{"id":2231122,"date":"2026-01-12T04:17:55","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T04:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2231122"},"modified":"2026-01-12T04:17:55","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T04:17:55","slug":"masterpiece-war-film-better-than-saving-private-ryan-is-streaming-films-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/masterpiece-war-film-better-than-saving-private-ryan-is-streaming-films-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Masterpiece’ war film better than Saving Private Ryan is streaming | Films | Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cA genuine timeless classic\u201d is available to watch for free and it\u2019s been deemed as the \u201cgreatest film of all time\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Steven Spielberg<\/a>\u2019s Second World War film Saving Private Ryan<\/a> starring Tom Hanks<\/a> is undoubtedly a fan-favourite with the \u201chaunting\u201d movie airing this evening, Sunday, January 11, at 10pm on BBC<\/a> Two.<\/p>\n

However, fans have been hailing another film as the \u201cbest war movie ever made\u201d and what\u2019s even better is that it\u2019s free to stream at the click of a button.<\/p>\n

\u201cI escape into this movie whenever I feel really down, it’s a great spirit lifter and one of the greatest films of all time\u201d, someone shared.<\/p>\n

Another commented: \u201cThis must be my favourite movie of all time.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving seen it for the first time, in I guess 1987, I was captivated by this brilliant piece of work. In the years after, I probably have seen it a million times.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Released in 1963 but set during the Second World War, The Great Escape sees a group of Allied soldiers determined to break out of a German POW camp, not just to escape but to distract the Nazis to search for fugitives.<\/p>\n

War film buffs can watch The Great Escape for free via BBC iPlayer but it is also available on Netflix<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The plot revolves around American Captain Virgil Hilts and British Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett, portrayed by Steve McQueen and Richard Attenborough respectively.<\/p>\n

Both characters were inspired by real-life heroic figures with Attenborough\u2019s Bartlett representing Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, the mastermind behind the actual \u201cGreat Escape\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, McQueen\u2019s Hilts is a composite character inspired by several real-life Allied pilots.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

A war film fanatic took to Facebook to ask if viewers preferred Saving Private Ryan, The Dirty Dozen or The Great Escape and an abundance of people answered the latter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Great Escape. Stellar film, and enormously satisfying\u201d, someone remarked.<\/p>\n

Another agreed: \u201cI\u2019ve seen them all and I always judge a film by whether I will drop everything to see it again. The Great Escape fills the bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

A third wrote: \u201cA genuine timeless classic. This is one of those films that I can happily watch time and time again\u201d, as someone else simply labelled it \u201cone of the best war movies ever made\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Great Escape is available to watch on BBC iPlayer. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.express.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cA genuine timeless classic\u201d is available to watch for free and it\u2019s been deemed as the \u201cgreatest film of all time\u201d.\u00a0 Steven Spielberg\u2019s Second World War film Saving Private Ryan starring Tom Hanks is undoubtedly a fan-favourite with the \u201chaunting\u201d movie airing this evening, Sunday, January 11, at 10pm on BBC Two. However, fans have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2231123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[25507,344821,410123,376866,431645,45327,431647,306358,431646,431644],"class_list":["post-2231122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-bbc","tag-bbc-iplayer","tag-films-section","tag-saving-private-ryan","tag-saving-private-ryan-tonight","tag-the-great-escape","tag-the-great-escape-bbc-iplayer","tag-tom-hanks","tag-where-to-watch-the-great-escape","tag-world-war-2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Masterpiece-war-film-better-than-Saving-Private-Ryan-is-streaming.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2231122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2231122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2231122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2231124,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2231122\/revisions\/2231124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2231123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2231122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2231122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2231122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}