Who’s The Best Tom H in Hollywood? Showdown Style!

Who’s The Best Tom H in Hollywood? Showdown Style!

Last May I did a fun blog post doing a showdown style figuring out who the best Chris in Hollywood was (Evans, Hemsworth, Pine, or Pratt). Today I’m doing something very similar and comparing the Tom H’s in Hollywood. That means we’re talking about Hanks, Hardy, Hiddleston, and Holland. Woody vs Bane vs Loki vs Spider-Man. Who will win? Let’s figure that out!

• ROUND #1: Box Office Success: For the first round I’m looking at the box office success for each other. Looking to see how much money their movies have grossed total. Let’s start with the legend himself with Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks has been in Hollywood for over 40 years now. He’s been in Hollywood longer than Tom Holland has been alive. Of the course of his career his films have grossed $11.8 billion at the box office. That’s a very solid number and considering the number of years he’s been in Hollywood that’s a great number. Moving right along we have Tom Hardy with a total of $7.2 billion. That’s a bit lower than I would have thought considering all of the big films he’s been in from The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, and the Venom trilogy. But hey, $7.2 billion is a great number. Next up we have Hiddleston who is helped greatly by a whole bunch of MCU movies including three Avengers movies that all grossed over $1.5 billion. Plus several other hit films bringing his box office gross to $9.4 billion. Finally with Holland, another actor who has a lot of $1 billion from Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers Endgame, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and Spider-Man: No Way Home all of this brings his box office total to $11.1 billion. With The Odyssey and  Spider-Man: Brand New Day releasing next year that number will go way over $12 billion. HANKS wins this around and gets one point 

• ROUND #2: Rotten Tomatoes: I don’t know how fair some of these numbers would be. Because Hanks has done way more movies then Hardy, Hiddleston, and Holland so that can dramatically affect this number and the average. But it’s still an interesting number to look at. I’ll say that all of the actors on this list are fresh. Meaning all of them have average rotten tomatoes scores of 60% or higher. In last place is Hardy with a 65%, that’s a very reasonable number. Third place goes to Hanks with 68%. I’ll say that’s a very good number confirming the amount of movies that he’s done. On Rotten Tomatoes he’s done about 52 movies, about 30 of them are fresh. 52 movies means there’s a lot of space for a lot of rotten movies. The fact that he has a 68% with 52 movies is very good. Second place is awarded to Spider-Man himself, Tom Holland. Once again, that’s a very respectable number for somebody who hasn’t been in Hollywood for a super long time. That means winning round #2 is HIDDLESTON with 77%. Like I said earlier, Hiddleston’s movie count is smaller compared to the others so I’m not sure how fair this is. But right now, Hiddleston wins round #2. 

• ROUND #3: Directors Worked With: For this one I’m looking at the directors that each Tom has worked with over the years. There’s some interesting things to look at here. First up, we have Hiddleston. He’s primarily worked in the MCU, but within the MCU there’s some solid directors. For him we have Kenneth Branagh, Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg, Joss Whedon, Taika Waititi, The Russo Brothers, and Mike Flanagan in his upcoming film, The Life of Chuck. There’s several Oscar winning or Oscar nominated directors here. Next up we have Holland who has several directors under his belt. Ron Howard, The Russo Brothers, Jon Watts, Doug Liman, and he will be working with Christopher Nolan in The Odyssey. There are a lot of great directors there. Next up we have Hanks who’s once again worked with a lot of directors spanning his career. Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, Paul Greengrass, Robert Zemeckis, Clint Eastwood, Sam Mendes, Baz Luhrman, Frank Darabont, The Wachowskis, Joel Coen, Brian DePalma, and Wes Anderson. That’s a great list of directors and a lot of icons of the last 50 years. Finally, that’ll bring us to Bane himself, Tom Hardy. We have George Miller, Christopher Nolan, Matthew Vaughn, Alejandro Gonźales Iñárritu, Ridley Scott, Guy Ritchie, and Sofia Coppola. Hardy has a lot of great directors, he’s appeared in several of Nolan’s films which helps him a lot because Nolan is one of the top directors working today. For this one, I’m going with HANKS. He’s worked with several legendary directors, many of them have multiple Oscars. He’s also in movies that were Best Picture nominees from these directors. He’s worked with Spielberg, Zemeckis, and Howard a lot but there’s not a bad thing because they're ionic directors that have made a lot of great movies. 

