the best years movie review

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Homer thinks maybe they should stop at his Uncle Butch's saloon for a drink before they get home. "You're home now, kid," the older man Al tells him. Three military veterans have just returned to their hometown of Boone City, somewhere in the Midwest, and each in his own way is dreading his approaching reunion. Al's dialogue brings down the curtain on the apprehensive first act of William Wyler's "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946), the first film to win eight Academy Awards (one honorary) and at the time second only to " Gone With the Wind " at the U.S. box office. Seen more than six decades later, it feels surprisingly modern: lean, direct, honest about issues that Hollywood then studiously avoided. After the war years of patriotism and heroism in the movies, this was a sobering look at the problems veterans faced when they returned home.

The movie centers on the stories of the three men. Al Stephenson ( Fredric March ), in his 40s, was an infantryman and is now returning to his family and the bank where he worked. Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) was a crew member on a bomber. Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) was a Navy man who lost both hands and now uses steel hooks. "You gotta hand it to the Navy," Fred tells Al, as they watch Homer walk slowly from their taxi to his front door, "they sure trained that kid how to use those hooks." Al says: "They couldn't train him to put his arms around his girl, or to stroke her hair."

That's why Homer wanted to stop for the drink. When he left for the war, he had an understanding with Wilma (Cathy O'Donnell), the girl next door, but now he fears how she will react to his artificial hands. The other men have fears, too. Fred, raised in a shack by the tracks and working as a drugstore soda jerk when he enlisted, quickly married the sexy Marie (Virginia Mayo), who has stopped writing him. Al has been married for 20 years to Milly ( Myrna Loy ), and has a son Rob (Michael Hall) and a daughter Peggy ( Teresa Wright ). They welcome him home with love and hugs, but he doesn't feel right; his children have changed, his life has changed, and after Rob goes to bed he suddenly remembers Butch's bar and suggests his wife and daughter join him for a celebration.

The other two men also turn up at Butch's. Homer couldn't take the exaggerated kindness and suppressed grief he thought he sensed from his parents and Wilma. Fred didn't find anyone at home at Marie's apartment. The three men get plastered together, with Al's wife looking on with superhuman understanding. That's the night Fred and Peggy have their first conversation, and begin to fall in love.

The movie's screenplay, by Robert Sherwood, moves confidently among the problems faced by the three men; unhurried and relatively low-key, this isn't a fevered docudrama. It becomes clear to Fred that Marie is a party girl who isn't interested in life on his drugstore paycheck of $32.50. Homer coldly tries to force away Wilma because he doesn't want her pity. Al gets a promotion at the bank, and is in charge of giving loans under the G.I. Bill, but rebels when he's asked to trust an applicant's collateral more than his character. Al turns to drink, and has a half-sloshed, half-heroic moment when he speaks his mind at a company dinner.

The film makes no effort to paint these men as extraordinary. Their lives, their characters, their prospects are all more or less average, and Wyler doesn't pump in superfluous drama. That's why the movie is so effective, and maybe why it doesn't seem as dated as some 1946 dramas. But Wyler employed remarkable visuals to make some of his points. He was working with the great cinematographer Gregg Toland , known for his deep-focus photography on such films as " Citizen Kane ," and often Wyler uses deep-focus instead of cutting, so that the meaning of a scene can reveal itself to us, instead of being pounded down with close-ups. Consider a scene in Butch's where Homer proudly shows how Butch (Hoagy Carmichael) has taught him to play piano with his hooks. Al and Fred look on, and then Fred walks to a phone booth in the far background to make a crucial call. The camera doesn't move, but our eyes follow Fred's movement to the booth, and we focus on a decision he is making.

One of the movie's most famous sequences involves Fred deciding to leave town in search of work, and going to the airport. While waiting for his military transport flight, he wanders into a vast graveyard of mothballed warplanes. This scene is heartbreaking. Once Fred flew these planes, and now they, and their pilots, are no longer needed. The payoff of the scene is deeply ironic.

And consider the film's extended closing scene, when Homer and Wilma get married. Fred and Peggy are among the guests. Earlier they have told each they they are in love, and Peggy vowed to her parents she would break up Fred's mistaken and miserable marriage. But Al warned Fred away from his daughter -- one reason he was leaving town, even though the tawdry Marie is filing for divorce.

Wyler shows the entire marriage ceremony, all the way through, starting with Carmichael playing the wedding march, and the lovers exchanging vows. There are two parallel lines of suspense. One involves the marriage itself, and whether Homer's hooks can slip a ring on Wilma's finger. The other involves Fred and Peggy on opposite sides of the same room, their eyes locked as they hear the wedding vows being pronounced. Deep focus allows Wyler to show both of these events at once, and his framing draws our eyes to the back of the shot, where Teresa Wright, never prettier or more vulnerable, doesn't move a muscle.

"The Best Years of Our Lives" doesn't use verbal or technical pyrotechnics. It trusts entirely in the strength of its story. One of the sources of its power is the performance by Harold Russell, the handless veteran. Producer Samuel Goldwyn was actually criticized at the time for his "tasteless" use of Russell, but look at the heartbreaking scene where Homer invites Wilma up to his bedroom -- not to make a pass, but to show her what is involved in getting ready for bed. He thinks maybe then she'll understand why he doesn't think he can marry her.

Russell was an untrained actor, but utterly sincere. He says: "This is when I know I'm helpless. My hands are down there on the bed. I can't put them on again without calling to somebody for help. I can't smoke a cigarette or read a book. If that door should blow shut, I can't open it and get out of this room. I'm as dependent as a baby that doesn't know how to get anything except to cry for it." We know Russell is speaking for himself, and the emotional power is overwhelming. O'Donnell's response is pitch-perfect.

Russell won an honorary Oscar, "for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance." Although he was actually nominated for best supporting actor, the Academy board voted the special award because they thought he didn't have a chance of winning. They were wrong. He won the Oscar, the only time an actor has been given two Oscars for the same role. The film also won for best picture, actor (March), director, screenplay, editing and score.

