Tom Hanks won back to back Best Actor Oscars for 1993’s “Philadelphia” and 1994’s “Forrest Gump”. The next year he starred in the acclaimed “Apollo 13” and groundbreaking “Toy Story”. Hanks was already well-known for “Bosom Buddies” and his Academy Award nominated performance in “Big”. And even before he won his FIRST Oscar, he already had a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
But after going two for two at the Academy Awards, Hanks solidified his status as a mega movie star. No actor has won two consecutive Best Actor Oscars since then. Three men won once and then were nominated again the very next year — Russell Crowe, Jeff Bridges and Eddie Redmayne, but they couldn’t achieve that double Oscar status. We have had a back to back Best Director winner in Alejandro G. Inarritu, for 2014’s “Birdman” and 2015’s “The Revenant”. But it’s very difficult to pull something like this off.
The only other person to win two consecutive Best Actor Oscars was Spencer Tracy, for 1937’s “Captains Courageous” and 1938’s “Boys Town”.
The phrase “Two-Time Oscar winner Tom Hanks” has stayed with him for 28 years. And pretty much everyone knows he won them back to back. Hanks could’ve picked-up a third Best Actor Oscar in 2001 for “Cast Away”. He won the Actor in a Drama Golden Globe and was a heavy favorite. But many Academy voters might’ve had the back to back wins in their minds and chose someone else instead, in this case Crowe for “Gladiator”. (If Hanks did win, he would’ve prevented Daniel Day-Lewis from claiming the “First Actor to Win Three Best Actor Oscars” title in 2013, after receiving the trophy for “Lincoln”.)
One year later, in 2002, Hanks received the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award. And yet the world wouldn’t yet know the countless fantastic performances he would deliver over the next 20 years… only ONE of which would bring him back to the Academy Awards as a nominee.
The Academy passed over Hanks for “Road to Perdition”, “The Terminal”, “Charlie Wilson’s War”, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” and “Cloud Atlas”. Most prominently he was snubbed for 2013’s “Captain Phillips” and “Saving Mr. Banks”. He missed out for “Bridge of Spies”, “Sully” and “The Post” (Academy voters who sought to replace James Franco’s spot that year went for “Philadelphia” co-star Denzel Washington’s work in “Roman J. Israel, Esq.” instead).
It took a supporting turn as the beloved Fred Rogers in “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” to get Hanks Oscar nominated again, 19 years after “Cast Away”. Work in “Greyhound”, “News of the World”, “Finch” and “Elvis” followed. He truly deserved to be back on the ballot this year for “A Man Called Otto”.
So what is it, then? Is it that too many Academy members think Hanks has had enough success? Is the “back to back Oscars” aspect still seen as a negative, even in younger voters’ minds. Heck, one likely reason Cate Blanchett lost the Best Actress Oscar this year to Michelle Yeoh was because many voters thought, “Well, Blanchett already has two wins”, and they were nine years apart!
Hanks has NOT been phoning it in for the past 20 years. I believe he will be awarded a third competitive Academy Award before the end of his career. But convincing voters to make that happen isn’t going to be easy.