Forrest Gump Oscar winner and all-round nice guy Tom Hanks is back on our screens this October in Dan Brown thriller Inferno.
The follow-up to The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons sees his character Robert Langdon drawn into another deadly conspiracy – and frankly, who can resist a bit of Hanks?
Even so, what about those roles of his you've forgotten? In anticipation of Inferno, we check out some of Tom's most eccentric and flat-out weirdest movie performances...
The Man With One Red Shoe
The year: 1985
The lowdown: One of Hanks' 'early funny films' (it came before his breakout Oscar nomination for Big), this quirky farce sees him playing a concert violinist who becomes the victim of CIA surveillance. A remake of a 1972 French movie and featuring one of Hanks' most manic performances, it's perhaps best remembered for pairing him with Star Wars sensation Carrie Fisher a full four years before they reunited in The 'burbs. And on that note...
The 'burbs
The year: 1989
The lowdown: Nowadays, we're used to seeing Hanks as the upstanding blockbuster star of such unforgettable dramas like Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, Cast Away and Captain Phillips. So it's always a joy to go back and watch him uproariously cut loose in Gremlins director Joe Dante's brilliantly surreal suburban satire. Hanks is genuinely hilarious as an ordinary suburban guy driven to the edge over the possibility that his new neighbours are serial killers, letting rip with some of his funniest (and oddest) physical comedy.
The Ladykillers
The year: 2004
The lowdown: It was always a massive risk for celebrated directors the Coen brothers to remake the British Ealing classic and, if we're honest, the end result isn't great. Even so Hanks makes it almost singlehandedly bearable with his moustachioed, vowel-mangling turn as a Southern professor turned casino robber looking to fool his landlady; in one of his most eccentrically OTT roles, Hanks is clearly having a lot of fun unleashing his quirky side.
The Terminal
The year: 2004
The lowdown: One of the more lighthearted of Steven Spielberg's recent offerings, this sentimental comedy-drama sees Hanks adopt a very broad cod-European accent as Victor Navorski, a man hailing from a fictional continental country who is stranded in an airport terminal when civil war destroys his homeland. It's the sort of eccentric Hanks performance that either charms or turns the stomach, but there's no denying it allows him to stretch his comedy chops like nothing else in recent years.
Cloud Atlas
The year: 2012
The lowdown: Co-directed by Matrix visionaries the Wachowskis' and filmmaker Tom Tykwer, this time-spanning, sprawling, madly ambitious (and just plain mad) adaptation of David Nicholls' remarkable novel features Hanks playing not one but six characters across a series of different time periods. And not only that: they also traverse the good/bad divide, with his hilariously accented Northern Irish gangster/author surely the weirdest of the lot. This scene where he throws a sneery critic off the roof to his death is unforgettable.
Which Tom Hanks performances do you consider the strangest? Tweet us your choices @Cineworld. Inferno is released on 14th October.
