The one movie Tom Hanks considers “perfect in every way”
We all have our favourite movies. Some are indisputable cinematic classics, while others are guilty pleasures we always get a kick out of watching. Some favourites are meaningful because of where we were in life when we saw them or because they’re tied to memories of a loved one. However, few films are considered objectively “perfect in every way” — that kind of praise puts a movie in rarified air. Tom Hanks knows exactly which film he’d give that label to — and it’s hard to argue with him.
Over the years, Hanks has starred in a smorgasbord of movies that others probably count as their favourites. The likes of Big, Forrest Gump, Cast Away, Saving Private Ryan, and Sleepless in Seattle may very well be considered perfect by large swathes of the population. However, Hanks has always been pretty circumspect about throwing around such a lofty word when it comes to his own favourites.
For example, Hanks’ favourite movie of all time is 2001: A Space Odyssey, and he claims he still watches it “a couple of times a year”.
He joked, “I could walk you through 2001: A Space Odyssey and not stop talking once during the entire film, so I don’t know if you want to have that experience?” He also called Boogie Nights a “revelation”, and in a Reddit AMA, he spotlighted Das Boot and Rian Johnson’s Looper as two more of his favourites.
Already, it can be seen that Hanks has an eclectic taste in movies, and he isn’t afraid to name a more modern pick as one of his all-timers. However, when he was interviewed for CNN’s The Movies, he pinpointed a 1996 neo-noir as his paragon of cinematic perfection.
“I think Fargo is a perfect movie in every way,” Hanks said, bestowing the Coen brothers’ quirky snow-covered small-town crime story with the highest praise. “The screenplay’s perfect, the execution of it is perfect, the performances are absolutely perfect.”
In truth, Hanks’ love of the Coens’ most famous movie isn’t overly shocking. You see, before he managed to work with them in 2004’s The Ladykillers, he’d long placed the visionary siblings at the top of his list to collaborate with. He once told Phase 9, “The Coen brothers have been these guys – like John Cassavetes or Woody Allen – every time a movie comes out, you want to see the latest Coen brothers movie, whether you understand it or not.”
To Hanks, the best thing about a Coen brothers movie is that he struggles to predict what will happen next. “I don’t know how they did it,” he marvelled. “I watched O Brother, Where Art Thou? and it felt like I was on fire there; it just went so many different places. Fargo is one of the best movies ever made. So is Blood Simple and so is Raising Arizona. So, these guys are capable of putting together a narrative that is a complete surprise; that is totally unpredictable.”
Fast-forward to 2014, and unpredictability won out again when Hanks watched his son Colin as one of the stars of a TV version of the Coens’ masterpiece. Seeing his boy play the hapless police officer Gus Grimley in a show that won almost as many plaudits as the original movie must have tickled him pink – or maybe he was annoyed at Colin for sullying the memory of the only perfect film he’s ever seen.
