My Favourite Movies

Tom Hanks is one of my favourite actors and I’ve watched almost all of his movies. What I like about Tom Hanks is that he can really get into his character and give his character a real life. Very few actors are able to do so. Personally, I think all of his movies are great to watch and there are a lot to choose from but here are “My” top 5 favourite movies of Tom Hanks.

5) The Terminal

The Terminal is a story of Victor Navorski’s (Tom Hanks) unfortunate situation, stuck at the Kennedy Airport without a country. When I say without a country, it means Victor’s homeland erupts in a fiery coup, while he is in the air en route to America. Stranded at the airport with a passport from nowhere, he is unauthorised to actually enter the USA and must improvise his days and nights in the terminal’s international transit lounge, until the war at home is over. During his time in the terminal, he goes through lots of ups and downs but somehow he also manages to romance with a beautiful flight attendant named Amelia (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Great movie directed by Spielberg.

4) Catch Me If You Can

Catch Me If You Can is based on a true story directed by Steven Spielberg, starring two of my favourite actors Tom Hanks as Carl Hanratty and Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank W. Abagnale. Frank (Leo) is a con artist, master of deception and brilliant forger, whose skill at check fraud has netted him millions of dollars in stolen funds. Just like in real life, in this movie as well, Frank is employed as a doctor, a lawyer, and as a co-pilot for a major airline company- all before reaching his 21^st birthday. Carl (Tom Hanks) is a FBI agent who has made his mission to capture Frank, however Frank is always one step ahead of Carl and the chase continues all across America and Europe.

3) Saving Private Ryan

There have been a lot of movies about World War II, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a war film as realistically portrayed as Saving Private Ryan. It’s filmed in a unique way that draws you into what’s going on and you almost experience what the soldiers are going through. Steven Spielberg directed the film, which stars Hanks (Capt. Miller) as a United States Rangers Captain seeking out a missing soldier (Matt Damon as Pvt. James Ryan) whose three brothers were all killed in battle.

2) Forrest Gump

“Life’s like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.” says Forrest Gump (played by Tom Hanks in an Oscar-winning performance) as he discusses his lifetime experience with strangers while waiting for a bus. This movie is the story of a sweet and simple man that finds himself at the center of some of the most pivotal events of the second half of the 20th century. Entirely without trying, Forrest teaches Elvis Presley to dance, becomes a football star, meets John F. Kennedy, serves with honor in Vietnam, meets Lyndon Johnson, speaks at an anti-war rally at the Washington Monument, discovers the break-in at the Watergate, opens a profitable shrimping business, becomes an original investor in Apple Computers, and decides to run back and forth across the country for several years. I have to say, Robert Zemeckis has brilliantly adapted Winston Groom’s 1986 novel Forrest Gump for the big screen.

1) Cast Away

Cast away has to be in the number one spot of my favourite movies of Tom Hanks. This is simply because of the solid performance shown by Tom Hanks. This movie is what I call One-Man Show. Another great movie directed by Robert Zemeckis about a FedEx employee (Tom Hanks as Chuck Noland) that spends years on a deserted island after his plane crashes. Hanks is the only human on the screen for much of the film, but he does talk to a volleyball he names Wilson. Chuck unsure of when he may return to the civilization learns to endure the emotional and physical stress of his new life.

The first Sci-Fi movie that I saw and absolutely fell in love with has to be The Matrix. I must have been just 9 years old back then when the first movie of the franchise came out. Seeing Neo dodge bullets and fight enemies in slo-mo were the best parts of the movie. Since then I have watched hundreds of Sci-Fi movies but here are "My" top 10 all time favorite Sci-Fi movies.

10) Source code

In this movie, Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a soldier who wakes up in the body of an unknown man and discovers he’s part of a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. In an assignment unlike any he’s ever known, he learns he’s part of a government experiment called the Source Code, a program that enables him to cross over into another man’s identity in the last 8 minutes of his life. With a second, much larger target threatening to kill millions in downtown Chicago, Colter re-lives the same eight minutes of a commuter’s life over and over again, gathering clues each time, until he can solve the mystery of who is behind the bombs and prevent the next attack.

