Tom Hanks

Hanks stars as Professor Robert Langdon in the highly anticipated film adaptation of Fan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. The film grosses over $758 million and is well received by Brown’s readers.

Hanks stars as the mystical, mysterious train conductor in the motion capture computer-animated musical adaptation of Chris Ban Allsburg’s classic children’s book The Polar Express.

Working again with director Stephen Spielberg.  In The Terminal Hanks plays a foreign man who is denied entry into America after arriving at the JFK International Airport. He also cannot go back to his home country due to a revolution.

Hanks teams with Steven Spielberg and Leonardo DiCaprio in a biographical crime drama based on the life of Frank Abagnale in Catch Me If You Can. DiCaprio plays Abagnale, who performed cons worth millions who is tracked down by an FBI agent (Hanks).

Starring with Paul Newman, Jude Law and Daniel Craig, Road to Perdition is set during the Great Depression when organized, mob-related crime was heavy, Hanks plays a top-notch hit man enforcing the ways of the Irish mob.

Starring in his iconic role as a Fed Ex employee stranded on an uninhabited island, Hanks captivates audiences in Cast Away. Grossing $429 million with little acting support besides a volleyball named Wilson that Hank’s character develops an emotional bond with, the film is a massive success.

When we started making Cast Away, I just thought it would be a funny, unique movie about a guy who spends four years alone on an island. I didn’t realize that it would also be an examination of what solitude can do to you and why I’m overjoyed to have a wife and four kids. … We don’t have a host and it’s hard to vote yourself off the island when you’re the only one on it.

Hanks stars in a film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Green Mile, the tale of a death row corrections officer during the Great Depression and the supernatural events he witnessed.

I had a good feeling about what it was going to try to do, but then you had to go off and get it done. You’re not going to make a good movie unless you start out with a good movie on paper and this was that.

In Toy Story 2, Hanks returns as the voice of Sheriff Woody who has been stolen by a collector, leaving Buzz and the gang on the trail to rescue him.

Hanks co-stars with Meg Ryan for a third time in You’ve Got Mail, a romantic comedy playing off the trademark AOL greeting of incoming emails. The two play e-mailing lovers who are completely unaware that they know each other.

Continuing in serious roles, Hanks plays as a World War II soldier during the invasion of Normandy in the epic Saving Private Ryan. Earning $481 million, the film is a massive hit:

Hanks lends his voice to an animated Sheriff Woody in Disney’s Toy Story. The film was a major hit for both Hanks and Disney, grossing over $360 million. Of the premiere, Hanks said:

The audience seemed to be captivated. Adult-voiced sobs could be heard during the quiet moments after Buzz Lightyear fell and lay broken on the stairway landing.

Hanks and Howard reunite for the epic role of astronaut Jim Lovell in Apollo 13, Hanks stars in the historic, disaster docudrama.

Hanks plays a naive, slow-witted man in the ground-breaking film, Forrest Gump. The film chronicles the life and times of a mostly coincidentally lucky man through the Vietnam war, his own shrimping business, and finding the love of his life.

When I read the script for Gump, I saw it as one of those kind of grand, hopeful movies that the audience can go to feel some hope for their lot and their position in life.

Starring with Denzel Washington, Hanks performs in one of the first mainstream Hollywood productions to acknowledge homosexuality, homophobia, and HIV/AIDS, in Philadelphia. Hanks portrays a gay lawyer with AIDS who sues his firm for discrimination. To play the role, Hanks lost 35 pounds to appear sickly.

Teamed again with Meg Ryan, Hanks plays a widower looking for love from an anonymous writer in Sleepless in Seattle. Grossing over $227 million, the film is a critical and box office hit that is considered a classic romantic comedy. After initially feeling he wasn’t right for the tole, Hanks changed his mind:

The guy is enmeshed in grieving, and no one has to work hard in buying that attractive premise, as opposed to a guy who gets off the airline and picks up the wrong suitcase and it’s full of uranium.

Hanks plays a washed up baseball coach helping to lead the first woman’s baseball team to glory in A League of their Own. Hanks old Vanity Fair that he was in his:

modern era of movie making because enough self discovery has gone on. My work has become less pretentiously fake and over the top.

Hanks stars opposite Bruce Willis in another critical and commercial flop in The Bonfire of the Vanities. Hanks plays a greedy Wall Street business man who gets hit by a car.

In their first film together, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan star in Joe Versus the Volcano, in which Hanks’ character is diagnosed with a terminal disease and goes to a tropical island to throw himself into a volcano instead. Along the way, he meets and falls in love with Meg Ryan’s beautiful character. The film is one of Hanks’ few box office flops.

Hanks stars opposite a K9 companion in Turner & Hooch, where he plays an obsessively neat investigator who is partnered with a slobbery dog to solve a murder. The film had great box office success, grossing $71 million.

The ‘Burbs is the beginning of a string of films starring Hanks that gained little box office success. In The ‘Burbs, Hanks stars as an average home owner trying to find out more about his mysterious cul-de-sac sharing neighbors.