25 years later, ‘Band of Brothers’ still resonates

By Dave Kindy
Jul 23, 2026

As an actor, Ross McCall is used to being recognized on the street. However, the Scottish film and TV star is amazed at the amount of attention he still receives for a character he portrayed a quarter of a century ago in the acclaimed “Band of Brothers” miniseries on HBO.

“I’ve been acting for 39 years and made many movies and TV shows,” he says. “I have a deep connection to all of them, but I certainly don’t have one I talk about 25 years later like this one.”

Based on the 1992 bestselling nonfiction book by Stephen Ambrose, the monumental miniseries tracked the service of soldiers in Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division from Normandy to Berchtesgaden in World War II. The show’s gritty authenticity and immersive storytelling made it an instant hit with critics and viewers alike...

Complete article:

https://www.militarytimes.com/...ers-still-resonates/

Still the finest miniseries ever made.

I've seen it dozens of times, and I still find things that impress me every time.

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Still the finest miniseries ever made.

I agree

Bout time to watch it again, I wonder if it's available on Blu Ray? Hmmm



Just bought it for $22.20 Amazon . I know it's streaming on HBO but I'm hoping Blu Ray is better

The video and especially audio quality of the Blu-Ray are better than streaming, as long as your have a home theater setup capable of taking advantage of that.

Streaming video and especially audio are compressed to minimize the file sizes, which degrades the quality to one extent or another, whereas Blu-Rays are typically uncompressed or minimally compressed.

Yes I have a 7.1 set up.

Looking forward to it. One review on Amazon for the set mentions all of the extra content, timelines, geographical information and info on the individuals. I know it has the interviews with the old Soldiers which is almost the best part of the series.


My stepson, his dad and I were watching this together and the boy went to fast forward (original DVD set) to the next episode and we both loudly scolded him

The sound alone is an achievement.

My best friend told me his dad was a forward observer/artillery caller in Korea.

Years before, he had described one particular night where his position on the line was subjected to mass wave attacks by Chinese troops. During this, he was frantically calling artillery strikes to quell Chinese penetrations. He said afterwards (hours later) it was physically impossible to traverse the land on dirt. If you were walking anywhere, it was on top of enemy dead, 3-4 bodies deep in many places.

About 20 years ago, this man had some major surgery and my friend asked me if I could lend his dad some DVD's to watch while he was stuck healing up. The Band of Brothers collection was pretty much the best I sent out of a huge box of titles like Patton, In Harms Way, etc.

I asked my buddy if he had watched BoB yet and he said his dad had to stop watching Band of Brothers specifically because the sound of the Browning .30 cal machine guns brought back too many bad memories. Like PTSD bad. Though he was enjoying the show up to a certain point, he never requested to watch it again.

That situation alone is pretty powerful proof of accurately reproduced sound, for me anyway.

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the sound of the Browning .30 cal machine guns

I found the sound of the .30 in BoB to be one of the fakest things of the series, it's obviously an airgun. Save Private Ryan on the other had, nails it.

Any WW2 movies or series have a high bar to not be outclassed by Saving Private Ryan, BoB and The Pacific.
Since those came out I can't think of anything else I'd want to see on the subject, much less more than once like I've watched all three of those.

I’ve watched it at least once each year.

As an aside, has anyone seen the new World War II documentary series hosted by Tom Hanks? I’m about to start watching it.

I watch it once a year, typically on Christmas break.

I have the box DVD set and watch the series at least once a year. I also enjoyed The Pacific but rank Band of Brothers as the top miniseries I've ever seen.

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As an aside, has anyone seen the new World War II documentary series hosted by Tom Hanks? I’m about to start watching it.

I’ve been watching it from the beginning. Overall, it hasn’t been too bad, but they totally ignored the Doolittle Raid in the War in the Pacific portion !!!

If you have seen the 1975-76 version of the “World At War” narrated by Lawrence Olivier, you can compare the two.

Olivier’s version concentrates more on the British outlook, while Hank’s version is the American version. Overall, I think the Olivier version is the superior of the two (more actual program time instead of commercials) as it goes more in depth to the overall Holocaust background and how the War affected the populations involved.

Until about 4 years ago, I had only heard about how good the series is. Then I finally watched it. I love that series and I loved being able to see Winters himself in the intros.

The first scene I always think of when the series is brought up is the cleaners scene at the end of the Blithe episode. Everything about it--the dialog, the music, and the camera panning the packages finally landing on Blithe.

I’ve posted this before. Among my fondest memories is watching the entire series with my HS aged son over a Memorial Day weekend. This would be about 15 years ago now. I had seen the series, my son had not. The whole series is composed of powerful stories, but the episode that impacts me the most is one focusing on the medic at Bastogne and the pretty, French nurse.

Band of Brothers and The Pacific. Both are so good; the lead-in music in The Pacific, you know something gut wrenching is coming.

If you need even more, Jared Frederick explains these in his "Reel History" YouTube video series.

I very much enjoy the format in how each episode focuses on a specific member of the company, my favorite being e7 focusing on the company SNCO 1SGT Lipton. He's moving around each platoon checking in on everyone, hearing the gripes & grumbles from the troops while managing orders & how to effect those instructions from the officers...and hearing their grumbles too. Then later on, having to keep everyone tied-together after taking heavy casualties to include loosing a platoon commander, the episode was really effective in showing what a company sergeant has to deal with.

The episode I thought was a great visual into military leadership from a senior enlisted, an area that Hollywood has trouble writing about. It's possibly the only time I think a senior enlisted leader has been effectively & accurately portrayed in motion picture. Full Metal Jacket and An Officer & a Gentleman showed effective instructors but not set in combat, Platoon had two archetypes in Barnes & Elias, John Wayne's Sgt Styker in Sands of Iwo Jima, Gunny Highway in Heartbreak Ridge and Hurt Locker's Sgt James were highly stylized characters. Perhaps Gunny Apone in Aliens gets closest