Tom Hanks Names His Three Favorite Films He Has Made, With a Couple Surprises

I love Tom Hanks. He has been a favorite actor of mine ever since I can remember, having grown up with some of my favorite films being Big, Sleepless in Seattle, A League of Their Own, Splash, The ‘Burbs, and more. And he’s clearly a fan favorite, having gone on to star in award-winning films like Apollo 13, Forrest Gump, Philadelphia, the Toy Story franchise, Catch Me If You Can, and a myriad of other movies. He has a long list of films to choose from as favorites, and when he was recently asked by by Bill Simmons on “The Bill Simmons Podcast” what his top three were, he said:

“I would not do it according to the way the movies came out. I would do by way of the personal experience that I had when I was doing them, which is very different. I would probably say No. 1 would be ‘League of Their Own’ because all I did all summer was play baseball. I shagged flies. I ate turkey dogs. I took infield with (co-star) Robin Knight and a ton of other people. I played baseball all summer long in Evansville, Indiana, and in Wrigley Field. There was a day of doing that. It was a great summer and my entire family still speaks about it.”

He went on to say that his second choice is the 2000 film, Castaway:

“We just had bold adventures when we were making that movie,” he said. “We were out in the middle of the ocean trying to grab shots. And we were off in Fiji on two different occasions and, again, had my whole family with me. There was nothing but adventures every single day.”

His final selection proved to be what some may consider a surprise- the 2012 sci-fi film Cloud Atlas. Hanks cited the experience of making a movie in Germany as something that has stayed with him.

“We shot it on a hope and a dream and nothing but a circle of love in Berlin and Mallorca and Dresden and I want to say, did we go to Dusseldorf? Did we go to Frankfurt?” he said. “That was the first time I’d ever shot extensively in Germany and I was surrounded by history,” he added. “But the work itself was we were part of this big, massive ensemble of fantastic people who were just trying to do the hardest, best work on this deep throw.”

Those are interesting choices, but of course he would choose the ones he had the best experiences making. It’s fun to hear a little of the behind-the-scenes stories on some of these. What is your favorite Tom Hanks movie?