Forrest Gump at 30: a wildly popular movie that remains as light as a feather

Tom Hanks is an affecting lead but the popularity of Robert Zemeckis’s much-loved Oscar-winner is still a curious mystery

In the 30 years since becoming a box-office phenomenon, en route to winning six Oscars, including best picture, director, actor and adapted screenplay, Forrest Gump has settled into the culture as a significant achievement, canonized by its induction into the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry – and, to a slightly lesser extent, by the few dozen Bubba Gump Shrimp Company restaurants worldwide. Other best picture nominees may be more beloved, like The Shawshank Redemption, or influential, like Pulp Fiction, but none that captured the public imagination on quite the same scale.

And yet it’s still worth asking, after all this time: What is the deal with this movie? What is it actually trying to say?

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