Not everything is a winner. Tom Hanks has a Presidential Medal of Honor, a People’s Choice Award, an AFI Life Achievement Award, and many more across his career, which includes over a hundred movies. But even in his esteemed filmography, there are some movies he’s been in that Hanks himself hates.
However, Hanks is very particular about expressing “hate” for any film. Part of this is because of his extensive exposure to the filmmaking process. He’s been involved in just about every stage of film development, having served as actor and filmmaker alike. Even for his own films, he has high standards – and you can count on one hand which of his films hanks calls “pretty good.”
Tom Hanks discusses how he hates movies
Hanks is hot on the heels of his new book’s release. The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece was released in early May and its synopsis reads, “A troubled soldier, returning from the war, meets his talented five-year-old nephew, leaves an indelible impression, and then disappears for twenty-three years.” In light of the details of the book, rooted in real events and processes Hanks was exposed to through his own career, Hanks took part in an interview with The New Yorker.
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At one point, Hanks was prompted, “You write in the book, and I’ve heard you say elsewhere, that you take enormous offense at the notion of anybody hating a movie. Why is that?”
“O.K., let’s admit this: We all have seen movies that we hate,” replied Hanks. “I have been in some movies that I hate. You have seen some of my movies and you hate them.” But that’s just part of the picture, says Hanks, likening someone’s relationship with a movie to a Rubicon.
The factors that impact love and hate, according to Tom Hanks
Hanks doesn’t want to pin a label like “hate” on a film because feelings like that are so subjective not just based on a person’s taste but also the context of its release and the timing. He points to his own movie, That Thing You Do!, which he greatly enjoyed working on, but “it was completely dismissed by the first wave of vox populi.”
Now, Hanks notes, outlets that dismissed the movie call it the actor’s unmistakable cult classic. “What was the difference between those two things? The answer is time.”
Some opinions, however, feel so intense to Hanks that they might as well be a fact. For instance, he harbors nothing but ill will toward 1987’s The Bonfire of the Vanities, which he declared the “crappiest movie” he ever made. Do you agree?