As long as we have wars and returning veterans, some of them wounded, "The Best Years of Our Lives" will not be dated. The movie is available on DVD, but there are no bells and whistles, and it calls out for a special edition or the Criterion treatment. I agree with Noel Megahey at DVDTalk.com : "Some other studios might regard a film that won eight Oscars as a major back-catalogue release but not MGM. The DVD presentation of the film is barely even adequate as a barebones release, with ... not a single feature to support the film's historical and cinematic importance."

Note: The film is said to have inspired one of Samuel Goldwyn's famous Goldwynisms: "I don't care if the film doesn't make a nickel. I just want every man, woman, and child in America to see it."

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film Credits

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

172 minutes

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The best years of our lives, common sense media reviewers.

Fine movie for families with older kids.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Subtle references (by today's standards) to Ma

Al and Fred get drunk, Milly makes Al promise not

Parents need to know that acceptance for those with disabilities is a theme of the movie, though dated by today's standards, as there is no suggestion that Homer can or should get a job.

Violence & Scariness

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Subtle references (by today's standards) to Marie's infidelity.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Al and Fred get drunk, Milly makes Al promise not to drink so much and checks what he is drinking at the wedding to make sure he is keeping his promise.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that acceptance for those with disabilities is a theme of the movie, though dated by today's standards, as there is no suggestion that Homer can or should get a job. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (2)
• Kids say (2)

Based on 2 parent reviews

A fine, beautiful movie!

Essential film for families., what's the story.

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES centers on three WWII soldiers returning home from service:. Fred Derry (Dana Andrews), a bombardier, Al Stephenson (Frederic March), a middle- aged footsoldier, and Homer Parrish (Harold Russell), a sailor who has lost both hands, fly back to their home town of Boone City, excited, but a little apprehensive about beginning their post-war lives. Fred is returning to a beautiful wife, Marie (Virginia Mayo), whom he barely knows. Al is coming back to his wife, Milly (Myrna Loy), and their two children, who have grown up while he was gone. And Homer is coming back to face his family and his fiancée, Wilma (Cathy O'Donnell), with hooks replacing his hands. Each of them has a lot of adjusting to do, and the story follows their post-war struggles with relationships, post-traumatic stress syndrome, careers, injuries, and more.

Is It Any Good?

This notable movie's theme of adaptation to changing circumstances and the need for genuine closeness is a timeless one. Many kids will experience and learn about post-war issues as a result of Iraq and Afghanistan. The most important scene in the movie is the one in which Fred realizes that he can use the same skills he used in the war -- especially his ability to learn -- to bring him what he is looking for. Fred and Homer both have a hard time believing that they deserve love, because each feels helpless and inadequate. Homer is afraid to risk rejection by Wilma, so he brusquely ignores her. Fred plans to leave town and never see Peggy again. But both ultimately take the risk and find the love they hoped for.

Al is also brusque and awkward with Milly at first, but by their first morning together he is ready to return to the relationship they had. Milly's description of marriage to Peggy is particularly important in this context, making it clear that "living happily ever after" requires commitment, courage, and work.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the challenges faced by each of the servicemen in adjusting to life after the war. Would it have been easier for Homer if his family and Wilma talked to him about his injuries when he first came home? Why was it easier for Homer to talk to Fred and Al about them than it was to talk to his family? Why was Al so awkward with Milly at first? What did he mean when he talked about collateral at the banquet? Why was it important for Fred to realize that he knew how to learn? How did that change the way he thought about himself?

Movie Details

• In theaters : November 21, 1946
• On DVD or streaming : July 18, 2000
• Cast : Dana Andrews , Fredric March , Myrna Loy
• Director : William Wyler
• Studio : MGM/UA
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 172 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : February 2, 2024

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Movie Review

The best years of our lives.

US Release Date: 11-21-1946

Directed by: William Wyler

Starring ▸ ▾

• Myrna Loy ,  as
• Milly Stephenson
• Fredric March ,  as
• Al Stephenson
• Dana Andrews ,  as
• Teresa Wright ,  as
• Peggy Stephenson
• Virginia Mayo ,  as
• Marie Derry
• Cathy O'Donnell ,  as
• Wilma Cameron
• Hoagy Carmichael ,  as
• Uncle Butch
• Harold Russell as
• Homer Parrish

Harold Russell, Dana Andrews and Fredric March in The Best Years of Our Lives

More than any other movie The Best Years of Our Lives makes me think about my grandma's house and the street we lived on when I was a child. Although The Best Years of Our Lives was released in 1946 and I grew up in the seventies, the houses, garages, sidewalks and shade trees depicted in the movie where Homer Parrish lives, never fails to remind me of Lakeway Avenue and of the old shell-shocked veteran that walked around the neighborhood mumbling to himself and scaring all the local kids. It also always reminds me of my grandfather's WWII Army uniform that hung in the basement closet. Although there is no specific scene like this, whenever I watch the movie I always think of the time my brothers and I found an old black and white photo of our mother as a little girl inside the crease of his sergeant's cap. A soldier's memento of home that had been there undiscovered since my grandfather's death in 1960.

The Best Years of Our Lives , directed by the great William Wyler, is a classic war movie that doesn't feature a single battle scene. Instead it brilliantly depicts how three different men from the same small town readjust to civilian life.

One is an Army sergeant (Fredric March) returning - after 3 ½ years - to his job as a banker and faced with getting reacquainted with his wife (Myrna Loy) and his two children who have grown into strangers. One is sailor Homer Parrish (played by real life paraplegic Harold Russell) dealing with the trauma of losing both his hands in combat. And the third is an officer in the Air Force (Dana Andrews) returning to his wife (Virginia Mayo), a woman he barely knows. The way this movie handles the frustrations and joys of their first hours and days back home is sheer poetry.

The Best Years of Our Lives is a powerful and hypnotically nostalgic motion picture.

Dana Andrews and Virginia Mayo in The Best Years of Our Lives .

