Houston, we have a problem. Tom Hanks, as astronaut Jim Lovell, turns a true story of a crippled spacecraft into one of the tensest films ever made.
Released in 1995, Apollo 13 tells the story of the 1970 NASA mission that suffered an oxygen tank explosion on its way to the Moon. Hanks plays Commander Jim Lovell, who must keep his crew alive while engineers on Earth improvise a way home.
Hanks plays Lovell with calm authority, never raising his voice, even as the situation grows desperate. The film’s power comes from that steadiness, and from the teamwork on screen, both in space and on the ground.
It is a signature role because it is Hanks at his most heroic without ever playing a superhero: just a capable, decent man doing his job under impossible pressure.