The best scene in Captain Phillips wasn't even in the script

At a recent press conference, star Tom Hanks revealed that the film's immensely powerful final scene was unscripted and unplanned.

Tom Hanks
(Image credit: (Courtesy of Columbia Pictures))

Captain Phillips is a strikingly powerful movie, with a commanding lead performance by Tom Hanks that's easily the best work he's done in a decade. But for all its strengths, the film's best scene (and the scene that might earn Hanks an Oscar) comes at the very end of the movie — and it wasn't even in the script.

(Spoilers for Captain Phillips to follow.)

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Scott Meslow

Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.