Factual error: In the very beginning as the landing craft approaches, and they then begin to disembark, no-one has their helmet chip strap secured. Then attacking the beach, and much throughout the movie, no chip straps. There is no way in real battle you would not secure your lid.
Audio problem: When Ryan and Miller make their way to the bridge, they reload and fire their weapons behind sandbags. Miller begins to fire his Thompson but it jams and we see him try to rack the charging handle to fix it. He then tries to fire again but the gun fails to do so; all while we hear the sound of the Thompson firing. The editors added the sound of it firing despite the fact that it jams in the final cut.
Continuity mistake: After they find Private Ryan, Tom Hanks and Tom Sizemore are talking. From one angle, Sizemore has his right hand out as he gesticulates, but from a different angle - the different angles come and go - he has his right hand on his rifle, which is in his lap.
Factual error: Miller and his men finally find Ryan in the scene where Ryan destroys a German half track with a bazooka. The camera does not show Ryan firing the bazooka, but you hear the blast and see the effect of the shot hitting the half track, firing twice in about a three second interval. The problem is that a bazooka is a single shot weapon, and must be reloaded by hand. This takes time, perhaps 20 seconds if not more.
Factual error: Near the end, Melish fires through the wall and kills a German. The blood then streams round the corner way to quickly to be real. It moves at the consistency of water. It then stops abruptly. Not the characteristics of blood.
Visible crew/equipment: When Reiben, Ryan, and Miller are in the ditch a side angle shows them all on the same frame, if you look carefully to the right and behind some rubble, a blue tent is visible which is revealed in the special features to be the tent that dailies are viewed.
Continuity mistake: At the end of the film with the older James Ryan visiting Capt. Miller's grave, Ryan squares himself off with the tombstone to salute. However, in the next shot Ryan is off to the left of his tombstone, so that the camera can take the head-on angle of Miller's tombstone.
Other mistake: When Melish is stabbed by the German soldier, Melish's body isn't consistent with the floor. It's almost as if he his lying underneath the floor.
Continuity mistake: In the final battle Captain Miller is shouting at Mike, who's slumped against the sandbags, dead. The wound on his left shoulder has disappeared.
Suggested correction: Mike was shot in his right shoulder, not his left.
Continuity mistake: At the end when Ryan is looking at captain Miller, in the long shot the ground is wet and there is an upturned helmet near Miller, but in the close up shot over Ryan's shoulder the ground is dry and the helmet is the right way round and white bricks have appeared next to it.
Revealing mistake: The shot of the eight members of the group is reused later in the film when there should only be seven.
Suggested correction: This is much too vague. Where is the repeated shot used?
Continuity mistake: Sunlight changes from shot to shot during the machine gun nest scene. One second it's like cloudy, in the next you see the sunshine and long shadows.
Factual error: Near the end of the movie when an American fighter saves the day, it's a P-51 Mustang. In June, 1944 the most likely ground support fighter would have been the P-47 Thunderbolt. Also, American planes were still painted olive drab at that point. The Mustang in the movie did have black and white invasion stripes, but it's the wrong plane and the wrong color.
Suggested correction: The P-51 was one of the most commonly used fighter planes in the USAF by mid-1944. These planes had been flying in Europe since 1942, starting with the RAF, its original user. There are colored pictures of Mustangs with the paint job depicted in the movie from mid-1944 as well.
Continuity mistake: During the final battle, they stop the tank in its tracks and several approach it. Captain Miller runs up with them. He is about to start shooting into the view finder but doesn't. The scene cuts and the tank shoots at the area where Ryan and Reiben are. Cut back to the tank and Captain Miller is still standing next to the tank, and he shoots in the view window, repeating the action from the previous shot.
Continuity mistake: Right before Capazzo dies he holds up the letter, but it's in a zip-lock bag. After the sniper is killed the medic retrieves the soaking wet, unbagged letter.
Suggested correction: The letter is never in any bag, plastic or otherwise. It's always bare or else he wouldn't be worried if there is blood on it. Zip-lock bags weren't invented until the 1950's anyway.
Factual error: The M1 Garands throughout the film all have post-War era rear sights. The type used during WW2 were called "Lock Bar," distinguished by a "bar" that ran across the right sight knob. M1 Garands manufactured or refurbished after WW2 will lack these types of sights.
Continuity mistake: At the end when Ryan brings the wounded sergeant to the other side of the bridge, Reiben starts to make his turn to provide covering fire for the Captain. He repeats the exact same movement two shots later.
Revealing mistake: When Steamboat Willie shoots a paratrooper running across the bridge who falls off and into the water in the middle right of the bridge you can see a crewmember's right arm in the shot.
Suggested correction: This is not a crew member. This is Captain Miller's arm as he is just getting to his feet to walk towards the detonator.
Revealing mistake: When Mellish is stabbed, there's already a hole in his shirt before he's stabbed.
Continuity mistake: When Mellish is stabbed, at first there's no blood on his shirt, but then there is, even before the knife touches him.
