Every generation has those precious few great actors that you get to grow up watching from the time you are a child, to young adult, and so on. My generation has been lucky to have a few truly great actors and without a doubt one of the actors at the top of the list is Tom Hanks. He has been nominated for 5 Academy Awards for Best Actor and has won two, Philadelphia and Forest Gump, and he should have won a third for Saving Private Ryan. Many of the movies he is in are up for Academy Awards for Best Picture and he has worked with some of the best directors around in Stephen Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, and Frank Darabont. If you see his name involved in a movie, or TV mini-series for that matter, you can make a safe bet that the project will be great.
My introduction to Tom Hanks was the late 1970’s show Bosom Buddies which is funny because I vaguely remember that the TV show was actually supposed to be the springboard for his fellow cast member Peter Scolari and even though in my head I thought the show lasted 5 years it only lasted 2 and 1/2. My next experience with Tom Hanks hooked me forever and maybe made me want to get married just so I could enjoy what I thought was the traditional bachelor party full of fire trucks, drugs, guns, booze, and hookers (this is a line from the movie.) I watched him through the 80’s in good comedies, such as The Money Pit, and not so good comedies, Dragnet, and one absolutely horrible film, Joe versus the Volcano. I became a huge fan after I watched the move Nothing In Common. Then there was Big, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, and Saving Private Ryan and I was forever sold on movies that he was in. I became a big fan of his and realized that I am lucky to have a great actor to watch in my life for many, many years.
For me trying to pick my favorite Hanks films is difficult for many reason one of them being that I haven’t seen a few recent ones and a couple old ones that I should have. I have been trying very hard to watch The Green Mile, Philadelphia (although I am thinking I saw this once but probably 20 years ago so I don’t remember,) Captain Phillips, and Charlie Wilson’s War just to name a few. There are a couple of films I have seen but just don’t remember like Cast Away and Big for example, that I can’t put in this list either although I am pretty sure they should be. But I ran out time to watch them again.
Another expectation that I am eliminating are the films that his performance were great, vocal or otherwise, but I wasn’t a fan of them or just don’t think they belong on this list. The great performance but lousy movie award goes to A League of Their Own, my review you can read here, and the Toy Story movies that even though he is great in his vocal performance I am just not sure I can include them in my Top five films. I will also say that my honorable mentions and #5 movie could all be interchanged it is that hard for me. Even in writing this list I have changed my mind about four times
So with this all being said, I would like to present to you my Top Five Favorite Tom Hanks films (as of November 2016):
#5 – You’ve Got Mail (1998):
I know what you are thinking, of the two Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks romantic comedies this isn’t even the better of the two (I forget that Joe versus the Volcano is supposed to be a rom/com for the two but I consider it a disaster on all levels.) I know and I’m sorry but for a rom/com I find Sleepy in Seattle too slow and nowhere near as funny. This may be an overly simple plot but I find it charming, funny, it used cutting edge technology, at that time, to create a plot point that ironically is the main way people meet today. The love interests met in an old AOL chatroom and now-a-days everyone is using a dating app to meet people. At the end of the day I watch this movie a lot and that’s why its number 5 on my list.
Briefly, this movie involves the son of the and part owner of a big box book store called Fox Books (Barnes & Noble like) named Joe Fox, played by Hanks, and the owner of a small children’s book store, Shop Around the Corner, named Kathleen Kelly, played by Ryan, who meet in an America Online chat room. They don’t share any information about each other so they have no idea that they become rivals when a Fox Books store is built in the same NYC neighborhood as her bookstore. The drama begins as they begin to fall for each other anonymously online but have a strong dislike for each other professionally.
This movie makes me smile from almost beginning to end. All of it has to do with Tom Hanks and how he does what he does when it comes to quick wit and physical comedy. I guess I shouldn’t say all because the writer does a great job of playing on the stereotypes that are prevalent in New York’s west side. Among the co-stars I loved Dabney Coleman who played the Dad to Joe Fox. Every scene he was in, and there weren’t a lot, I thought he was able to match wits with Tom Hanks with the humor. He wasn’t so much the quick wit as he was the blunt observation humor of the group. He also inadvertently added the insight Hanks character needed to chase after Kathleen. I will also say that David Chappelle gives his best performance he has had in the movies with his small roll in this film as the manager of this particular Fox Books store. He allowed the script to create the humor and was never over the top. Lastly I would like to mention Greg Kinnear who was the pretentious douchebag NY Liberal writer and boyfriend to Kathleen Kelly. He was a humorous representation of what NY liberals are that you wouldn’t see now because those types of people don’t like to make fun of themselves. He was particularly funny when he found out that Kathleen’s mother figure Birdie fell in love with Generalissimo Franco of Spain when she was in Spain. He was briefly hilarious. Oh and quickly I’ll mention Parker Posey as the neurotic girlfriend to Joe Fox. She was highly annoying and that is what she is supposed to be. Even annoying she is still hot.
