The Best Tom Hanks Movies, As Ranked By Dad

July 3, 2018

Tom Hanks. Everybody loves Tom Hanks. When Esquire Magazine declared him America’s Dad in a September 2016 article, we all rejoiced.

It’s a long, hot summer, so do yourself a favor and spend some of it inside chilling in the A/C with a Hanks-A-Thon. And here they are, in no particular order, dad’s favorite Tom Hanks movies:

1 – Castaway – Dad-tastic survival skills, fun at the beach and the best dad beard ever put on film. The Hanks-osterone levels in this movie are off the charts.
2 – Bachelor Party – Dad was young and crazy once, just like young bachelor Tom in this classic comedy. Who hasn’t played tennis and just once thought about crushing that ball out of the court with a baseball swing? Tom Hanks wins the pennant!
3 – A League Of Their Own – If baseball had an official 10 Commandments, “There’s no crying in baseball” would be in the first five somewhere.
4 – Batman – Many scoffed in 1988 when Tim Burton cast a comedic actor to play the Dark Knight but…oh, that was Michael Keaton? Well it should have been Tom Hanks, so we’re still counting this one as a Hanks Homer.
5 – Sully – America’s Fatherly Fave lands a plane with no working engines (perhaps he should have been flying that plane in Castaway?). For degree of difficulty, they could have also made it a plane filled with snakes and Tom Terrific still would have touched down safely in the Hudson River.
6 – Those movies based on the Dan Brown books where he has the long hair – not those. Tom, like dad, is not 100% mistake-free. Tom should have turned down the role, the character was more up Nic Cage’s alley.
7 – The ‘Burbs – Tom/dad at his best! He saves the neighborhood from the crazy cult despite being hamstrung by the J.R. Smith of acting, Corey Feldman, and he keeps the Hanks Humor Laugh-o-meter dialed up to 11.
8 – Big. Need we say more? No, we needn’t.

Honorable Mentions due to angry, popular demand on Facebook: Forrest Gump, Apollo 13