Better than Saving Private Ryan

I recently watched both films for the first time on back to back nights, and seriously, this movie was definitely deserving of the Oscar. Besides the first 30 minutes, SPR was not that good, definitely not one of Speilberg's very best (Schindler's List, Jurassic Park, Jaws, and Catch Me if You Can are all much much better) Shakespeare on Love had the better screenplay by far, it's one of the best of all time, it's so incredible. The performances are better than SPR, the overall look of the movies aren't really to be compared in my opinion, but you certainly can't ignore the great costumes and set design of a movie like SIL, the only edge I'd give to SPR is for directing with all those intense war scenes to handle, but the while the directing is only marginally better than SIL, SIL's screenplay is quite a bit better than SPR.