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November 3rd, 2026 · 6:45pm GMT
Any movie that Tom Hanks has ever been in is usually the kind of film that is a lot more grounded than usual.
Even when he’s playing a sentient toy cowboy or commandeering a train going to the North Pole, every one of his performances always comes from him trying to put a little bit of reality into everything that he does. Because even for as grandiose as the film world can get at times, the thing that we will relate to the most as viewers is the kind of movies that have a little bit of humanity behind them.
There are always going to be the larger-than-life adventures out there, but even when working on some of the more operatic performances of his career, Hanks always knew how to rein it in a little bit. Cast Away may have pushed him to the brink from a physical standpoint, but when you look at the knockout role he had in Saving Private Ryan, all of the greatest moments in that film come from him sounding like the voice of reason among a band of brothers that’s doing everything they can to get one of their own home.
That sounds like a thankless job, but one of the most important things about Hanks’s performances is the nuance he puts into everything. Just a single line from him could mean everything in the world if it was delivered with the right inflexion, and when you look through some of the biggest roles he has done, the biggest X-factor of his career usually comes with his sense of timing.
Because as much as Hanks could make any dramatic role work, some of the best work that he ever made could be a lot more comical than most people were ready for. Big is still one of his major breakthroughs for a good reason, and while there are more than a few times where he could make the audience laugh, he learned a lot of that timing from the four mop-topped comedians that he saw when he watched A Hard Day’s Night for the first time.
Hanks was a child of the British invasion, and while he did like the music of bands like The Dave Clark Five whenever they came on the radio, there was no way that anyone could ignore The Beatles if they tried. They were the perfect band of musical brothers, and even if some of the older parents didn’t see the allure of their music in any way, not even they could resist the playful sequences throughout the movie.
From the witty one-liners that all of them had to having one of the best pop soundtracks ever created, Hanks felt that the film was something that he would be glad to exist in for the rest of his life, saying, “If I was going to live in the world of any film, it was going to be A Hard Day’s Night. Because it is filled with joy from one moment to the next. There’s just something very glamorous about travelling by train and the excitement of [being on] a television show that everybody wants to see. Also, the friendship that was exemplified in these four guys seemed to be having the time of their lives.”
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
And when you look through the sequences in the film as well, The Beatles were also setting the template for what MTV would be later down the line. The music video was invented by them in films like this, and even when they started working together on more ambitious records and let filming take a backseat, Yellow Submarine was also one of the finest animated musical films this side of Disney animation.
Because when you look at it outside the context of the time it was made, The Beatles were still just four cheeky lads that wanted to have a laugh. There was no point in them making the most ambitious movie of all time, but in terms of pure enjoyment from start to finish, there’s no real way of topping the visual of them running through fields and soaking up all the fun that comes with being a rock and roll star.
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