One thing I liked about the story is that it doesn’t take the easy way out and have Kathleen Kelly immediately after she finds out her rival Joe Fox is also the secret love over the internet. The writer took the time to allow Joe Fox to become friends with her before revealing to her that her one time big rival and killer of her business is the love of her life.
Unlike Benn who can remember why he disliked or like a movie he saw 14 years ago and write a 1000 word review on them, I struggle writing reviews if I haven’t seen it recently or, as in this case, I am a big fan of the movie. In order to write this for my Top 5 List I have seen the movie about 6 times in the last 36 hours and only stopped to watch the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving. I am a big fan of this film which is why its number 5.
#4 – The Da Vinci Code (2006):
This movie plays at my heart strings on many levels. I am a sucker for action movies that take place in Europe. I just love watching car chases, planes, trains, motorcycles, any kind of action that involves roads and buildings that have been around for 300 years or more. This movie also plays on my love of history and mixing history into the plot of the story. Then finally you have a smart detective movie that involves twists and turns and betrayal around every corner. Plus, and this is sinful to millions of people, but I have read the book (ok listened to the unabridged book on CD,) and watched the movie and I like the movie much more.
The second reason why I love this film is the cast itself. I love Hanks as this brainy professor who is almost a human encyclopedia who is brave and courageous but is not a physical presence in the film. He is not going to kick anyone’s ass. Sure he can defend himself but I don’t see him winning a physical fight. I love Audrey Tatou as well in this film. Being the female lead and in a role in which she is more of the brute force of this duo is fun. I think she is wonderful as this simultaneously strong yet confused and vulnerable in trying to find out the truth. One change that the movie made that was a great improvement over the book was changing the character of Sir Leigh Teabing from being a younger overweight professor to an elderly thin and handicapped man portrayed by Ian McKellen. No matter how many times I watch the movie, and its lots, I am completely memorized by the whole scene where McKellen, as Teabing, explains the true story of the Holy Grail to Langdon and Neveu I am watching like I have never seen it before with wide eyes becoming a true believer of what he is saying. Sure its from a book but that is still great story telling.
Since I plan on doing a review I won’t go into to many more details but much like my 5th favorite Tom Hanks, there are better movies in my honorable then this movie but I love watching this movie over and over and isn’t that what these lists are about?
#3 Nothing In Common (1986):
As I said in my review which you can read here, this is the first movie when I realized that Tom Hanks could really act. I did not see this movie when it came out but I did see it before his breakout roles in Philadelphia and Forest Gump. This movie showed what is best in Tom Hanks and for me his swing spot is when he is in a movie that is equally funny and dramatic. That is this movie. His performance as well as Jackie Gleason, who played his father, was mesmerizing for me to watch. I said in my review that his quick wit was on display and he was perfectly cast as an advertising executive who makes commercials. I want to believe that some of the comedy in the film, especially in the beginning was improvisation because if it wasn’t I want to know why the writers haven’t gone on to better things. In fact they disappeared. Which for me lends credence to the belief that I have that a lot of the comedy was improve.
I mentioned Gleason and I have to say it was great to see him in this roll. I vaguely remember him on the TV show The Honeymooners with the reruns in the 1970’s but my large knowledge of him comes from the Smokey and The Bandit movies because I never saw the film he was nominated for an Academy Award, The Hustler. In Smokey and The Bandit he played an over the top comedic character of a Texas county Sheriff named Buford T. Justice. Anyway, the most amazing thing to me is that this was the last film and while he was filming the movie he had already been diagnosed with three forms of cancer. He was in retirement and at first refused director Garry Marshall’s request to come shoot the film but was persuaded when Marshall told him that if he didn’t shoot this film the last film in his long career would have been Smokey and The Bandit 3, a film so God Awful that Burt Reynolds declined to be in it. Now maybe he played the part of an unhealthy father because he was dying in real life but to me he was the perfect foil to Hanks.
I can’t remember the last time this movie made the classic TV circuit if ever, but if you want to watch a great Tom Hanks film before he was great and have a taste of 80’s nostalgia with the music and the hair and the carefree attitude of sex and adultery and childish behavior in the office, rent this on Netflix or Amazon and enjoy.
