How Many Oscars Does Tom Hanks Have?

Tom Hanks was a natural choice for leading roles in many well-known movies thanks to his upbeat and cheerful demeanor. He increased his humorous repertoire and started playing the main roles in dramas in the 1990s.

It’s difficult to imagine a period when Tom Hanks winning an Oscar looked unlikely. He made many hit comedies, including ‘Bosom Buddies’, but an Academy Award appeared just out of grasp for a long time. People often ask how many Oscars Hanks has won because of how well-known he is today.

Tom Hanks: How He Came To Be

After growing up in a mobile household, Hanks studied drama at California State University and appeared in a number of classical parts in summer stock productions in Cleveland, Ohio. He relocated to New York City in the late 1970s, and in 1980 he appeared in a minor role in a horror movie there. Hanks became well-known for his comedic skills while starring in the television sitcom ‘Bosom Buddies’. His work in the hit film ‘Splash’ earned him leads in other comedies, including ‘Bachelor Party’, ‘Volunteers’, and ‘The Money Pit’. In ‘Nothing in Common’ and ‘Punchline’, he skillfully blended comedy and drama, and his portrayal of a youngster in an adult body in ‘Big’ garnered him an Academy Award nomination and set him on the way to becoming one of the era’s most well-liked performers.

Fast forward a few years, Hanks co-starred with Leonardo DiCaprio in Spielberg’s ‘Catch Me If You Can’ in 2002, and he played symbology professor Robert Langdon in the film adaptation of Dan Brown’s hugely successful book ‘The Da Vinci Code’ in 2006. He also played Langdon again in the 2009 and 2010 films ‘Angels & Demons’ and ‘Inferno.’ Hanks played the real-life senator Charlie Wilson in the 2007 film ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’, who helped the Afghan resistance against the Soviets in the 1980s. He later played a father who was slain in the September 11 attacks in the movie ‘Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.’ He played six characters for the mythical epic ‘Cloud Atlas’, which combined several narratives, ranging from a 19th-century surgeon to a post-apocalyptic tribesman.

Just How Many Oscars Does Tom Hanks Have?

The most serious and significant part of Hanks’ acting career was ‘Philadelphia’. He played Andrew Beckett, an AIDS-affected attorney who accuses his employer of firing him unfairly. The movie was released in 1993 at a period when there was little public discussion about AIDS, and Hanks’ depiction helped to tear down those barriers. Hanks won the Best Actor Oscar for this one. The next movie for which he bagged an Oscar was 1994’s ‘Forrest Gump’, which became a national phenomenon. ‘The Lion King’ was the top movie of the year, while this movie came in second. People identified with Forrest’s straightforward principles and good deeds.

Along with ‘Philadelphia’, ‘Big’ and ‘Forrest Gump’ Hanks garnered three additional nominations for ‘Saving Private Ryan’, ‘Cast Away’ and ‘A Beautiful Day In the Neighborhood’. Steven Spielberg’s gripping World War II thriller was titled ‘Private Ryan’ and even though he didn’t win the Oscar that year, it marked the start of a successful partnership with Spielberg over the following 20 years.