Tom Hanks thinks he’s only made four “pretty good” movies.

The 66-year-old actor – who has starred in the likes of ‘Forrest Gump’, ‘Philadelphia’, ‘Toy Story’, ‘Saving Mr. Banks’, ‘Sleepless In Seattle’ and ‘Green Mile’ over a long and varied career – has insisted the art of filmmaking is still a mystery.

He told PEOPLE magazine: “No one knows how a movie is made — though everyone thinks they do.

“I’ve made a ton of movies (and four of them are pretty good, I think) and I’m still amazed at how films come together.

“From a flicker of an idea to the flickering image onscreen, the whole process is a miracle.”

The Oscar-winner – who didn’t reveal which projects he holds in higher regard than the rest – is releasing his first novel ‘The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece’ in May 2023, and he drew a comparison between the way his book spans several decades and the almost unlimited potential for filmmakers.

He explained: “The source for a movie can go back as many years as are in history. A story turns on a single moment in the life of someone, then all the anecdotes of the current day magnify that moment.

“Going back to 1947 makes sense, as would have starting in, say, 1559. Human yearning has proven to be timeless.”

Hanks admitted while he finds his job “very hard”, it’s also the “greatest job in the world”.

He added: “Movie-making is very hard work over a very long period of time that consists of so many moments of joy slapped up against an equal number of feelings of self-loathing.

“It is the greatest job in the world and the most confounding of labors that I know of.

“I hope the book captures as much of ‘the accidental judgements and casual slaughter’ that go into a motion pictures dictum to hold ‘a mirror up to nature’ that I have witnessed (and caused) since I joined the Screen Actors Guild.”