#2 Forrest Gump (1994):
True confession time, I didn’t see the movie Philadelphia for quite some time. I didn’t care for the subject because it became oh so politicized and of course my political beliefs were in the wrong back then as they always are all the time. I was annoyed with Tom Hanks for taking on that roll even though it won him his first Academy Award. I can’t tell you why, maybe it was because, and its childish and stupid but my high school sweetheart, who I had broken up with by then, had come out of the closet and I was very resentful of wasting two years of my high school dating a woman who wasn’t sure who she was attracted to. I had plenty of girls to choose from. Anyway, that’s all I have to say about that. I bring up the movie Philadelphia because since I ignored it, Forrest Gump is the movie that I consider to be his iconic film roll that shows how amazing an actor he became.
Forrest Gump, played by Tom Hanks, is considered a stupid man because of his 75 IQ. However this “stupid” man begins a journey that takes him from small town in Alabama to a college football superstar at the University of Alabama to a Congressional Medal of Honor Winner, to Shrimping Boat Captain, and millionaire and all while being almost blissfully unaware of his accomplishments. Along the way he meets the icons, heroes, and villains, of the Baby Boom generation in the likes of Elvis Pressley, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and John Lennon. He takes guidance from his mother, Mrs. Gump, played by Sally Field, and his commander from Vietnam, Lieutenant Dan, played by Gary Sinise. His real inspiration is his girlfriend from childhood Jeannie, played by Robin Wright, and she is a character that suffers all the pitfalls from this era in terms of sex, drugs, and violence from the 60’s and 70’s. If Forrest is unaware of his success and his high highs, the Jeannie is very much aware of her failures and the very low lows. This is a great character movie with a dynamic cast with the best performance by Tom Hanks.
Throughout this list I have talked about how wonderful Tom Hanks is by using his physical skills in creating comedy. Well in this film he uses his physical skills to perfection by showing so many emotions through his face and the way he walked and talked. He did wonderful job keeping is voice the same from beginning to end and I love how he mixed his southern voice with a specific lower tone in his voice to show that he was “slow.” Another thing that he did vocally that was terrific was to be very precise in his articulation of his words. He may be using the wrong words and he may be considered dumb but to me because Hanks was so specific in his articulation that it gave Forrest a quiet confidence because you always knew what he was talking about.
I love the purpose of the story in this film. The character of Jeannie wanted to be a famous musician and to be rich. She constantly was moving around to find herself but she ended up getting into bad situation after bad situation. Forrest Gump on the other hand just lived life that was given to him and he ended up being the famous one. It was great to watch that transpire.
This is a wonderful movie but it isn’t my favorite Hanks movie. In fact my favorite Hanks movie is the one in which he provides almost no humor at all. In this movie he creates humor by being the character of Forest Gump and the situations that happened. I can’t imagine anyone that hasn’t seen this film but if you haven’t please do, it’s a great performance, and a great review of all of the good and bad of the Baby Boomer generation.
#1 Saving Private Ryan (1998):
This is my favorite Tom Hanks film. It is also my favorite military film. If you want to read my review, please go here. I am going to copy and paste the comments from my Top 5 Military film to describe this movie but I will say that this movie is amazing and Tom Hanks is as well. His performance has Captain Miller was amazing. There were several scenes that again showed how he can act brilliantly. It starts right in the beginning as he is on Omaha Beach and he is watching his men get cut to shreds. Then there is the scene in the church where he is talking about how many men he has lost since he took command. My favorite of his when his being confronted by his own men about the loss of two of their own troops trying to find another Private Ryan because he is able to diffuse the situation by giving up the information about his personal life that he kept hidden. This is an amazing movie and it is my favorite Tom Hanks Film.
From my Top 5 Military Movies post:
This movie had me in the first 30 minutes in the film. I have jumped a lot in my days at horror movies but I have never been generally scared at any sitting of any film. That all changed when I saw Saving Private Ryan’s opening scene and the attack on Omaha Beach. I had never seen anything like that before in any movie. The movie theater felt like a battle zone and it almost felt like the bullets were zooming past you. I remember seeing some older gentleman in the movie theater, normally way too old to see a movie like that, and I heard them talking about it after words. I went up to them and asked if they were veterans and they said they were and I asked if that first scene was close to the real thing. They told me no, not at all. But it was the best portrayal a movie has ever shown.
This movie is an example of the kind of courage you need in battle. More than 2000 men died on Omaha beach that day and even though other movies tried to give an example of what it was like, The Longest Day for example, this movie put you there and while I have always respected the men who fought for our country this movie only deepened it. I will never know if I have the kind of courage the men and women have in today’s military have to have in order to the jobs they do in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. I would like to think I would have the training and the will power. But I will never know.