9) In time

What I like about this movie is the concept of time being universal currency-literally- enabling the wealthy to live forever while the poor, have to beg, borrow, and steal enough minutes to make it through another day. My favorite singer turned actor JT has played the role of Will Salas, whose minutes are running out, finds himself falsely accused of murder, he must figure out a way to bring down a whole system. In his journey to fight the system, he meets Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried), daughter of wealthy time-loaning businessman Philippe Weis and takes her as a hostage at first but teams up with her later to rob her father’s time bank.

8) The Avengers

In this movie, Thor’s evil brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) gains access to the unlimited power of the energy cube called the Tesseract, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), director of international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., initiates a superhero recruitment effort to defeat the unprecedented threat to Earth. His “dream team” features iconic Marvel Super Heroes Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), The Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). Each member of the cast has brought their A-game to their respective roles, which has made this movie even better. Not only is “The Avengers” incredibly smart and fun, but also it manages to be not only the best Marvel movie but one of the greatest superhero movies of all time.

7) Star wars

When we talk about Sci-Fi movies, we somehow always end up talking about Star Wars and how cool the lightsaber is and stuffs. Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise centered on a film series created by George Lucas. The franchise depicts a galaxy described as “far, far away” in the distant past, and commonly portrays Jedi as a representation of good, in conflict with the Sith, their evil counterpart. Their weapon of choice, the lightsaber is commonly recognized in popular culture. The film series consists of two trilogies and now the third trilogy is on its way. This franchise is one of the most successful movies of all time. Star Wars is the full package of a great Sci-Fi movie which includes outer galaxy, adventure, love, hate, war, lightsaber, imagination, robots, clones and so on.

6) Total recall

I am talking about the old “Total Recall” where Arnie plays a 21^st-century construction worker who discovers that his entire memory of the past derives from a memory chip implanted in his brain. Schwarzenegger learns that he’s actually a secret agent who had become a threat to the government, so those in power planted the chip and invented a domestic lifestyle for him. Once he realised his true identity, he travels to Mars to piece together the rest of his identity, as well as to find the man responsible for his implanted memory.

5) Avatar

Avatar is a great movie created by very skilled director, James Cameron. This movie is set in the year 2154 on the distant planet Pandora, which is filled with exotic life forms. Earthlings are colonising it in need of a rare mineral called unobtainium, a major source of energy, which alone can save our planet from extinction. The natives, however, are very much at home there. The story is of an ex-Marine (Sam Worthington) who finds himself thrust into hostilities in this alien planet. As an Avatar, a human mind in an alien body, he finds himself torn between two worlds, in a desperate fight for his own survival and that of the native people.

4)Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Terminator 2: Judgment day is every bit the classic the first Terminator was. It’s as good as the first, which is something very few sequels can claim. In this movie, two terminators come back to find John Connor (Edward Furlong). Ones (T-1000) mission is to kill John. The other (Arnie, who was supposed to kill him in the first film), is recreated to protect John. The storyline and action is so great to behold as The Terminator and the T-1000 battle for the life of John. James Cameron is a skilled director; this and his first Terminator film may be the movies that define his greatness best.

3) Interstellar

In the near future, Earth is on the brink of destruction from climate change- resulting in dust clouds, starvation and drought. Humanity’s last hope comes in the hand of ex astronaut turned crop-farmer, Cooper (Mathew McConaughey) who leaves behind his family to join a small crew of scientists and explore a wormhole in the far reaches our solar system. The whole idea of travelling through this wormhole is to investigate planets, which may be capable of sustaining life for the human race.

2) The Matrix

The Matrix is a franchise based upon a trilogy of sci-fi films written and directed by the Wachowski siblings. The franchise is centered around a future in which humanity is trapped in a virtual world (Matrix). The only person that can save the humanity is a hacker named Neo (Keanu Reeves). This movie is about Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and his crew’s (which also includes Neo) efforts to free humanity from the matrix, Neo’s fulfillment of his supposed destiny, the love between Neo and Trinity and the struggle between Neo and Agent Smith.

1) Inception

This movie is going to make you stare at the screen even after the it ends and make you wonder what the hell just happened. It gives you whole new perspective about dreams and their dimensions. This movie is about one man (Leonardo DiCaprio) assembling a team together in order to plant an idea in an important businessman’s mind, so that he can be granted his wish to return to his home. Leo, as always, turns in a magnificent performance. Without question a very good film.