. Its opening D-Day sequence and combat scenes were widely praised for their intensity and historical realism. The cast also includes Matt Damon as Ryan, Tom Sizemore as Sergeant Horvath, and Edward Burns as Private Reiben.