Top 5 Tom Hanks Movies

Tom Hanks is quite possibly the best actor of our time. He has played a variety of roles in a variety of great movies. To narrow down his "best" movies to 5 is no easy task. However, I will give it a go.

When taking into account the quality of the movie and the quality of his acting, these are the five best:

5. Castaway

This is a great love story. But the plane crash is an awesome action sequence. And Hanks is exceptional on the island and when he returns back to civilization.

In this movie must be the only time in the history of movies that viewers cried over a grown man losing a ball.

4. Big

This movie put Hanks on the map. No longer was he known as the "cross-dresser from Bossom Buddies".

Hanks plays a 13 (or about that) year old boy who's trying to make it in New York City after being changed into a grown man (made "Bigger").

The story is great and the performance by Hanks is even better.

3. Philadelphia

Hanks took home an Academy Award for his performance in this movie.

He plays a lawyer who is dying from Aids. He as convincing in this role as he is in his role as a leader of soldiers in my next selection.

2. Saving Private Ryan

This is one of the only movies that stuck with me for days after I saw it. There are great performances all around but Hanks leads the group.

This is a must-see movie and it's one of Hanks' best performances.

1. Forrest Gump

Any movie that can have a catch line like "Life is like a box of chocolates" catch-on for years has to be a great movie.

I don't know that any other actor in Hollywood could've played this role as well as Hanks. He wasn't Tom Hanks in this movie. He was... well, Forrest... Forrest Gu-ump.

I must say that there is one more movie that deserves mentioning here. This movie hangs in the abyss between when Hanks made his break-out performance (Big) and his comeback performance (A League of Their Own). It's a movie called The Burbs and it's great. It's not intellectual in anyway but it's funny - hilarious in parts. And it's still one of my all-time favorites (top 50 anyway).