I remember the old war veteran Patrick wrote about. I remember as a child playing toy soldiers across the street with a friend. I had all the plastic German soldiers and Panzer tanks. My friend had the little plastic American soldiers and Sherman tanks. The old veteran walked by us on the sidewalk and asked who was playing the Americans. My friend said that it was he and the old man shook his hand, then walked off. At the time I felt insulted, but was not sure why. Looking back, I guess he was a soldier who never quite got over his time spent at war.

That is exactly what The Best Years of Our Lives is all about. Different men come home to a different world than what they left. They adjust but are fully aware that they too are different from when they left. This movie came out right after World War II and I am sure it hit home with thousands of people.

These men are all sympathetic characters. Fred Derry was a pilot. He was an officer who had men's lives in his hands as he drove those planes. After the war he gets a belittling job working behind a cosmetics counter. Homer Parrish lost his hands in the war and now has claws. He is engaged. The movie does not go into detail about this aspect, but what sexual insecurities are he and his fiancée experiencing?

These men are scarred physically and emotionally. In one scene Derry walks through a dump full of old planes. He seems to almost be homesick for the war.

I am not a big fan of old dramas. This is a rare exception. These are real characters going through situations that every servicemen has gone through when returning from an extensive duty. This movie is as relevant today as it was in 1946. I bet any returning U.S. servicemen from Iraq would agree.

It's funny the difference just 2 or 3 years can make in a lifetime.  Being that I am that few years younger than Patrick and Eric respectively, you wouldn't think our memories would be that much different, but I have no memory whatsoever of the World War II Vet who wandered the neighborhood.  Nor do I remember a picture in my Grandfather's army uniform, or my Grandfather's army uniform for that matter.

I'll just get my standard complaint out of the way first.  This movie is too damn long.  It's nearly 3 hours in length, which is way too long for a heavy melodrama.  The writers try to give each of the characters equal screentime when they should have focused on just one of them as the main character and let the others play more supporting parts.  To my mind, Frederic March as Al, is the most interesting character and the entire movie could have been about him.  His is also the one character whose future is never fully resolved.  Homer and Wilma live happily ever after and Fred finds some peace with a new job and Peggy as a future wife, but Al's future is more vague.  He seems bound for alcoholism and for how long will he keep his job at the bank?

Lately I've been watching a lot of Pre-Code movies in which I've enjoyed the adult and mature nature of the plots and dialogues.  Suddenly switching gears to this 1946, deep in the Code, movie came something as a jolt and not in a good way.  Sex and intimacy plays a big part of all the storylines, but because of the Code, it is only ever tiptoed around and never frankly discussed.  It's easy to see why this myth that the 1940s and 1950s were a more innocent time was created, since no one was ever allowed to talk like grown-ups in movies or on television.  Eric, you mention the sexual insecurities that Homer must be feeling and I have to fully agree.  Part of the reason Homer is so nervous about being with Wilma has to be sexual, but you'd never know it from the dialogue.

All three of the leading actors do a great job.  You empathize with each one of them for different reasons.  They put a human face on the returning soldiers and made me want to find a Vet and shake his hand.

It must have definitely hit home with audiences of the time.  In fact, at the time of its release, it was the most successful movie since Gone With the Wind .  It also won 7 Oscars.  However, while the ex-soldier melding back into civilian life is timeless, the rest of the movie seems very dated, partly due to the Code, but also due to the heavy melodrama that was the fashion of the time.  There's far too many moments of swelling music for my liking.

There are powerful moments scattered throughout the movie, but I would never call it hypnotic.  Nor would I call it poetry.  There are pieces of brilliance, but it definitely needed a tighter editing job.

One thing that helped me get through this butt-numbingly long movie was by saying, "With a name like Dana!?!" every time Dana Andrews appeared on screen.  If you're familiar with Woody Allen's Radio Days , you'll get the reference.

Photos © Copyright Samuel Goldwyn Company (1946)

© 2000 - 2017 Three Movie Buffs. All Rights Reserved.

The Best Years Of Our Lives Review

21 Nov 1946

172 minutes

Best Years Of Our Lives, The

Based on MacKinley Kantor's blank verse novel, Glory for Me (which was itself inspired by an article in Time magazine), this sincere, if occasionally melodramatic study of the problems facing America's returning service personnel landed eight Academy Awards, with the debuting Harold Russell becoming the first actor to win two Oscars for the same performance.

    But while producer Samuel Goldwyn was instrumental in its commissioning, director William Wyler always considered this an intensely personal project, as he knew something of the psychological pressures of readjusting to civvy street, having seen action with the US Army Air Corps while making the documentaries, Memphis Belle (1944) and Thunderbolt (1945).

    Like so many Hollywood veterans returning to studio duty, Wyler was determined to make a statement that proclaimed the changed nature of society. Consequently, he challenged both established visual and storytelling conventions in this audacious achievement, whose cinematic worth has always been overshadowed by its sentimental reception.

    The opening segment of the film is almost devoid of plot, as Wyler concentrates on the spaces inhabited by the returning trio to show how three men of contrasting ages, classes and expectations, and who had fought very different wars (Homer had lost his arms in the Navy, Al had been a sergeant in the Army and Fred had participated in bombing raids over Germany), were temporarily more closely bonded together by the common experience of confronting the enemy than they were to the families and friends they had left behind.

    However, from the moment they're deposited by taxi, the trio are shown in all the inglorious isolation involved in adjusting from combat to domesticity. What's more, America soon proves to be a land unfit for heroes and their fraught situations are made all the more uncompromising by the fact they're presented in long, deep-focus takes which both enhance the action's realism and keep the audience unwaveringly involved in it.

     French theorist André Bazin hailed Best Years a masterpiece of  mise-en-scène cinema and its influence would be felt around the world.

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The best years of our lives.

1946 Directed by William Wyler

Three wonderful loves in the best picture of the year!

