Harrison Ford picks his favourite Harrison Ford movies of all time: “Each film has its own destiny”
It might not be technically called as such, but Hollywood is a city all about names. The most obvious place one now goes to make a name for themselves in the industry, the town demands your name be unique, and it entitles you to become a household name with the right help. When it comes to the big names of Hollywood actors, they just don’t get more iconic than Harrison Ford.
Ford has been at the centre of the big screen for the last five decades, appearing in the lead role in a number of cinema’s biggest franchises, including Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and giving some of the best performances Hollywood has ever seen, such as Rick Deckard in Ridley Scott’s legendary 1982 science fiction film Blade Runner.
When Ford was asked to name his favourite line that he has delivered from one of his films, he replied: “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage,” from Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark. Funnily enough, though, the line is actually a misquote, meant to read, “It’s not the years, honey”. Evidently, both the years and the mileage seem to have caught up with the iconic actor, and his grasp on exactly what was said has slipped a little.
When it comes to his best performance, though, Ford believes that he offered his best work to the 1986 film The Mosquito Coast, directed by Peter Weir, based on Paul Theroux’s 1981 novel of the same name. The film, also starring Helen Mirren, Andre Gregory and River Phoenix, told of an American family who leave the country to live a simpler life in the Central American jungle.
However, what was meant to be a happier life is quickly thrown into jeopardy when the father of the family, Ford’s Allie Fox, a stubborn genius inventor, grows increasingly erratic and unpredictable. According to Weir, Fox’s character is “that kind of all-American hustler, that con man. You know, that Donald Trump character. That sawdust preacher.”
In a separate interview, Ford noted two other movies that he is most proud of making. He told The Hollywood Reporter, “I’m proud of 42. I’m proud of K-19: The Widowmaker, where I played a Russian submarine captain. But I think they’re good movies — that’s why I’m proud of them. Each film has its own destiny, and I don’t go back and parse the experience.”
42 is an American sports biopic, directed by Brian Helgeland, about baseball player Jackie Robinson, who was the first black player to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era. Chadwick Boseman starred as Robinson, while Ford played Branch Rickey, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
K-19: The Widowmaker, meanwhile, was released back in 2002, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, starring Ford, Liam Neeson and Peter Sarsgaard. It is set in 1961 and tells of K-19, the first submarine in the Project 658 class, the first generation of Soviet submarines with nuclear ballistic missiles.
There’s a more than healthy chance that if you were to pick your own set of favourite Harrison Ford movies, perhaps only his turn as Indiana Jones would make the cut. At a push, K-19. However, it goes to show that no matter if you are Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Deckard, or any other icon in between, your favourites are specific to you and you alone. And who could blame him, with a name like Harrison Ford, he can take his pick.
Harrison Ford’s favourite Harrison Ford movies:
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981)
- The Mosquito Coast (Peter Weir, 1986)
- 42 (Brian Helgeland, 2013)
- K-19: The Widowmaker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2002)
