“The film is nonpolitical and thus nonjudgmental,” Tom Hanks said of Forrest Gump (1994), the year’s winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture and landmark moment in Hanks’ illustrious film career. Yet, in the more than two decades since its release, Forrest Gump has been repeatedly labeled a piece of conservative propaganda that acts as a condemnation of the counterculture movements of the 1960s and a promotion of general conservative values. It has appeared a number of times on “Best Conservative Films” lists and publications, and has been analyzed by film scholars to that end. During his Academy Award...