There was a fairly interesting and amusing thread in Bill Simmons recent mailbag column on Grantland ((Grantland, btw, has cracked my top 10 web sites list)) regarding the what people would select as their 3 favorite Tom Hanks movies if they weren’t allowed to pick Forrest Gump.  I’ve been spending (probably too way too much) time thinking about this over the past few days.  The question is being stored away in my “use this topic of conversation if you’re ever in an uncomfortably silent circle of people at a cocktail party” category for future use. And since I’m thinking about it, I might as well write a blog post about it.  So here goes. 

My three favorite Tom Hanks movie performances that are not named Forrest Gump (in no particular order).

Big – I haven’t grown tired of watching this film over the years.  I still secretly wish to live in large Manhattan loft with celings high enough to have a trampoline in it. In fact, I’m going to encourage some of my single guy friends to do that just to find out if the “hey, I have a trampoline in my apartment.  Wanna come over?” line works. 

Road to Perdition – Not sure why whenever I channel surf to this movie I end watching the rest of it, but I do.  Perhaps its because I’m amazed that one on the guys that used to star in Bosom Buddies can go toe-to-toe in a movie with Paul Newman.

Saving Private Ryan – Really?  Tom Hanks lost the Oscar for Best Actor that year to Roberto Benigni? That sounds like a future Trivial Pursuit question.

Now that I’ve done this little “exercise”, I’m surprised that Catch Me If You Can isn’t in that top 3.  I enjoy watching that movie more than any of the above.