Tom Hanks thinks he's only made four good movies

Tom Hanks is one of Hollywood’s most respected veterans, having starred in some of the most famous blockbusters of all time. 

But it seems the actor is not all that impressed with his own back catalogue, having humbly admitted he thinks he’s got just four ‘pretty good’ films to his name. 

In a recent interview with People, Hanks spoke about writing his first novel, The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece, which spans several decades to illustrate how US culture has changed since WWII. 

With one storyline about a boy who grows up to draw comic books in 1970, another set in the present day follows a director as they adapt one of those comic books into a superhero movie. 

REUTERS/Alamy Stock Photo

"The source for a movie can go back as many years as are in history. A story turns on a single moment in the life of someone, then all the anecdotes of the current day magnify that moment," Hanks explained. 

"Going back to 1947 makes sense, as would have starting in, say, 1559. Human yearning has proven to be timeless." 

He continued: “No one knows how a movie is made — though everyone thinks they do. 

“I’ve made a ton of movies (and four of them are pretty good, I think) and I’m still amazed at how films come together. From a flicker of an idea to the flickering image onscreen, the whole process is a miracle.” 

Hanks did not specify which of the four movies he meant, nor whether this was as an actor or through his production company Playtone, which he founded in 1998 alongside Gary Goetzman. 

He continued: “Movie-making is very hard work over a very long period of time that consists of so many moments of joy slapped up against an equal number of feelings of self-loathing. It is the greatest job in the world and the most confounding of labours that I know of.” 

According to IMDb, the top four films that Hanks has starred in are Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, The Green Mile and Toy Story 3 - with the original Toy Story also rounding up the top five in fifth place.

Paramount

The film regarded as Hanks' best, 1994 drama Forrest Gump, won a total of six Academy Awards, and almost 30 years on, it boasts an impressive rating of 8.8 on IMDb.

At the time the Oscars rolled around, it was up against Quentin Tarantino's classic Pulp Fiction, which it pipped to Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.

All these years on, Pulp Fiction's snubbing comes up at every awards season - something Hanks understands, having labelled the movie a 'masterpiece'.

However, he argued that the astronomic success of Forrest Gump may have caused it to be looked upon less favourably.

Speaking to The New York Times earlier this year, he said: "The problem with Forrest Gump is it made a billion dollars.

"If we'd just made a successful movie, Bob [director Robert Zemeckis] and I would have been geniuses. But because we made a wildly successful movie, we were diabolical geniuses.

"Is it a bad problem to have? No, but there's books of the greatest movies of all time, and Forrest Gump doesn't appear because, oh, it's this sappy nostalgia fest.

"Every year there's an article that goes, 'The Movie That Should Have Won Best Picture' and it's always Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction is a masterpiece without a doubt."

As for the rest of the top 10 on IMDb, other titles include the likes of Catch Me If You Can, Toy Story 2 and, somehow just in ninth spot, Cast Away.

How he can only pick four from that list of bangers is, frankly, completely beyond us.