It's the hope that sustains the spirit of every GI: the dream of the day when he will finally return home. For three WWII veterans, the day has arrived. But for each man, the dream is about to become a nightmare. Captain Fred Derry is returning to a loveless marriage; Sergeant Al Stephenson is a stranger to a family that's grown up without him; and young sailor Homer Parrish is tormented by the loss of his hands. Can these three men find the courage to rebuild their world? Or are the best years of their lives a thing of the past?

Fredric March Myrna Loy Dana Andrews Teresa Wright Virginia Mayo Harold Russell Cathy O'Donnell Hoagy Carmichael Gladys George Roman Bohnen Ray Collins Minna Gombell Walter Baldwin Steve Cochran Dorothy Adams Don Beddoe Marlene Aames Charles Halton Ray Teal Howland Chamberlain Dean White Erskine Sanford Michael Hall Victor Cutler Claire Du Brey Pat Flaherty Jackie Jackson William H. O'Brien Bert Stevens Show All… Marion Gray Jimmy Ames Carol Andrews Mary Arden Gertrude Astor Edward Biby Harry Cheshire Sidney Clute Tom Coleman Joyce Compton James Conaty Heinie Conklin Bert Conway Clancy Cooper Mady Correll Roy Darmour Hal K. Dawson Lawrence Dobkin Lester Dorr Tom Dugan Dick Earle Edward Earle Blake Edwards Billy Engle Ben Erway Doris June Fesetta Tennessee Ernie Ford Louise Franklin Harry Gillette Dick Gordon Herschel Graham Earle Hodgins Stuart Holmes Ray Hyke John Ince Teddy Infuhr Georgia Kane Robert Karnes Kenner G. Kemp Donald Kerr Gene Krupa Ethelreda Leopold Alyn Lockwood Wilbur Mack Susan Mann Thomas Martin Michael Mauree Doreen McCann Peggy McIntyre Russell Meeker Chef Milani Harold Miller Ernesto Molinari William Newell Georgie Nokes Joe Palma Leo Penn Caleb Peterson Norman Phillips Jr. Jack Rice Suzanne Ridgway Mickey Roth Loretta Russell Ruth Sanderson Ralph Sanford Noreen Sayles Stephen Soldi John Tyrrell Amelita Ward Jan Wiley Marek Windheim Catherine Wyler Judy Wyler William Wyler

Director Director

William Wyler

Assistant Director Asst. Director

Jonathan C. Boyle

Producer Producer

Samuel Goldwyn

Writer Writer

Robert E. Sherwood

Original Writer Original Writer

MacKinlay Kantor

Editor Editor

Daniel Mandell

Cinematography Cinematography

Gregg Toland

Lighting Lighting

Bill McLellan

Art Direction Art Direction

George Jenkins Perry Ferguson

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Julia Heron

Special Effects Special Effects

John P. Fulton Harry Redmond Sr.

Composer Composer

Hugo Friedhofer

Sound Sound

Richard DeWeese Gordon Sawyer Larry Gannon

Costume Design Costume Design

Irene Sharaff

Makeup Makeup

Robert Stephanoff

Hairstyling Hairstyling

Marie Clark

Samuel Goldwyn Productions RKO Radio Pictures Samuel Goldwyn Company

Releases by Date

21 nov 1946, 15 jun 1974, 25 dec 1946, 31 dec 1946, 15 jan 1947, 17 jun 1947, 03 oct 1947, 17 nov 1947, 24 nov 1947, 11 dec 1947, 18 dec 1947, 27 dec 1947, 30 jan 1948, 04 mar 1948, 28 mar 1948, 01 jun 1948, 15 jun 1948, 29 oct 1948, 24 dec 1948, 19 feb 1951, 03 feb 1954, 29 may 1961, 17 jan 1964, 28 mar 1974, 20 nov 2002, 06 jun 2014, 04 may 2017, 22 jun 2002, releases by country.

• Theatrical 13
• Theatrical e 12
• Theatrical (re-release)
• Theatrical S
• Premiere 12 (TV premiere)

Netherlands

• Theatrical AL
• TV AL Nederland 2
• Physical AL DVD
• Theatrical APTA (Madrid)
• Theatrical APTA
• Theatrical APTA (re-release)
• Theatrical U
• Premiere NR (New York City, New York)
• Theatrical NR (Los Angeles, California)
• Theatrical NR (re-release)
• Theatrical NR (New York City, New York) (re-release)

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Popular reviews

Review by Jordan Horowitz ★★★★★ 10

The best movie ever made?

Review by laird ★★★★★ 7

I'm struggling to think of what a contemporary equivalent of this would look like.... Something from Hollywood with A-list actors that confronts the emotional and psychological toll of war on fully realized characters while still working as masterfully filmed melodrama... How mentally malnourished are people who hold the (demonstrably false) opinion that new Hollywood movies are somehow more sophisticated than "old ones?" We've been at war for over a decade and we get a few Lone Survivors a year, but where are the stories about soldiers at home? Too uncomfortable to confront, I suppose.

Review by Matt! ★★★★★ 8

If this film were to be released today exactly as is, it would still sweep the damn Oscars.

A powerful, moving, empathic look at the Greatest Generation and their struggles to re-assimilate into civilian life post-WWII, anchored by a deliberately paced script and heartfelt, intimate performances (including the award-winning turn of Harold Russell, a real life veteran and the first non-professional actor to receive an Academy Award). Despite the relatively simplistic direction by Wyler, this movie is a brilliant testament to the healing of all those returning soldiers who were asked to leave (ahem) the best years of their lives overseas. On both a technical and narrative level, it does nothing unique or innovative, yet it still succeeds in being…

Review by nora ★★★★½ 3

william wyler was like "i'm gonna make a 3-hour film where every single scene is absolutely necessary and every frame is intentioned and it will make viewers feel every single emotion" and HE DID IT and i wept

( 8/10 from 1946 )

Review by Two Cineasts ★★★★★ 5

Hi everybody, after I rewatched Mrs. Miniver a few weeks ago, I rewatched this wonderful masterpiece from William Wyler and it was worth every minute. The story about three WWII soldiers coming home and struggling, each one with his own problems, to fit in post war society. 

