Tom Hanks Rates His Own Movies: Only 4 Out of 80+ Are “Pretty Good”
Tom Hanks has been a Hollywood mainstay for decades, starring in more than 80 films. While audiences have loved many of his movies, the actor himself is modest about his work. In a recent interview with PEOPLE, Hanks said he considers only four of his films “pretty good.”
“No one knows how a movie is made — though everyone thinks they do,” he said. “I’ve made a ton of movies (and four of them are pretty good, I think) and I’m still amazed at how films come together.”
Hanks described filmmaking as a mix of joy and struggle. “From a flicker of an idea to the flickering image onscreen, the whole process is a miracle,” he said.
“It is very hard work over a very long period of time that consists of so many moments of joy slapped up against an equal number of feelings of self-loathing. It is the greatest job in the world and the most confounding of labors that I know of.”
His Hollywood experiences also inspired his first novel, The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece, published May 9, 2023.
The story follows a World War II veteran and his comic book artist nephew, whose illustrated story about the veteran is adapted into a modern superhero film. Hanks explained, “Every character in the book does something I’ve experienced while making a movie, as well as discovered a philosophy or learned an important lesson. Even the foolish moments are some kind of stunt I’ve pulled or mistake I’ve survived.”
On a previous episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, Hanks shared which films he values most, excluding Forrest Gump. He named Cloud Atlas, A League of Their Own, and Cast Away, saying his choices were based on personal experiences during filming.
About Cloud Atlas, he said, “It was the first time I’d ever shot extensively in Germany and I was surrounded by history. But the work itself, we were part of this big, massive ensemble of fantastic people who were just trying to do the hardest, best work on a deep throw.”
Hanks’ long list of films also includes Splash, The Green Mile, Big, Catch Me If You Can, Sleepless in Seattle, Saving Private Ryan, and the Toy Story franchise. His most recent projects include Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis and Robert Zemeckis’ live-action Pinocchio.
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