In the latest Dan Brown thriller Inferno, everyone's favourite movie star Tom Hanks comes up against a deadly viral outbreak. And it's not the first time he's faced impossibly high stakes...
Saving Private Ryan
Released: 1998
The stakes: In Steven Spielberg's masterful, Oscar-winning World War II drama, Hanks is mesmerizing as noble, embattled squadron leader Captain Miller, not only facing the brutality of the Nazis but also charged with keeping his disparate troops together and trying to find a soldier missing in action behind enemy lines. Crikey.
Cast Away
Released: 2000
The stakes: Truly, they couldn't be higher than in Robert Zemeckis' moving epic. Hanks gives an Oscar-nominated performance playing a man confronting the very essence of his existence when a plane crash leaves him stranded on a remote tropical island for 4 years. Is there a more heart-wrenching plight than that? Actually yes, as his Chuck discovers when returning to civilization and discovering his former sweetheart has moved on to someone else. And as for volleyball Wilson's farewell? Pass the tissues, please...
Captain Phillips
Released: 2013
The stakes: Paul Greengrass' remorselessly gripping hijack drama is based on the true story of captain Richard Phillips' ordeal against the Somali pirates who commandeered his vessel. As Philips himself, Hanks portrays a man who is really put through the wringer, held at gunpoint, repeatedly threatened and always unsure as to whether he'll emerge from the situation alive. It's hardly surprising we're left wrung out and exhausted by the conclusion of the story.
Bridge of Spies
Released: 2015
The stakes: So far we've seen Hanks battling Nazis, existential loneliness and ruthless hijackers. But what about the shadowy bureaucracy and intrigue of Cold War-era East Berlin? Reuniting with Steven Spielberg for this gripping tale of an American lawyer's quest to retrieve a downed American soldier from Russian hands, Hanks' character James Donovan is forced to battle a bewildering, labyrinthine level of intrigue and danger.
And coming soon...
Sully
Released: 2nd December 2016
The stakes: How does one man land a passenger plane in the midst of one of the world's busiest cities and save a multitude of human lives? That's the premise of Clint Eastwood's first collaboration with Hanks, the nail-chewing true-life story of pilot Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger's astonishing crash-landing onto the waters of the Hudson. Of course, we all know how the events played out - but it doesn't make the stakes in the movie feel any less urgent or terrifying.
Got some choices of your own? Tweet them to us @Cineworld and get ready to descend into the Inferno with Tom Hanks on 14th October.
