Tom Hanks names his favourite action movie of all time
After getting his start in comedy and seamlessly segueing into drama, Tom Hanks has spent the last 30 years reigning supreme as one of the most popular and consistently acclaimed actors in Hollywood. However, there’s one particular genre he’s surprisingly never ventured into.
Over an awards-laden career that’s seen him win two Academy Awards, five Golden Globes, and seven Primetime Emmys, among many others, Hanks has proven himself equally adept at drama and comedy. In addition to those main genres, he has also dipped his toes into slapstick, satire, political thrillers, biopics, blockbuster franchises, and sweeping sci-fi. Hanks has even checked off a comic book adaptation through Road to Perdition.
However, never at any point has he shown up in an action movie. He’s wielded a gun on-screen on many occasions and played a smattering of government agents and military personnel, but the closest he’s ever come to the truest definition of action heroism was as Robert Langdon in Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, and Inferno trilogy. He may have made his way across Europe, uncovering high-ranking conspiracies, but it was hardly the same territory as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.
It’s a curious omission from a back catalogue that’s touched so many bases, which makes it even more interesting that his own favourite action movie has remained at the top of his personal pile ever since he saw it for the first time. Not only that, but it was even referenced in one of the most memorable scenes from one of his most notable hits of the 1990s.
When asked by Stephen Colbert to name his number one actioner, Hanks didn’t miss a beat before naming The Dirty Dozen. Beyond that, he remembers the exact circumstances surrounding his first-ever viewing: “I saw The Dirty Dozen on a black and white TV with commercials on it, and you could not have convinced me that it was not the greatest motion picture ever made.”
As deep as his adoration for Robert Aldrich’s star-studded classic runs, though, he did admit to The Washington Post that as entertaining as it is, it’s still “a bunch of hooey”. Suddenly, an entirely improvisational moment from 1993’s Sleepless in Seattle makes a great deal more sense in retrospect, knowing of Hanks’ lifelong admiration of the rousing war story.
During a conversation set around the dinner table, Hanks’ Sam and Victor Garber’s Greg end up in floods of tears reminiscing on the death of Trini Lopez’s Pedro Jiminez in The Dirty Dozen, which was completely improvised on the spot by the two actors. Presumably, Hanks didn’t have to try too hard to dredge up the emotional impact of what’s known to be his favourite-ever action movie, which adds his phenomenally committed reaction an extra edge of added realism.
