He's hardly had a single flop. Nearly all of Tom Hanks films have raked in the big bucks at the box office. Extraordinarily versatile, Hanks shines by playing characters we can all relate to. He turns 60 on July 9.
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Star Tom Hanks still wows audiences at 65
He could be our neighbor, our brother, our friend. Tom Hanks is someone we can all relate to — and is one of Hollywood's biggest stars. He turns 65 on July 9.
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The guy next door
Tom Hanks is one of American cinema's biggest stars. He has managed to stay scandal-free and has enjoyed quite a picture-book career since the 1980s. One of his most unforgettable roles was as the chocolate-loving, long-distance running Forrest Gump in the 1994 film.
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Hanks' first big splash
Tom Hanks' breakthrough came underwater. In 1984, his friend, director Ron Howard, cast him in the romantic comedy "Splash." Hanks played an unlucky guy who falls in love with a mermaid. Though Daryl Hannah stole the show as the mermaid, Hanks proved he could swim with the big shots.
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Making it big
Four years after "Splash" came the next major step in the California native's career. In "Big," Hanks played a boy who finds himself in the body of a grown man. The film was a box office success and showed Hollywood that Hanks was a lucrative name.
In 1993, Hanks revealed his softer side in "Sleepless in Seattle," co-starring Meg Ryan. They played a couple who fall in love over the phone before they ever meet in person. As Sam Baldwin, a widowed architect looking for love, Hanks showed the world that he could master romantic roles as well.
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First Oscar for 'Philadelphia'
Hanks' next film was a whopper. In "Philadelphia" (1993), he moved viewers to tears as an attorney battling AIDS. It was the first Hollywood film to grapple with the topic — and brought Hanks the Oscar for best actor.
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Working with Steven Spielberg
When Hanks raked in two Oscars the following year for "Forrest Gump," Hollywood's top producers and directors were fighting over him and the actor could choose his roles carefully. In 1998, he teamed up with friend and director Steven Spielberg and played the lead in the World War II drama "Saving Private Ryan."
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Alone on the island
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges for an actor is to carry an entire film by themselves. Hanks masters that in "Cast Away," in which he plays a man who survives an airplane crash and lands on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific. The full-length film is nearly a monologue.
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Co-starring with Leonardo DiCaprio
Spielberg also directed "Catch Me If You Can," in which Hanks plays an FBI investigator who's after a con man played by Leonardo DiCaprio. The pair were the perfect fit: DiCaprio as the charismatic check frauder and Hanks as the honest official.
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Stuck at the airport
Hanks' next project saw him once again stranded in a threatening environment. In "The Terminal," a comedy directed by Spielberg, Hanks plays a man who is trapped at the JFK airport in New York when he's denied entry into the US but cannot return to his own country because of a military coup.
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At sea as Captain Phillips
After so much success as an actor, Hanks dabbled a bit in producing and voiceovers. But acting remains his first love. Another of his best films is "Captain Phillips" (2013), in which he plays a ship captain who is kidnapped by terrorists.
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Tom Hanks in Germany
In 2014, Tom Hanks joined Spielberg in Germany to play an attorney in the Cold War drama "Bridge of Spies." The filming took place at the Babelsberg Studios in Berlin — and even Chancellor Angela Merkel stopped by for a visit. The film was released a year later. Hanks is pictured here at its 2015 premiere in Berlin.
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Stranded in the desert
Another of Hanks' projects also had a connection to Germany. In German director Tom Tykwer's culture-clash comedy "A Hologram for the King" (2016), Hanks plays a downtrodden salesman who gets stuck in the Middle East. The actor had partnered with Tykwer four years before for the fantasy film "Cloud Atlas."
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COVID-19 and its impact on the film industry
"Greyhound" is based on events during a conflict between US military ships and German submarines in World War II. Scheduled for movie theaters in 2020, Sony sold the film to Apple after cinemas had to close during the pandemic. The lavishly produced movie starring Hanks launched on July 10, 2020, exclusively on Apple TV+. Studios wanted finished films to be shown to prevent even bigger losses.
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News in the Wild West
The multi-Oscar-nominated film "News of the World" was released in US cinemas on Christmas 2020, with Netflix scooping up international distribution rights for release outside the US in February 2021. In the western drama, Hanks plays Captain Kidd, a Civil War veteran who makes a living traveling and reading the newspaper to locals. He takes orphan Johanna (played by Helena Zengel) under his wing.
It used to be James Stewart who played the everyday hero. Then came Tom Hanks, and now his successor is arguably the likeable Matt Damon.
Tom Hanks isn't quite as attractive as George Clooney and doesn't act as virtuously as Robert de Niro. Leonardo DiCaprio has more charisma than he does, and Hanks isn't nearly as buff as Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Nevertheless, Tom Hanks is an unbeatable Hollywood superstar - perhaps the biggest at the moment.
Tom Hanks got a cute co-star in his early film 'Turner & Hootch' (1989)Image: Imago/EntertainmentPictures
Tom Hanks: the guy next door
That has a lot to do with his character type. Like James Stewart in the 1950s and 60s and Matt Damon in more recent years, Tom Hanks has average looks - which the vast majority of viewers can closely identify with.
Most of us can only dream of looking as good as Clooney or DiCaprio. But Hanks is the guy next door - and those are often the kinds of roles he takes on.
Hanks plays normal people like you and me that find themselves stuck in unusual situations.
Lost in space: Tom Hanks in 'Apollo 13'Image: Imago/UnitedArchives
He's been stranded on an uninhabited island ("Cast Away"), in outer space ("Apollo 13"), in Normandy at the beginning of the Allied invasion ("Finding Private Ryan"), and in the clutches of global bureaucracy ("Terminal").
Despite the rather desperate circumstances, Hanks always comes out on top.
He's at his best when he encounters the confusion and conflict around him with astonishment, questioning eyes, reservation and a touch of shyness. And when he goes a step further, sometimes even greater things happen.
As Forrest Gump, he plays a man with a slight mental handicap who faces the major historical changes of century. In "Big," he portrays a boy caught in the body of a grown man. And in "Philadelphia," he raises awareness for AIDS with his brilliant performance of someone suffering from the disease.
Hanks' first collaboration with Tykwer was 'Cloud Atlas,' co-starring Halle BerryImage: picture-alliance/dpa/X-Verleih
Hanks teams up with German director
Currently, Hanks' German fans can look forward to his upcoming collaboration with director Tom Tykwer.
After "Cloud Atlas," the American actor is teaming up with the German filmmaker for the second time with "A Hologramm for the King." The role of salesman Alan Clay, who gets stranded in the Saudi Arabian desert, was perfect for Hanks: he plays an awkward, rather unhappy guy who rises to the challenges he faces and comes out smarter and cleverer.
Tales of ordinary people doing extra things have been at the heart of cinema since its creation. They're what Tom Hanks, the film world's everyman, does best - which has been his secret to success for decades.