The movie based on the acclaimed book, it was brought masterly to screen by William Wyler and adapted by Robert E. Sherwood, both were rightfully received the Oscar for their work, second of three Awards for W. Wyler. The film showed three very different, but nevertheless quite similar ways to handle post-traumatic stress disorder and reintegration in a post war society. Love is the solution and it was written really grown up and…

Review by Adam Kempenaar ★★★★★ 12

Damn, William Wyler, you didn't have to go so hard in that bedtime scene with Homer and Wilma. I was already almost in tears 20 minutes in when the three returning soldiers ended up at the same bar that first night back home.

A 'they don't make 'em like they used to' hall of famer.

Review by Justin Peterson ★★★★½ 1

(Quest to Conquer the BFI/AFI Greatest Films of All Time Lists)

They are remembered as The Greatest Generation, but fighting a war takes a toll on people's lives both in combat and with how they cope with life back at home.

"You know, I had a dream. I dreamt I was home. I've had that same dream hundreds of times before. This time, I wanted to find out if it's really true. Am I really home?"

I had only recently heard about The Best Years of Our Lives now that I am trying to see all the (AFI top 100 films) and (Best Picture winners), and it is truly a poignant classic that deserves to be more well known. It…

Review by Sam Meltzer ★★★ 7

It’s a nice movie. Did I LOVE it as much as everyone else seems to? No, the story isn’t really my thing. But the movie is so impressive in its characters and scale. The acting is all around wonderful and I love Myrna Loy especially. This movie is really reminiscent of the 40s and it captures that time frame with ease and beauty. The way it's shot is brilliant and really captivating. I don’t have much to say except to watch it and form your own opinion. It’s a big movie with great acting and even if the story isn’t for me I was still impressed. 

Best Picture Rank

Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★★

In 1946, William Wyler's classic The Best Years of Our Lives achieved both critical and popular success, so much so that it became the only American feature film to be declared a national treasure by the Library of Congress. The film follows the lives of three World War II veterans—Al Stephenson, Freddie Mills, and Homer Parrish—as they struggle to resume their lives after the war. Wyler paints a realistic, intimate portrait of the veterans, made all the more powerful by the undeniable chemistry between the central trio. 

Though the plot is movingly simple, Wyler refuses to take shortcuts or offer easy solutions. Instead, he focuses on the complex and thorny emotions of his characters as they grapple with being ordinary…

Review by Chris Feil ★★★★★

Cried no less than half a dozen times. Desperate to rewatch Five Came Back , tbh. I’ve typed and deleted a bunch of incoherent things about bullshit military propaganda movies given far more cultural cachet for their depiction of the American military (and the culture’s relationship with it) than this humane, complex masterpiece, so I’ll just leave it at: fuck those movies. I would have spent another 3hrs staring into the sad smiles of this A+ ensemble.

Review by theriverjordan ★★★★½ 10

“The Best Years of Our Lives” is a sweeping post-war domestic drama. Despite its grand scale, the film’s best moments take place in the background. 

Don’t let the high rating make you think I’ve had a change of heart. William Wyler remains my least-favorite of the ‘beloved classic’ American directors. His movies retain their iconic status for their stunningly talented leading women, rather than any real uniqueness Wyler contributed.

“Lives” soars - despite Wyler - not just for its ensemble of talented workhorse performers, but for the gifts bestowed on it by “Citizen Kane” cinematographer Gregg Toland. 

Toland uses the deep focus he developed for “Kane” to tell sagas just with what happens in the division between a shot’s foreground…

Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★½ 15

The Best Years of Our Lives is classical Hollywood at its finest. Here is a humanist film, with sympathies for the ordinary man. It comes from a point in time when society was transforming. The American economy and way of life was drastically affected by World War Two. This was a rare time when the West embraced a belief in helping individuals and sharing economic prosperity. Yet returning to civilian life, soldiers found their years spent away prevented them from getting jobs. Injuries and nightmares plague those who return. The Best Years of Our Lives depicts these realities. It must have been incredibly affecting for those who saw it on initial release.

The Best Years of Our Lives depicts three…

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The Definitives

Critical essays, histories, and appreciations of great films

The Best Years of Our Lives

Essay by brian eggert august 17, 2020.

The Best Years of Our Lives blends Hollywood melodrama and restrained, observational form to treat its subject with critical realism and humanity. William Wyler’s film captures the lives of three returning World War II veterans from different social classes, the changes to their country and loved ones during their time away, and the adjustments they must undergo to transition back into civilian life. In an early scene, the central characters take the same transport flight home, and along the way, share stories about their families and experiences, and about how each of them suffers from psychological or physical wounds. They pass over an airplane boneyard and look down on a sea of bombers destined for the scrap heap. In elegant and economic terms, the image anticipates how each man will feel or be treated upon his return, like old, inessential equipment that no longer has a purpose. A dramatic triptych unfolds to reveal a portrait of postwar American culture: a precise historical moment captured through deeply human and naturalistic storytelling, which critiques how America welcomed returning soldiers with class division, inadequate resources, and social disparity. Through its critical depiction of complex characters in a manner more commonly associated with literature than motion pictures, The Best Years of Our Lives remains so singularly honest in its description of veterans that Wyler’s treatment cannot help but supply an editorial on the social landscape of postwar America.

The Samuel Goldwyn production debuted in late 1946, just as millions of veterans returned to unfortunate circumstances: The war had not brought peace. The relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union was falling apart, and the Cold War was ramping up; there was a civil war in China; and after the U.S. dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the power of atomic energy and the prospect of nuclear war terrified everyone. American soldiers returned to a country whose conservative politicians argued that fighting the Nazis and Japanese was unnecessary, falling back on the same isolationist stance that nearly overcame the country before the bombing of Pearl Harbor finally committed the Roosevelt administration to war. Even after the war, some called America’s participation part of a Jewish plot, using Anti-Semitic rhetoric to spread fear about the Communist presence in America, especially Hollywood (Congressman John Rankin, a conservative Democrat from Mississippi, attributed the cause of the war to “a little group of our international Jewish brethren”). As the Cold War emerged instantly after the Second World War, the once-temporary House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), created in 1938 to expose disloyalty on American soil in the wake of growing threats on the international stage, became a regular fixture in American politics and culture for the next two decades.

