Tom Hanks' $760M Mystery Thriller Is Now Streaming for Free

After decades in the business, Tom Hanks has certainly found his audience and retained it. He offers them World War II movies, feel-good dramas, and even pulse-pounding potboilers. Among his most successful films is a mystery based on a bestselling novel. The movie was released two decades ago and was successful enough to launch a franchise. It's about to be rebooted, albeit without Hanks' involvement. The franchise's first installment was recently added to the library of a free streaming platform, just as its 20th-anniversary year comes to an end.

Hugely controversial at the time of its release, the movie's religious themes divided audiences much like a fellow blockbuster from two years earlier. In 2004, audiences around the world experienced Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, which defied mixed reviews to gross more than $620 million worldwide. Hanks' film was released in 2006. It received worse reviews, but was a bigger hit, grossing around $760 million worldwide against a reported budget of $130 million.

The movie had an infamous premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was reportedly met with jeers from certain sections of the audience. This divisiveness continued after the film's theatrical release, when some viewers questioned its historical accuracy. Hanks was shocked at the response; in his mind, the movie was nothing more than an entertaining thriller with little resemblance to reality. "Those are delightful scavenger hunts that are about as accurate to history as the James Bond movies are to espionage… All we were doing is promising a diversion," he told The New York Times in 2022.

Here's Where You Can Watch 'The Da Vinci Code' for Free

We're talking, of course, about The Da Vinci Code, which Hanks called "hooey" in the same interview. The movie now holds a 25% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, "What makes Dan Brown's novel a bestseller is evidently not present in this dull and bloated movie adaptation of The Da Vinci Code." The movie also featured Jean Reno, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen, Paul Bettany, and Alfred Molina.

The Da Vinci Code was added to the Pluto TV library this month, along with its two sequels, also starring Hanks in the lead role. Both follow-ups — Angels & Demons and Inferno — received poor reviews as well, and the franchise saw a decline in box-office returns. The series was rebooted as a television show that lasted one season on Peacock. A new reboot series is in development at Netflix.