Saving Private Ryan is a movie about a group of Rangers that are looking for a soldier with the 101st Airborne named Private Ryan who jumped into France the night before the D-Day invasion which was June 6, 1944. The group was sent to find the soldier because the soldier had three brothers all of whom had died in on various battlefields, including D-Day itself. Ryan was getting an honorable discharge from the military because of the loss of his brothers. The Rangers job was to go and find this “needle in a haystack.”
The movie is an ensemble cast of pure brilliance. The movie cast was led by Tom Hanks and had Matt Damon, Edward Burns, Vin Diesel, Barry Pepper, Tom Sizemore, Paul Giamatti, Giovanni Ribisi, Dennis Farina and a host of others. The movie was directed by Stephen Spielberg and I feel that this is his second best movie next to another movie about World War II, Schindler’s List. It seemed to me that everyone was perfectly cast especially Hanks as the Captain of the Rangers and Sizemore as his Sargent. They made the downtime between battles meaningful and the movie seem quick. In fact the movie was way to fast and I wished it would have kept going to see the survivors continue on in the war.
This war movie is the movie that all other war movies get compared to from the past and the future. I will always grade any future movie I witness against this film in terms of action, character development, and truth to the history, and authenticity. This film is a true film that I believe gives justice to all those who have served past and present. My full review can be seen here.
Honorable Mention (In no particular order just know that two of these at one point were number 4 and number 5) :
Sully (2016):
This movie was at one point both number 4 and 5. I moved it off because as amazing as this film is I don’t know how I will watch it once I get this film on Bluray. It is an amazing film for many reasons including Hanks and the director Clint Eastwood. This movie is better than both my current four and five’s but I don’t know given the subject matter of the film if I would be watching it as much as I watch the others. I have written a review of the film that you can read here.
Road To Perdition (2002):
Tom Hanks the bad guy. It’s weird to see some of our favorite actors portray bad guys. This reminds me of Robin Williams in the movies One Hour Photo and Insomnia. Although in Tom Hanks case it may be a misnomer to say that he is a bad guy. He is mind you because he is a hit man for an Irish mobster that is an ally of the Capone mob in the 1930’s. Things get fuzzy when his son sneaks into his car when Hanks’s character Michael Sullivan is protecting the mobsters’ son Conner, played by Daniel Craig, and the son ends up killing a rival and forcing Michael to gun down the rivals body guards. Connor ends up sending Michael on a mission that is supposed to get him killed and Connor goes to kill Michael’s family because of Michael’s son seeing the hit. Michael survives the attack but loses his wife and a son who didn’t witness the crime. He then goes on a quest to protect his only son and kill of the mobsters son which draws the wrath of the Capone mob. This is a great father son film and you don’t see it too often but you should definitely pick it up. This was my original number 4 film but I pulled it because as amazing as it is, this is quite a sad film and I don’t watch it as often as I should.
Bridge of Spies (2015):
There was a brief period in time when I stopped going to see new Tom Hanks films. Before I saw this film in the spring of 2015 the last film of his I saw in the movie theater was Angels & Demons. This movie made me regret missing so many of his films since then. This film is pretty freaking amazing and the only reason why I haven’t got it on my list is because I just like the others more. Gun to my head if you told me that this film was better than both my number one and number two choices, in terms of how good the film is, I would probably agree with you. That is how much I believe in how good this film is. I just don’t know how many times I would watch this film versus the others. This is an amazing film if you like History and the Cold War or Stephen Spielberg and Tom Hanks. If you don’t then this film probably wont appeal to you. To read my review click here.
Bachelor Party (2004):
Yes this is the worst film on this list, by far. But I love this film so much. I contemplated making this film my top 5 film but I couldn’t because it was so dumb. But in terms of comedy and creating some wonderful wet dreams for a 13 year old boy who got to see it on HBO, this is a fun movie. I laughed and laughed and laughed and still do every time I watch this film. If you want to read one of my old reviews then click here to read a review of this film.
Apollo 13 (1995):
This film is fun to watch. I would also say that unless you are interested in history you probably wouldn’t like this film. But is an amazing film about NASA and the problems that they overcame in this historical event. Tom Hanks was the serious actor in this film but he was, and I hate to type this again, amazing in it as the commander. Gary Sinise was in this film as well and was wonderful as was Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon. It’s a long film but to me it goes fast because the suspense builds from the beginning and just continues to the last scene which I believe is hard to do when you know the outcome. But it does and this is a great film.
Well that sums up my list of my favorite Tom Hanks films. My guess is that if I were to do this again in 5 years there will be new movies on the list. I feel lucky as a fan of movies to be able to enjoy his work on the big screen. I will make a point to make sure and not miss anymore of his films.