Meanwhile, millions of American families tried to return to normal, but normal had changed. Problems of demobilization and reintegration of soldiers into civilian life affected every member of the so-called Greatest Generation. Women who had entered the workforce were expected to become homemakers again. Although marriage rates had increased wildly with the volume of returning servicemen, leading to the Baby Boom, so had divorces. Women wanted to keep working and thinking of themselves as individuals, and when their husbands came home from war and expected their wives to return to their old gender roles, some women left. At the same time, America had learned a hard lesson after World War I when thousands of soldiers returned from overseas to find themselves jobless and homeless, leading to the Bonus Expeditionary Forces March on Washington, D.C. in 1932. Truman’s administration had tried to prevent another postwar transitional disaster by establishing job programs, but they failed to protect returning soldiers adequately. Over half of the country’s unemployed in 1946 were veterans, and even those veterans who were employed often had to settle for lesser-paying jobs or positions that did not suit their abilities. Moreover, some civilians had stigmatized returning soldiers, worrying that they would take up the available jobs. All the while, the psychological strain on veterans was quietly disregarded. What was called being “shell-shocked” or “battle fatigued” after World War I became a “gross stress reaction” in the 1940s. The term post-traumatic stress disorder would not be used until the 1970s to describe Vietnam veterans. As critic Abraham Polonsky observed, “veterans had been sold out en masse by society.”

The Best Years of Our Lives started with producer Samuel Goldwyn, Hollywood’s most renowned independent producer at the time, matched only by David O. Selznick. Development on the project began in August 1944, and the finished film premiered eighteen months later in November 1946. As the story goes, Goldwyn read an article in a 1944 issue of Time magazine, recommended by his wife, called “The Way Home,” about a group of First Marine Division veterans who experienced combat fatigue and needed a period of readjustment after returning from Guadalcanal. Goldwyn hired novelist MacKinlay Kantor to write a treatment based on the article. Kantor, who would later earn the Pulitzer Prize for his Civil War novel Andersonville (1955), delivered his draft, called Glory for Me , in January 1945. The result was not the 100-page document that Goldwyn had ordered—it was a 268-page novel in blank verse. Although Goldwyn shelved the project after finding Kantor’s approach unintelligible, he later showed the novel to Wyler, who believed the film would promote empathy for servicemen returning to civilian life. Goldwyn then hired three-time Pulitzer winning playwright Robert E. Sherwood, a former speechwriter for Roosevelt, who had contributed to screenplays such as Idiot’s Delight (1939) and Rebecca (1940), to rewrite Kantor’s draft. After some additions from Wyler and Goldwyn, the screenplay was ready, and Wyler put together his ensemble, including Fredric March, Dana Andrews, and an actual wounded veteran Harold Russell in the central roles, while Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, and Virginia Mayo filled out the supporting cast.

Although The Best Years of Our Lives became one of the highest-grossing releases of 1946, and it received seven Academy Awards, the film also breaks from traditional modes of production to deliver deeply personal filmmaking. Historically, one might be tempted to lump Wyler’s film together with other social problem releases from this era, but that would be a mistake; the film has more in common with Italian Neorealism, where its authentic stories and emotional narratives combine into an aesthetic markedly different from a traditional Hollywood picture. The film shares characteristics with Neorealist films like Bicycle Thieves (1948) or Umberto D. (1952), which shoot in a stripped-down style using actual locations and unprofessional actors. Yet, they have melodramatic stories and heightened emotional beats. They are not realistic in the fly-on-a-wall observational style associated with cinéma vérité, but they find truth through their poetry. The same is true of Wyler’s film, photographed by Gregg Toland in deep focus and deceptively simple blocking. But more than just realistic, the film was a rare personal expression by its director. Wyler had experienced World War II first-hand while shooting documentary footage, and when he returned from abroad, he recognized the characters depicted in Sherwood’s script. “I knew these people, shared a good many of their experiences,” Wyler said at the time. He had a pronounced empathy for returning veterans, and he felt artistically inspired to deal with their challenges in a realistic manner.

Wyler led the film’s drive toward authenticity. The director was among Classical Hollywood’s most accomplished filmmakers, averaging sometimes two or three features per year throughout the 1930s. He worked with Goldwyn almost exclusively between 1936 and 1941, and together, they made several respectable classics from the era, including Dodsworth (1936), Dead End (1937), Wuthering Heights (1939), and The Westerner (1940). His talents remained in high demand; Goldwyn loaned him out to Warner Bros. to direct Jezebel (1938) and The Letter (1940), both starring Bette Davis. And when the otherwise isolationist United States was drawn into World War II with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Wyler sought to help. Not only did he feel compelled to fight for the country that had been so good to him after moving to the U.S. from Alsace-Lorraine in his younger days, but given his origins in a Jewish family in Europe, he felt compelled to fight against Nazism and the Anti-Semitic fever emerging overseas and at home. His first wartime effort became Mrs. Miniver , a melodrama that sought to portray the British ordeal in the Blitz. Though widely celebrated by American audiences and at the Academy Awards— Mrs. Miniver was the top box-office performer of 1942 and also earned six Oscars, including Wyler’s first of three Best Director statues—that was not enough. Wyler enlisted in the Army, an experience he would later call, “an escape to reality.”

