Big (1988)

Growing up can look like everything you've ever wanted, until you're suddenly there and discover what you've given up. Penny Marshall's "Big," written by Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg, stars Tom Hanks in an Oscar-nominated performance as a boy trapped in a grown man's body. After being humiliated at a carnival when he's too short for a ride, in front of an older girl he likes, young Josh Baskin makes a wish at a mysterious fortune-telling machine, one that works even though it isn't plugged in, and wakes up the next morning as a 30-year-old man. With his mother convinced he's been kidnapped, Josh flees to New York with help from his best friend, Billy (Jared Rushton), spending a frightening first night alone in a seedy hotel while they search for the machine that can reverse the wish. Josh lands a job at a toy company, where his kid's-eye view quickly makes him a star, and he's promoted to a vice president in charge of testing new toys. In the film's most famous scene, he and the company's delighted owner (Robert Loggia) play "Heart and Soul" on a giant floor piano at FAO Schwarz. Soon Josh has a huge loft filled with a trampoline, pinball machines and bunk beds, and a cynical, ambitious colleague (Elizabeth Perkins) is charmed by his innocence, while a jealous rival (John Heard) fumes. But the longer Josh lives as an adult, the more he's pulled into office politics and grown-up worries, Billy begins to feel left behind and Josh longs for home. Ross and Spielberg's screenplay was also nominated for an Oscar.