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Tom Hanks · Filmography Ranked

Best Tom Hanks Films, Ranked by IQ Score

Four decades of America's most-trusted leading man. Every Hanks film, ranked by IQ Score.

Tom Hanks's filmography is the most-canonical leading-man catalog of the late-20th and early-21st century. Two consecutive Best Actor Oscars (Philadelphia 1993, Forrest Gump 1994), only Spencer Tracy had previously achieved that.

Anchor picks: Forrest Gump (1994) and Saving Private Ryan (1998) anchor the Spielberg-collaboration tier. Philadelphia (1993) won his first Best Actor Oscar. Cast Away (2000) is his most-canonical solo performance. The Bridge of Spies (2015) and The Post (2017) define his late-career prestige register.

15 titles · ranked by IQ Score

  1. 1
    Catch Me If You Can poster, IQ Score 170/200, Masterclass tier

    Catch Me If You Can

    Masterclass biography, crime, drama

    An FBI agent pursues a brilliant con artist. Educational about conning and investigation. Cognitive engagement from the cat-and-mouse game. Entertainment from the crime thriller.

    170/200
  2. 2
    Saving Private Ryan poster, IQ Score 169/200, Masterclass tier

    Saving Private Ryan

    Masterclass war, drama

    A soldier team searches for Private James Ryan after D-Day. Educational about World War II combat. Cognitive engagement from the brutal realism. Entertainment from the action and the character work.

    169/200
  3. 3
    Forrest Gump poster, IQ Score 168/200, Masterclass tier

    Forrest Gump

    Masterclass drama

    A man with low IQ witnesses and influences several defining historical events. Educational about American history and disability representation. Cognitive engagement from the historical parallels. Entertainment from the…

    168/200
  4. 4
    Philadelphia poster, IQ Score 166/200, Masterclass tier

    Philadelphia

    Masterclass drama, legal

    Jonathan Demme's 1993 film about a gay lawyer (Tom Hanks, Best Actor Oscar) dying of AIDS and the personal-injury lawyer (Denzel Washington) representing him after he's fired for being HIV-positive. The structural commit…

    166/200
  5. 5
    Bridge of Spies poster, IQ Score 164/200, Masterclass tier

    Bridge of Spies

    Masterclass drama, historical, thriller

    Spielberg's 2015 Coen Brothers / Matt Charman screenplay anchored by Tom Hanks as the insurance lawyer recruited to negotiate the U-2 pilot Gary Powers's release from Soviet custody. Mark Rylance won the Oscar for Rudolf…

    164/200
  6. 6
    Apollo 13 poster, IQ Score 164/200, Masterclass tier

    Apollo 13

    Masterclass drama, historical, biographical

    Ron Howard's 1995 procedural about the 1970 lunar-mission accident, William Broyles Jr. and Al Reinert adapting Jim Lovell's memoir. Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, and Kevin Bacon lead an ensemble of astronauts and Houston engi…

    164/200
  7. 7
    The Post poster, IQ Score 161/200, Masterclass tier

    The Post

    Masterclass drama, historical, biography

    Spielberg's 2017 Pentagon Papers film anchored by Meryl Streep as Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham and Tom Hanks as editor Ben Bradlee. The structural commitment to letting Graham's executive-decision agony be…

    161/200
  8. 8
    Sully poster, IQ Score 161/200, Masterclass tier

    Sully

    Masterclass drama, biography

    Clint Eastwood's 2016 Chesley Sullenberger biographical film about the January 2009 Hudson River miracle landing, anchored by Tom Hanks. The structural commitment to letting the post-incident investigation be the actual…

    161/200
  9. 9
    A League of Their Own poster, IQ Score 159/200, Stimulating tier

    A League of Their Own

    Stimulating drama, comedy, sports

    Penny Marshall's 1992 World-War-II-era All-American Girls Professional Baseball League film anchored by Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna, and Rosie O'Donnell. The structural commitment to letting period-women-in-sports cu…

    159/200
  10. 10
    Cast Away poster, IQ Score 151/200, Stimulating tier

    Cast Away

    Stimulating drama, adventure, survival

    Robert Zemeckis's 2000 island-survival film, William Broyles Jr.'s screenplay. Tom Hanks as a FedEx systems engineer marooned for four years after a Pacific crash. The film's central act is largely wordless and carries o…

    151/200
  11. 11
    Captain Phillips poster, IQ Score 146/200, Stimulating tier

    Captain Phillips

    Stimulating thriller, drama, biography

    2013 Best Picture nominee with Tom Hanks nominated for Best Actor. The 2009 hijacking of a container ship by Somali pirates. Moderate cognitive demands from the procedural tension. Educational value from the geopolitical…

    146/200
  12. 12
    Toy Story 2 poster, IQ Score 140/200, Stimulating tier

    Toy Story 2

    Stimulating animation, family, adventure

    John Lasseter's 1999 sequel deepens the original's premise into a study of obsolescence and mortality. Jessie's abandonment flashback, scored to Randy Newman and Sarah McLachlan's "When She Loved Me," gives the film its…

    140/200
  13. 13
    Toy Story poster, TVI Score 129/200, Competent tier

    Toy Story

    Competent SEL 34/50 animation, family, comedy

    Grounds existential stakes (what happens when owner grows up?) in toy intimacy, forcing philosophical questions about purpose and replacement into children's entertainment.

    129/200
  14. 14
    Sleepless in Seattle poster, IQ Score 116/200, Competent tier

    Sleepless in Seattle

    Competent romance, comedy

    Nora Ephron's 1993 romcom whose structural conceit, the two leads barely meet until the Empire State Building coda, is the most disciplined premise commitment in Ephron's catalog. The Meg Ryan / Tom Hanks first pairing i…

    116/200
  15. 15
    You've Got Mail poster, IQ Score 113/200, Competent tier

    You've Got Mail

    Competent romance, comedy

    Nora Ephron's 1998 romcom whose structural argument, that the internet was both flattening commerce and creating a new register of intimacy, turned out to be more prescient than the film initially appeared. The Meg Ryan…

    113/200
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Questions about this ranking

What is the best Tom Hanks film?

By IQ Score on TV Intelligentsia, Saving Private Ryan (1998), Forrest Gump (1994), Philadelphia (1993), Bridge of Spies (2015), and The Post (2017) anchor the catalog's Masterclass tier. Cast Away rounds out the solo-performance entries.

How many Oscars has Hanks won?

Two, Best Actor for Philadelphia (1993) and Forrest Gump (1994). The consecutive wins matched only Spencer Tracy's record (1937-38).

Which Hanks film is most underrated?

Charlie Wilson's War (2007), Road to Perdition (2002), and Captain Phillips (2013) are consistently underrated relative to Hanks's marquee titles. Each demonstrates the actor working in genre register (political-comedy, gangster-drama, hostage-thriller) the catalog's casual viewers don't always associate with him.

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