The closest thing Harrison Ford has to a favourite movie of all time: “Very nearly”
Han Solo may not have been a Jedi, but seeing as Star Wars posits that only a Sith deals in absolutes, perhaps it makes perfect sense in a way that Harrison Ford has never gone on the record to definitively name one movie as being his favourite of all time.
After rocketing to fame in the late 1970s when he played a key role in the original despite George Lucas being dead-set against casting him because they’d already worked together on American Graffiti, Ford has maintained his position on the industry’s A-list ever since.
He was already a household name by the turn of the following decade, but playing Indiana Jones for the first time in Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark elevated him to iconic status, despite George Lucas being dead-set against casting him because they’d already worked together on Star Wars.
Adding heavyweights like Blade Runner, Witness, The Fugitive, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, Air Force One, What Lies Beneath and more to his filmography, Ford evolved from a bankable leading man into a celebrated veteran without sacrificing his position at the top of the Hollywood ladder, and if anything he’s become more endearing as the years go by thanks to his famously grumpy disposition towards almost everything.
Ford will gladly shit all over projects he’s been in if he didn’t think they were up to scratch, and he’s graciously accepted his status as a living legend, but one bridge he’d never felt comfortable crossing is to name one picture as being the single greatest film he’s ever seen, even if there’s a stone-cold classic hovering agonisingly close to the top of the list without ever being officially anointed.
Robert Mulligan’s seminal adaptation of Harper Lee’s equally influential novel To Kill a Mockingbird was greeted as an instant masterpiece and has only become more revered, and Ford has never forgotten the impact Gregory Peck’s Academy Award-nominated performance as Atticus Finch had on him the first time he saw it.
“I think if I had to pick just one film to which I had a very strong reaction and can remember vividly how I felt, it would be To Kill a Mockingbird,” he told the American Film Institute. “I think it had all the elements of a great film. And it had such a strong moral register, I think. That’s why I would say it’s very nearly my favourite film.”
Close, then, but no cigar for the engrossing coming-of-age story. Ford may not have been willing to go out on a limb and call To Kill a Mockingbird his all-time favourite, but if push were to come to shove and he had to name a movie should his life depend on it, then it’s fairly safe to assume this one would get the nod.
