9 Tom Hanks Movies You May Have Forgotten
Tom Hanks turns 70 on July 9, 2026, making this a good time to look beyond the most popular movies everyone already knows by heart.
Beyond the films such as Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, Philadelphia, Cast Away, Apollo 13, and Toy Story that usually come up first in a fan’s mind, Hanks’ career also features plenty of movies that have been lost in time. Some came before he became an Oscar-winning dramatic actor, while other big movies just overshadowed others.
Here are nine Tom Hanks movies you may have forgotten, in honor of his birthday.
1 The Man with One Red Shoe (1985)
Everett Collection
The Man with One Red Shoe came out one year after Splash, when Hanks was still building his movie career. He played Richard Drew, a violinist who gets pulled into a CIA mix-up after agents mistakenly believe he is connected to espionage. The movie was based on the 1972 French comedy The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe. It also had a very 1980s supporting cast, including Dabney Coleman, Lori Singer, Charles Durning, Jim Belushi, Carrie Fisher and Edward Herrmann.
2 Volunteers (1985)
Everett Collection
In Volunteers, Hanks played Lawrence Bourne III, a spoiled Yale graduate who joins the Peace Corps to escape gambling debts. The movie also starred John Candy, Rita Wilson, Tim Thomerson and Gedde Watanabe. Hanks and Wilson first met when she guest-starred on Bosom Buddies, then reunited on Volunteers before they later married in 1988. The film is set in Thailand, but the production recreated that setting in Mexico.
3 Nothing in Common (1986)
TriStar/courtesy Everett Collection
Nothing in Common showed a more serious side of Hanks before his major dramatic roles came along. He played David Basner, a successful Chicago ad executive whose life changes when his parents’ long marriage falls apart. The movie was directed by Garry Marshall and costarred Jackie Gleason and Eva Marie Saint as David’s parents. It was also Gleason’s final film appearance, which gives the movie extra weight now.
4 Punchline (1988)
Everett Collection
Punchline came out the same year as Big, so it can be easily overshadowed. Hanks played Steven Gold, a talented but troubled stand-up comic trying to make it in New York. Sally Field costarred as Lilah Krytsick, a housewife and mother who is also trying to break into comedy. An HBO special came out the same month, tied to the movie called Sally Field & Tom Hanks’ Punchline Party and featured stand-up routines from Hanks, Field and Martin Mull.
Six years later, Field would play his mother in Forrest Gump.
5 Turner & Hooch (1989)
Everett Collection
Turner & Hooch is one of those movies a lot of people remember from cable or VHS, even if it is not usually treated like one of Hanks’ major films. He played Scott Turner, a rule-following detective who ends up caring for a very messy dog after a murder investigation. It also had some behind-the-scenes drama. Henry Winkler was originally directing, but production shut down after an argument between Winkler and Touchstone Pictures, and Roger Spottiswoode replaced him as director.
6 Joe Versus the Volcano (1990)
Everett Collection
Joe Versus the Volcano paired Hanks with Meg Ryan before Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail. Hanks played Joe Banks, a miserable office worker who is told he has a “brain cloud” and agrees to travel to a remote island to jump into a volcano. It was written and directed by John Patrick Shanley, who had already won an Oscar for writing Moonstruck.
7 The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)
Warner Bros./Everett Collection
The Bonfire of the Vanities was a big studio adaptation of Tom Wolfe‘s bestselling novel. Hanks played Sherman McCoy, a wealthy Wall Street bond trader whose life unravels after a hit-and-run accident. Brian De Palma directed, and the cast also included Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Kim Cattrall and Morgan Freeman. The movie became famous as a high-profile disappointment, and its troubled production was later covered in Julie Salamon’s book The Devil’s Candy.
8 The Terminal (2004)
DreamWorks/Everett Collection
By 2004, Hanks had already worked with Steven Spielberg on Saving Private Ryan and Catch Me If You Can. In The Terminal, he played Viktor Navorski, a traveler from the fictional country of Krakozhia who gets stuck at JFK Airport after a political crisis invalidates his passport. The movie also starred Catherine Zeta-Jones, Stanley Tucci, Chi McBride, Diego Luna and Zoe Saldana. Paramount notes that the movie was shot almost entirely on a two-and-a-half-story recreation of a full-size operating airport terminal.
9 The Ladykillers (2004)
Touchstone/Everett Collection
The Ladykillers gave Hanks one of his more unusual roles. In the Coen brothers’ remake of the 1955 British comedy, he played Professor G.H. Dorr, a strange Southern criminal who rents a room from an elderly widow while secretly planning a casino heist. The cast also included Irma P. Hall, Marlon Wayans, J.K. Simmons, Tzi Ma and Ryan Hurst.
Have you seen all of the movies on this list?
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