Film

Big

Name: Big
Genre: Fantasy, Drama, Comedy
Released: 1988
Cast: Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Perkins, Robert Loggia, John Heard, Jared Rushton

Fantasy
Comedy
Light-hearted

A 12-year-old makes a wish and wakes up in Tom Hanks's body — same kid, same wonder, six-foot-two overnight. It's a fantasy premise played completely straight, mining real sweetness and real melancholy out of a joke, with Hanks doing career-defining work making boyishness look like a superpower and a burden at once. Funny, tender, surprisingly wise about growing up.

TMDb rating

3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy a sweet, slightly sly fantasy where the funniest moments come from a grown body doing kid things, with a gentle ache underneath.

Skip it if the wish-fulfilment comedy is light and episodic, so if you want a tightly plotted story with real stakes, its gentle, lightly cheesy pace may frustrate you.

What it asks of you: Just under two hours of easygoing attention, with laughs arriving in small surprised bursts rather than a constant stream, and a few quieter scenes that let the mood settle.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

13 Going on 302004

The gender-flipped mirror image: a girl wishes to be thirty and gets it, waking up in a life she doesn't recognize. Same wonder, same ache, same lesson about wanting to skip the hard part.

But Jennifer Garner is terrific but the plotting is looser and the satire on office culture feels dated now.

Splash1984

Hanks again, four years earlier, again playing a man whose world is upended by something impossible — this time a mermaid — with the same gift for making fantasy feel emotionally real.

But It's slighter and more conventionally romantic; the comedy leans broader than Big's does.

Mrs. Doubtfire1993

Another performance built on an adult inhabiting a role that isn't quite theirs, with the same emotional trick: comedy that keeps sneaking up on you with real feeling underneath.

But Robin Williams's manic energy is a very different flavour, and the family-court subplot dates it.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Big

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Turnabout1940

This is the ancestor: the exact premise of waking up in the wrong body and having to bluff your way through an unfamiliar adult role, decades before Hanks ever touched a wishing machine.

A screwball body-swap comedy from decades before Big existed — a bickering husband and wife swap bodies via a magic idol and have to fake their way through each other's life.

But Ancient production values, dated gender jokes, and a much broader, sillier style of comedy than modern audiences expect.

Freaky Friday2003

The body-swap engine turned sideways — mother and daughter trade places and have to survive each other's lives, with the same warmth about empathy earned the hard way.

But It's a Disney Channel-adjacent teen comedy; the stakes and humour are considerably lower-key.

Forrest Gump1994

Hanks playing innocence again, this time as a permanent condition rather than a spell — a man whose simplicity is both his limitation and his moral compass moving through decades of history.

But It's much longer, much more sentimental, and wades into serious history where Big stays playful.

Vice Versa1988

Released the same year, with almost the same premise run through a father and son instead — proof the idea was in the air, and a fun double feature to see how differently it plays.

But Judge Reinhold is no Hanks, and it's the lesser film by a wide margin — more slapstick, less heart.

Elf2003

Will Ferrell as a man-child let loose in an adult world he doesn't understand, mining the exact same comic vein — enormous body, childlike wonder, chaos in an office.

But It's a Christmas movie through and through, broader and sillier, with none of Big's melancholy undertow.

17 Again2009

A grown man wakes up as a teenager and has to relive high school with adult regret — the reverse journey, with the same bittersweet math about what you gain and lose with age.

But It's a studio comedy aimed squarely at teens, and Zac Efron is no substitute for Hanks's range.

Groundhog Day1993

A different fantastical rule-set, same idea at heart: a selfish man forced by magic into becoming a better one, with comedy carrying real emotional weight underneath.

But The tone is drier and more philosophical, and the fantasy conceit runs on repetition rather than transformation.

Turning Red2022

Same engine, different costume: a sudden physical transformation nobody asked for forces a kid to navigate a body and a world that no longer fits who they feel like inside.

An animated coming-of-age film where a girl's body transforms without warning — in her case into a giant red panda — as a blunt, funny metaphor for puberty hitting overnight.

But It's aimed at kids and tweens, and the humour is broader, brighter, and more explicitly about adolescence and family conflict.

Being There1979

Both ask what happens when a childlike innocent is dropped into an adult world built on ambition and performance — Big plays it for tenderness, this plays it for cold satirical dread.

Peter Sellers plays a man of total innocence and simplicity thrust into Washington politics and high society, where his blankness is mistaken for profundity — a much darker satire on the same idea.

But It's a slow, dry political satire with an unsettling ending, nothing like Big's warmth or comic momentum.