Just days after finishing work on Mrs. Miniver , the director wired Washington D.C. to join the Army’s Photographic Division. Like other filmmakers of his day, he was determined to use his talents to capture footage of the war. After passing a physical and paying the price of a uniform, the army assigned him the rank of Major, and Wyler set off to war with a hand-picked crew of Hollywood technicians behind him. He had orders to make films about the Eighth Air Force for training, morale, and historic purposes. Soon enough, Wyler had his first experience flying in bombing raids, and he realized that his Oscar-winning picture Mrs. Miniver got it all wrong; it was fluff, but what he was experiencing was real. The tough filmmaker never backed down from the assignment, however, regardless of some opposition. General Ira C. Eaker, realizing that Wyler was the Jewish director behind Mrs. Miniver , a film the Nazis hated given its popularity, sought to ground the director, fearing that Wyler might receive some particularly cruel treatment should he be captured on a mission. Wyler refused, even though he could have been court-martialed for his decision. It would not be the last time Wyler faced a court-martial during his service. In 1944, he narrowly avoided arrest when, in Washington, after an angry bellman called a customer “one of those goddamned Jews,” Wyler slugged him.

Wyler’s experiences in the war resulted in two documentary features. The first, The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944), followed the missions of a Boeing B-17. Shooting the film was no cushy assignment, however; to get the footage seen in the documentary, Wyler accompanied the Air Force crew on several missions at considerable personal risk. Later, he personally screened it for President Roosevelt, who declared that every American should see the film. The second of Wyler’s wartime documentaries, Thunderbolt! (1947), was made alongside John Sturges ( Bad Day at Black Rock , 1955). It charts the missions of a P-47 fighter-bomber squadron over Italy. Although Wyler later earned the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and received the Legion of Merit in 1946 after completing the film, his experiences shooting Thunderbolt! left him permanently deaf in his right ear. At first, Wyler’s hearing loss was total, and he was unsure whether he would ever hear again. The Army shipped him to a hospital in Santa Barbara, where he underwent questionable treatment and countless tests. The Army hospital was hardly a welcoming, healing sanctuary. They gave him sodium pentothal, better known as a truth serum, to determine if his hearing loss was merely psychosomatic, and they also kept Wyler in a padded cell. He became depressed and felt isolated in a world where he could neither hear nor receive the treatment he needed, and he worried if he would ever make another film. Over time, partial hearing in Wyler’s left ear returned, but he remained traumatized by the experience, both physically given his hearing loss and psychologically from his care at the treatment center. Afterward, he received sixty dollars a month from the U.S. government for his affliction.

Discharged in December 1945, Wyler returned to Hollywood. He joined the ranks of several veteran-filmmakers who worked for the United States propaganda machine, often catching actual war footage for use in military training films, newsreels, and historical records. And not unlike John Ford, Frank Capra, George Stevens, and John Huston, Wyler would approach Hollywood filmmaking in a different light given his new perspective. Now informed with documentary and observational techniques, not to mention an eye-opening exposure to the unromantic reality of war, all far removed from the artifice of Hollywood, the output of these filmmakers changed after the war. Stevens, for instance, once known for blithe comedies, returned from his experiences and made cynical films like A Place in the Sun (1951) and The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). Capra confronted corruption and hopelessness with his aching but optimistic It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). Having one more film in his contract with Goldwyn, Wyler saw Kantor’s draft of Glory for Me and resolved to film it. Goldwyn wasn’t enthusiastic and would have preferred that Wyler direct The Bishop’s Wife or a rousing biopic about General Eisenhower. But Wyler was attracted to the idea of a film about the average grunt and not an iconic general. Sherwood and Goldwyn met with the director, whose experience in battle and postwar disability left him particularly suited to the project.

As the plot goes, Wyler introduces three veterans flying home to their small town of Boone City, each from a distinct social class and division of the army. Their representative cross-section, one of the film’s few traits that reveal the delicate touch of Hollywood artifice, captures the social environment spanning postwar America. Al Stephenson (Fredric March), a sergeant who fought the Pacific island war against the Japanese, has an upper-middle-class wife and two older children waiting for him, as well as an established career in banking. Al is married to Milly, played by “The Perfect Wife” Myrna Loy, who was such a star because of her role in The Thin Man series opposite her on-screen husband William Powell that Goldwyn gave her top billing to convince her to take the small but crucial part. Fred Derry (Dana Andrew), a soda jerk before the war, comes from a destitute home under a bridge, but he returns a decorated Air Force lieutenant whose rushed marriage to Marie (Virginia Mayo) before the war begins to fall apart. Fred’s marriage becomes even more complicated when he meets Al’s daughter, Peggy (Teresa Wright), and they fall in love. Homer Parrish (Harold Russell), an enlisted man from the Navy, has lost both arms up to his elbows, leaving him with two prosthetic hooks. Although he has a loving family and devoted sweetheart, Wilma (Cathy O’Donnell), supporting him, Homer, self-conscious about his hooks and dependence on others for help, feels like he’s a burden. When the three veterans arrive home in Boone City, they share a taxicab that passes by children in strollers, Woolworth’s stores, and hotdog stands. Their hometown has continued to hum along without them.

Wyler’s commitment to authenticity begins with Russell, a wounded veteran and untrained actor. The director had seen him in a Signal Corps documentary called Diary of a Sergeant (1945). Russell, a butcher before the war, served as a demolitions instructor at Camp Mackall in North Carolina, where a defective fuse caused TNT to explode in his arms, requiring a bilateral amputation at the elbows. Although he initially endured months of feeling useless, he soon accepted his situation, and his impressive rehabilitation landed him a role in the documentary. Wyler saw a natural personality and genuine screen presence during Russell’s demonstration of how to use his mechanical hands, and he sought out Russell for the role of Homer. Goldwyn wanted Farley Granger to play Homer and, initially, worried that Russell’s inexperience might spoil the film’s dramatic potential. Goldwyn put Russell into acting lessons without Wyler knowing. But when the director found out, he fumed. He wanted a natural presence for Homer, not someone performing for the camera, and immediately canceled the lessons. After all, Homer’s disfiguration remains the most confronting aspect to the movie-going audience, since disabling conditions of this kind remained hidden from the public eye or treated as an unrecoverable tragedy. Wyler considers the issue from the wounded soldier’s perspective, and Russell’s unpolished performance rings with feeling. On the plane to Boone City, Homer worries about what will happen when he returns home, and whether Wilma will accept him. When he’s reunited with his family, Homer’s mother cries at the sight of his new hands, whereas Wilma never shows anything but loving acceptance. She hugs Homer, whose arms remain at his sides. Watching this reunion from the taxi, Fred observes how the Navy “sure trained him to use those hooks,” but Fred adds, “they couldn’t train him to put his arms around that girl.”