• ROUND #4: Variety in Work: For this round I’m looking at each actors’ career and figuring out who has the most variety in projects in regards to the different genres and their roles. First up, we’ll talk about Holland. This is an interesting one because I think the variety in work will be coming up. He’s been long attached to play Fred Astaire in a biopic. I don’t know if that’ll happen but seeing him play a real life character in a biopic will definitely help him in this round. As I already mentioned, he’ll be working with Christopher Nolan in The Odyssey. It sounds like he’s going to have a main role in that movie, if that’s the case then maybe we can see his acting range and see that he’s world class and more than just Spider-Man. He did a movie called Cherry with The Russo Brothers back in 2021. I haven’t heard great things about it, but I’ve heard he’s really good in that movie and shows that he’s a great actor. Next up, we have Hanks and he has done a large variety of movies in different genres. He’s done thrillers, war, rom coms, comedy, dramas, biopic, animation, and so much more. He’s done just about every genre and has excelled in it. Especially his run in the ‘90s with going from Philadelphia to Forrest Gump to Apollo 13 to You’ve Got Mail to Saving Private Ryan. There’s a reason why he was the kind of Hollywood in the ‘90s. Continuing into the 2000s with films like Cast Away just show his versatility as an actor. Even now when he’s not in his prime, he’s still doing great movies and different types of movies. Then we have Hardy who whenever he works with Christopher Nolan likes to put masks over his head in The Dark Knight Rises and Dunkirk. One of the most celebrated action movies of the 2010s would be Mad Max: Fury Road which is great. Shows that he’s willing to go crazy and wild in roles. Most recently he’s been in the Venom movies that aren’t great and he’s not giving a masterclass performance. But it shows that he’s a lot of fun and once again goes crazy. He has done a lot of great work over the years. Finally, we have Hiddleston who once again primarily works in the MCU. He hasn’t done much outside of that. He hasn’t fully expressed himself as an actor with a lot of range, at least from what I’ve seen. He’s done a couple of biopics over the years, neither one of them got good reviews and aren’t talked about. I don’t think he can be awarded this round. For this round, I’m going with HANKS. I think you just look at the number of movies he’s been in within multiple genres and he easily has the most variety in his work. 

• ROUND #5: Future Projects/Potential: Let’s keep the Hanks conversations going as we’re kicking off this round talking about him. He doesn’t have a whole lot of big high profile projects coming up. The big one he has next year would be Toy Story 5. Which is of course a popular and beloved franchise that is likely to make $1 billion. He also is in Wes Anderson’s next movie, The Phoenician Scheme that releases next month. Some of the other projects he’s going to be in aren’t ones that I’ve heard of or by interesting directors. Next up, let’s talk about Hardy and he has a lot of things lined up for the future. But several of them don’t have a director or release date. They literally just appear on his IMDB with no information besides he’s in them. This week he has a new Netflix movie coming out, Havoc. There’s rumors and speculation about him doing another Mad Max movie in Mad Max: The Wasteland. Given how Furiosa performed at the box office, I don’t know if we’ll be getting another Mad Max movie. Right now, there’s not much here that’s confirmed to be in or any movies that seem to be making progress in pre-production. We move from Bane to Loki. He has several tv shows lined up in the future. He’s doing season two of The Night Manager which was a beloved show that he did nine years ago. He has a season two lined up for that. Like I said, he’s in The Life of Chuck that releases in June. It’s already played at film festivals but hasn't opened yet. It’s been getting great reviews, I’m excited to see it. The other big one to talk about is Avengers: Doomsday. He’s returning as Loki for the next Avengers movies. He’s going to have another hit film on his resume. But most of his upcoming projects that are getting people talking are him returning to his past characters. If we had more original projects in there, things that we haven’t seen from him before then maybe I’ll look at his future more foundly. Right now, I don’t think his future career looks as promising as some of the other actors. Finally, that’ll bring us to Spider-Man himself, Tom Holland. As I’ve mentioned repeatedly in this post, he’s going to be in Nolan’s next movie. Whatever way you want to look at that, that’s a big win. You know that Nolan is going to deliver something awesome. I hope it shows that he’s a great actor and more big name directors want to work with him. Next summer we’re also getting his fourth Spider-Man movie, Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Another movie that’s likely to make $1 billion. His track record with Spider-Man movies is great. I’m very excited for that movie. If this Fred Astier biopic ever comes true, that’s another unique role for him. For those reasons I’m going with HOLLAND on this one. I think a new Spider-Man movie, a new Christopher Nolan movie, and a biopic shows that he has great promise for the future. 

• ROUND #6: Charm/Real-Life Personality: This is a bit of a tricky one because in their own ways, I think all of them have very charming and likeable personalities. I’ve watched several interviews with all of them. All of them seem like good guys that are good in interviews and good with their fans. I think it’ll be cool to meet any of them one day. As for me, I think the one I’m going with here is HANKS. He’s widely known as one of the nicest guys in Hollywood. You don’t get a lot of bad press about Hanks or him being rude on set. Granted, I haven’t heard any of these people being rude on set. But considering that he’s been in Hollywood and been famous for almost 40 years, that's a lot of time for some bad press to come out. There hasn’t been, he’s been able to keep up the good guy persona for decades. Because of that, he wins this round. 

THE WINNER: TOM HANKS!!!