(Credits: Far Out / Raph Pour-Hashemi)
Fri 29 August 2025 18:45, UK
Not to state the obvious, but there can often be a pretty huge disconnect between somebody’s favourite movie and the movies that deserve to be called the greatest ever made, although Tom Hanks‘ preferred candidate does tick both boxes.
The two-time Academy Award winner and ‘America’s Dad’ has always held Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey in the highest esteem, admitting that he’s seen it at least 120 times, and that it was the film that permanently and irrevocably changed his life forever.
That’s fair enough, because it genuinely is one of the finest features ever produced. On the other side of the coin, there might be at least one person out there who calls Movie 43, Halle Berry’s Catwoman, or Battlefield Earth their personal all-time favourite, and none of them are great in any way, shape, or form.
It wasn’t 2001 that Hanks called the best ever, though, although it’s up for debate as to whether he meant it or not. After all, it’s no secret that Kubrick’s cosmic masterpiece is the be-all and end-all of Hanks’ filmic fondness, while some of his other top picks include Boogie Nights, Das Boot, Fargo, and many more.
At no point did he ever mention a 1963 fantasy flick that enthralled audiences before inspiring several generations of behind-the-scenes artists and filmmakers and becoming a staple of the weekend afternoon TV schedule, or maybe he just neglected to bring it up until he was in a position to hand an honorary award to the most important member of its creative team.
When he was named as the recipient of the Gordon E Sawyer Award in 1992 for technical achievement and contributions to cinema, which is basically an honorary Academy Award, Hanks was chosen to take the stage, deliver a speech, and celebrate some long overdue recognition from the Oscars for the legendary Ray Harryhausen.
“Some people say Casablanca or Citizen Kane,” he declared. “I say Jason and the Argonauts is the greatest film ever made.” Did he mean it? Maybe, maybe not. However, there’s one famous Hollywood figure who unequivocally believes it, with Harryhausen’s magnum opus lighting the fuse that launched Tim Burton’s idiosyncratic, eccentric, and outlandish career as mainstream cinema’s favourite outsider.
If you asked 100 people to name who directed Jason and the Argonauts, how many of them would be able to tell you that it was Don Chaffey? Not many. If you asked 100 people who was responsible for the fantastical favourite’s iconic stop-motion special effects, then at least 99 of them would immediately know that it was Harryhausen.
It’s arguably the most famous picture he worked on, and he worked on a lot, because of how fondly remembered those janky skeletons, that seven-headed hydra, and the hulking bronze colossus, Talos, are. Hanks’ tongue might have been ever so slightly inside of his cheek, but that shouldn’t diminish either the towering shadow Harryhausen cast over the entire visual effects business or Jason and the Argonauts being one of the most influential movies of its era for reasons that had nothing to do with the story or style.
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