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Tom Hanks is a Hollywood cultural icon, having starred in some of the best and most recognisable movies of the past four decades.

Moviemakers recognised his charm as early as the 1980s when he caught his big break with the sitcom Bosom Buddies.

It wasn’t too long before he became one of America’s most beloved movie stars.

His movie career really kicked off in 1984 with Splash, playing the role of Allen Bauer who falls in love with a mermaid.

Paste Magazine has more:

It was the first of several films he’d anchor for director Ron Howard, and he’d also partner on multiple projects with luminaries like Steven Spielberg, Nora Ephron, Robert Zemeckis, Penny Marshall and Paul Greengrass—leading everything from comedies to epic war dramas.

When he became the voice of animation’s most treasured toy character we knew he was set, but he didn’t stop there.

Eventually, he also wrote, directed, and starred in two features. Since then, he’s done everything from going to space and trying to catch a smart-arse con artist.

Check out his top five movies ranked in ascending order, according to Paste Magazine.

1. Toy Story 2

2012 brought with it the second addition to the Toy Story franchise, with Tom Hanks as Woody.

A review by Josh Jackson & Jeremy Medina calls the franchise a “revelation of technology”:

 Improving on the original in almost every way, Toy Story 2 took the characters we grew to love in the first film and separated them—usually a recipe for disaster.

But in this case, with Woody discovering the rest of the round-up gang, the new characters are integrated impeccably, and the larger scale of the story allows the sequel to have more gravity.

2. Saving Private Ryan

Shot in 1998, Steven Spielberg and Hanks really let their talent shine with this war drama.

Dom Sinacola called the film “a near-perfect, heart-wrenching feat”:

…Steven Spielberg created a nearly three-hour imagistic portrait of Europe in the waning weeks of World War II, all without once allowing the nightmarish breadth of the conflict to overtake the characters at its heart.

Twenty years later, and the film’s opening 30-minute salvo, detailing in documentary-like grit the D-Day invasion on the beaches of Normandy, still stands as iconic war filmmaking, unflinching but so pristinely focused on the sheer weight of lives lost that it’s a stymying watch even if you know exactly what you’re getting into—even if you’ve seen it before.

3. Catch Me If You Can

This 2002 Spielberg flick is an absolute classic, with Hanks there to reassure us that it is indeed so.

Oktay Ege Kozak has a quick review:

For lovers of tongue-in-cheek and smooth-as-silk ’60s crime dramedies like Stanley Donen’s wonderfully twisty Charade, Catch Me If You Can is an big fat slice of cinematic comfort food.

From the minimalist and pastel animated credits sequence, accentuated wistfully by John Williams’ jazzy score, to the breezy but non-condescending adventures of charming-as-hell conman Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio in a role tailor-made for him), this is a genre throwback that crackles throughout.

4. Apollo 13

1995 might have been Hanks’ year, at the top of his game in this drama adventure, alongside the likes of Ed Harris, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton.

A few words by David J. Greenberg:

Among the most impressive feats of this Ron Howard tour de force is the way that he took an incredibly well-documented true story where everyone knows the ending and made it into such an intensely dramatic nail-biter—thanks, in part, to some reportedly extensive script doctoring by an uncredited John Sayles.

Meticulously researched and painfully attentive to accuracy, the film is never more concerned with the nuts and bolts of the science and technology than it is with the humanity of the characters.

5. Toy Story

We go all the way back to 1995, and Hanks as our favourite Toy Story character will always capture our hearts.

The 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes proves it.

Here’s a quick review from Jeremy Medina and Tyler Kane:

Few films can capture the true essence of childhood without featuring a kid as the main character, but that’s just what Pixar did in 1995 with Toy Story.

The film’s hilarious (and heartwarming) competition between longtime toy-favorite Woody and flashy newcomer Buzz Lightyear wasn’t only entertaining—it explored themes of friendship, family and ultimately growing up.

The film gave us our first peek into the legacy that Pixar solidified with classics like Up and Wall-E, not to mention three fantastic sequels.

The full rating ranks Tom’s best 25 films. You can get your full Hanks fix here.

[source:pastemagazine]