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American actor and filmmaker (born 1956) Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. Known for both his comedic and dramatic roles, he is one of the most popular and recognizable film stars worldwide, and is regarded as an American cultural icon. In 2020, Hanks was ranked as the fourth-highest-grossing American film actor of all time. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] His numerous awards include two Academy Awards , seven Emmy Awards , and four Golden Globe Awards ; he has also been nominated for five BAFTAs and a Tony Award . He received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2002, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2014, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2020.

Hanks rose to fame with leading roles in the comedies Splash (1984), The Money Pit (1986), Big (1988), and A League of Their Own (1992). He won two consecutive Academy Awards for Best Actor , playing a gay lawyer suffering from AIDS in Philadelphia (1993), then the title character in Forrest Gump (1994). Hanks has collaborated with Steven Spielberg on five films— Saving Private Ryan (1998), Catch Me If You Can (2002), The Terminal (2004), Bridge of Spies (2015) and The Post (2017)—and three World War II –themed miniseries : Band of Brothers (2001), The Pacific (2010) and Masters of the Air (2024). He has also frequently collaborated with directors Ron Howard , Nora Ephron and Robert Zemeckis .

Hanks cemented his film stardom with lead roles in the romantic comedies Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and You've Got Mail (1998); the dramas Apollo 13 (1995), The Green Mile (1999), Cast Away (2000), Road to Perdition (2002), Cloud Atlas (2012) and News of the World (2020); and the biographical dramas Charlie Wilson's War (2007), Captain Phillips (2013), Saving Mr. Banks (2013), Sully (2016), A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) and Elvis (2022). He played the title character in the Robert Langdon series (2006–2016), voiced Sheriff Woody in the Toy Story franchise (1995–present) and multiple roles in The Polar Express (2004). Hanks directed and acted in That Thing You Do! (1996) and Larry Crowne (2011).

His breakthrough television role was a co-lead in the ABC sitcom Bosom Buddies (1980–1982). He has hosted Saturday Night Live ten times and launched a production company, Playtone , which has produced various limited series and television movies, including From the Earth to the Moon (1998), Band of Brothers , John Adams (2008), The Pacific , Game Change (2012) and Olive Kitteridge (2015). He made his Broadway debut in Nora Ephron's Lucky Guy (2013), earning a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play .

Tom Hanks was born at the Mount Diablo Hospital in Concord, California . {{Cite news |last=Graff |first=Amy |title=Tom Hanks' childhood in the Bay Area: Where he lived, worked, studied and hung out |url=https://www.houstonchronicle.com/living/article/Tom-Hanks-childhood-Bay-Area-Oakland-Skyline-High-12417020.php |access-date=June 5, 2026 |work=Houston Chronicle |language=en |archive-date=June 5, 2026 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260605215721/https://www.houstonchronicle.com/living/article/Tom-Hanks-childhood-Bay-Area-Oakland-Skyline-High-12417020.php |url-status=live }} {{cite book |last=Dicker |first=Chris |title=Tom Hanks Biography: The Most Intriguing Movie Star Hollywood Has Ever Known: Biography Series |publisher=Chris Dicker |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xm8tDwAAQBAJ&q=%2522Thomas%2520Jeffrey%2520hanks%2522&pg=PP4 |access-date=November 28, 2025 |page=}} {{Cite web |title=Concord Fun Facts {{!}} Concord, CA |url=https://www.cityofconcord.org/426/Concord-Fun-Facts |access-date=December 22, 2023 |website=www.cityofconcord.org |archive-date=January 14, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250114211359/https://www.cityofconcord.org/426/Concord-Fun-Facts |url-status=dead }} {{cite web |title=Tom Hanks Biography |website=The Kennedy Center |url=https://www.kennedy-center.org/artists/h/ha-hn/tom-hanks/ |access-date=November 28, 2025 |archive-date=December 19, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251219065548/https://www.kennedy-center.org/artists/h/ha-hn/tom-hanks/ |url-status=live }} {{cite news |title=Monitor |newspaper=[[Entertainment Weekly]] |date=July 13, 2012 |issue=1215 |page=20}} "}},"i":0}}]}'> [ note 1 ] His mother, Janet Marylyn, was a hospital worker.

His father, Amos "Bud" Hanks was an itinerant cook. {{cite web |last1=Bensinger |first1=Graham |author1-link=Graham Bensinger |title=Tom Hanks |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuCphhyBzIg |website=In Depth with Graham Bensinger |access-date=June 22, 2022 |language=en |date=August 3, 2021 |via=YouTube |archive-date=December 26, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241226015521/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuCphhyBzIg |url-status=live }} {{cite news |last1=Chilton |first1=Louis |title=Tom Hanks says his father was 'broken' by witnessing his grandfather's killing |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/tom-hanks-amos-dad-grandfather-killing-witness-in-depth-b596240.html |access-date=June 22, 2022 |work=[[The Independent]] |date=September 25, 2020 |archive-date=January 16, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250116222811/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/tom-hanks-amos-dad-grandfather-killing-witness-in-depth-b596240.html |url-status=live }} Stated on ''[[Inside the Actors Studio]]'', 1999 {{cite book |first=David |last=Gardner |url=https://archive.org/details/tomhanks00gard |url-access=registration |title=Tom Hanks |date=January 1, 1999 |publisher=Blake |isbn=978-1-85782-327-1}} "}},"i":0}}]}'> [ note 2 ] His mother was from a Portuguese family; their surname was originally "Fraga". [ 14 ] His father had English ancestry, [ 15 ] [ 16 ] and through his line, Hanks is a distant cousin of Nancy Hanks and her son President Abraham Lincoln [ 17 ] [ 18 ] and children's host Fred Rogers (whom Hanks portrayed in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood ). [ 19 ] [ 20 ] Hanks' parents divorced in 1960. [ 21 ] Their three oldest children, Sandra (later Sandra Hanks Benoiton, a writer), [ 22 ] Larry (who became an entomology professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign ), [ 23 ] [ 24 ] and Tom, went with their father, while the youngest, Jim (who also became an actor and filmmaker), remained with their mother in Red Bluff, California . [ 25 ] In his childhood, Hanks' family moved often.

By age ten, he had lived in ten different houses. [ 26 ] His family's religious background was Catholic and Mormon . [ 27 ] One journalist characterized Hanks' teenage self as being a "Bible-toting evangelical " for several years. [ 28 ] In school, he was unpopular with students and teachers alike, later telling Rolling Stone magazine, "I was a geek, a spaz. I was horribly, painfully, terribly shy. At the same time, I was the guy who'd yell out funny captions during filmstrips. But I didn't get into trouble.

I was always a real good kid and pretty responsible." [ 29 ] Hanks acted in school plays, including South Pacific , while attending Skyline High School in Oakland, California . [ 30 ] Having grown up in the Bay Area , Hanks says that some of his first movie memories were seeing movies in the Alameda Theatre . [ 31 ] Hanks studied theater at Chabot College in Hayward, California , [ 32 ] and transferred to California State University, Sacramento after two years. [ 33 ] [ 34 ] During a 2001 interview with sportscaster Bob Costas , Hanks was asked whether he would rather have an Oscar or a Heisman Trophy .

He replied that he would have rather won a Heisman by playing halfback for the California Golden Bears . [ 35 ] He told New York magazine in 1986, "Acting classes looked li