Best Tom Hanks Movies of All Time

When all is said and done, Tom Hanks may go down as the best actor of our generation.  Unlike other actors who are typecasted, Tom is a chameleon.  He's been a cast away on an island, a conflicted Army captain in occupied France, and... Forrest Gump, whatever he is.  Just think what would have happened to Timmothy Robbins' career if Hanks had taken Andy Dufrense in The Shawshenk Redemtion?

The intent of this blog is to identify the five best Tom Hanks movies in order, but focusing on his particular characterization.  For example, The Da Vinci Code was a pretty good movie, but won't make this list because Hanks couldn't make Robert Langdon an exceptional, interesting character.  That movie's focus was on the action and adventure set forth by the clues Langdon uncovers, but in no way is Langdon a memorable character, with the possible exception of having unfortunate hair.  But who am to critique that?

Anyways, the order is from the best to the fifth best.  As always feel free to differ.

1. Forrest Gump (1994)- Could there be a more interesting character?  A small boy from Alabama, Forrest defines destiny.  He's a boy who overcomes his disability and the torturous hometown bullies.  Because he is bullied, he is a teenager who shows off his speed at the right time in front of the right coach.  Because of this coach he becomes an All American football player and graduates college.  Because he graduates college he is handed a pamplet on being all he can be.  Because of that Army recruiter, he ends up saving half of his platoon in Viet Nam and getting "shot in the buttocks."  Because of that wound he learns to play ping pong.  Because of ping pong he becomes the best in the world.  Because he is the best in the world he ends up with a big endorsement check and can buy a shrimp boat.  Because he buys a shrimp boat, he becomes a "gazillionaire."  Because he becomes a gazillionaire, he gets bored and decided to run across America about five times, just for fun.  And let's not forget about Jenny.  Sure, I left out a lot and trivialized everything in the movie, but the movie Forrest Gump is an epic and the movie's namesake is by far the most interesting character in modern cinema.  Hanks is brilliant in this role.

2.  Cast Away (2000)- This is one of those movies that people either love or hate.  Despite Helen Hunt's minimal role in the movie, I love it.  A Fed Ex Systems Engineer whose life is run by the seconds on a clock, Chuck Noland finds himself shipwrecked on a small island in the South Pacific Ocean where time stands still.  I love the irony.  Chuck has to adapt to survival mode, learning lessons along the way (usually the hard way) until he is able to set sail back to civilization.  The human side of Hanks really comes out in this movie as the audience shares every painful moment.  The fact that he lost something like forty pounds for the "four years later" part of the movie is a testiment to how seriously we should take him as an actor.  I have two enduring questions: first, what was in that darned package with the wings on it, and second, which road does he take in the end?  I have to believe in my heart of hearts that he follows the hot cowchick back to her house.  That's how I would write that ending.

3. Saving Private Ryan (1998)- Unbelievable that I could rate this as low as number three.  Capt. John H. Miller has a job to find a private who has lost his brothers in action in war-torn France so he can send the kid home to his parents.  To do so is almost an impossible mission.  He has to show the professionalism of an officer around his enlisted men who don't believe in the mission and on many occasions want to defect.  He has a mysterious past that he offers up only in the most dire of circumstances when nothing else will keep his men happy.  He has to be moral, ethical, and professional around his men, and chooses to cry only when his men aren't looking because he can't show weakness around them.  They depend on him too much.  Then there's the nervous twitch.  When all is said and done, Saving Private Ryan might be the best war movie of all time, and while Hanks' performance of the hero Capt. Miller is marvelous, it only makes number three on this list.

4. A League of Their Own (1992)- Not just a chick flick.  Ex-ballplayer Jimmy Dougan is given a last chance when the owner he played for offers him the managerial position of the Rockford Peaches of the newly formed All American Girls Fastpitch Baseball League.  A classic case of a man with all the talent in the world who didn't appreciate it and has become a mysogynistic lush with bad knees.  Who better to coach girls?  Hanks plays Jimmy Dougan brilliantly, comically.  His maturation from the coach who shows up drunk to the games and sleeps on the bench to one who sees the value in these "ballplayers" is exciting to watch and makes him one of the more memorable protagonists.  Plus, without this movie we would have never been given the line, "There's no crying in baseball!"

5. Big (1988)- One of Hanks' earlier roles, he plays Josh Baskin, a boy who makes a wish on a carnival machine and wakes up the next morning a fully-grown man.  Baskin has to face the corporate world with the brain of a twelve year-old, and eventually sees that adulthood sucks, despite the paychecks.  From his innocence in bringing home his hot co-worker and then taking the top bunk so she can have the bottom one, to playing in his office with his bet friend at work, to the ever famous floor piano at FAO Schwarz, Hanks does what every male adult craves to do: act like a boy again.  Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to the pool to do a cannon ball off the diving board.

Honorable Mention (in order of year it came out)
The Money Pit (1986)
  -Walter Fielding, Jr.
Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
  -Sam Baldwin
Apollo 13 (1995)
  -Jim Lovell
The Green Mile (1999)
  -Chuck Noland
Road to Perdition (2002)
  -Michael Sullivan