If Homer’s story, which ends The Best Years of Our Lives on a pleasant note, with Homer and Wilma’s marriage, represents the film at its most optimistic, Al’s story fulfills another kind of arc. Married for twenty years, Al returns to an idyllic nuclear family and a new job as vice president of small loans. But his teenage son, Rob (Michael Hall), schools him on the threat of atomic energy and seems uninterested in Al’s gifts of Japanese artifacts—a samurai sword and blood-stained flag—that might have delighted a younger boy. Milly no longer recognizes him; though, their marriage has lasted this long out of their commitment to support one another. Instead, Al’s main struggle comes at the bank. His boss, Mr. Milton (Ray Collins), questions Al’s choice to grant a loan to a fellow veteran with no collateral. Al argues, “His ‘collateral’ is in his hands, in his heart and his guts,” that the veteran’s financial integrity is not something to be measured on a loan application. After a slight reprimand, Al resigns himself to the bank’s policy, and the gracious smile on Milton’s face drops when Al leaves his office. Even so, in a later scene at a banquet arranged by the bank in his honor, Al stands to give a speech that signals his divided loyalty to the Cornbelt Loan and Trust Company and his fellow soldiers in need of credit: “There are some who say that the old bank is suffering from hardening of the arteries and of the heart,” Al says, wobbly. Throughout the evening, Milly has kept an eye on his drinking, scratching a line in the tablecloth with a fork for each cocktail. “I say that our bank is alive,” he continues. “It’s generous, it’s human. And we’re going to have such a line of customers seeking and getting small loans that people will think we’re gambling with the depositors’ money. And we will be. We will be gambling on the future of this country.”

Al’s torment proves more existential than Homer’s or even Fred’s, as it will be shown. He no longer recognizes his children; his relationship with his wife requires adjustment; he must conform to the new capitalist order at the bank, which contradicts everything he learned about trusting his fellow soldier on the battlefield. “Last year it was ‘Kill Japs,’ this year it’s ‘make money,’” he laments. Maybe Al has grown tired of taking orders, or maybe he realizes the bank is a metaphor for capitalism “hardening of the arteries” of America. Though he does not lose his job after his speech, he remains unhappy, and an alcoholic. Addiction to drugs and alcohol saw a rise in the postwar years, with millions of veterans turning to substance abuse for an escape. The Best Years of Our Lives finds each of its three central characters dependent on alcohol. Their first night back, the three men each end up at Butch’s, a local bar owned by Homer’s uncle (Hoagy Carmichael). Al is the life of the party, convincing everyone to have one more drink, stop at one more nightclub. Fred drinks so much that he passes out, and Peggy brings him home. Each man returns to Butch’s throughout the film, Homer so much so that his uncle tells him “to stay away for a while.” The sheer volume of Al’s drinking—matched only by William Powell in The Thin Man , albeit to comic effect—might be amusing given March’s animated performance, if not for Milly’s concerned looks. In the final scenes at Homer and Wilma’s marriage, Al and Milly seem content together, even if Al remains preoccupied with the wedding punch. Although male camaraderie often develops in drinking culture, the film acknowledges how this behavior not only supplies an escape from the pressures of domesticity, but it prevents the characters from making progress in their re-acclimation into civilian life.

While Homer’s adjustment involves his self-worth, and Al must compartmentalize his ideals to appease postwar America’s commitment to capitalism, Fred’s story confronts the psychological scarring that occurred in many veterans. Not unlike Homer, Fred has had his wings clipped, although not in the same manner—his mind has been traumatized by a malady even more stigmatized in American culture than a physical disfigurement. His first night back, sleeping off the bender in Peggy’s bed, he screams in terror from nightmares of his wartime experiences. Unlike his two counterparts, Fred has no family to support him. His parents live in a veritable shack on the wrong side of the train tracks, and he returns to find that his wife, Marie, has taken a hushed job at a nightclub and grown accustomed to a ritzy lifestyle. “All I want is a good job,” Fred declares, but he struggles to find one that pays well. He goes from soda jerk to bombardier to soda jerk again, resigning himself to his old position at the pharmacy, now a well-stocked general store. But Marie doesn’t want to wait for the good life, nor does she have the empathy to help her husband overcome his memories. “Can’t you get that out of your system?” Marie asks, annoyed by her husband’s PTSD. Before long, she leaves him for another veteran. Besides lowering himself to a sales position (he tells the store manager that he has no experience in procurement or personnel work, “I just dropped bombs”), he must endure a new attitude toward the war. One customer, an isolationist filled with right-wing rhetoric, claims the Nazis and Japanese had nothing against the United States, that the war was for “suckers.” Fred clocks him and loses his job in the process. The scene, inspired by Wyler’s near-court-martial for punching a bellman, originally included the customer’s Anti-Semitic slurs, but the Production Code office demanded their removal.

Fred’s case as a poor young man who enlisted because he had few other prospects was commonplace among veterans, and so was his effort to reorient and reconcile his trauma. “No one could go through that experience and come out the same,” Wyler told Hermine Isaacs in Theater Arts after the war. Peggy recognizes Fred’s condition, sees his fractured marriage and need for dignity, and she falls in love. She announces this to her parents and declares, “I’m gonna break that marriage up.” Peggy feels that her parents could not possibly understand Fred given their privileged lifestyle—a notion that underscores the film’s theme of class division—but she’s deflated when Al and Milly admit that no marriage is without ups and downs. “How many times have we had to fall in love all over again?” Milly reflects in a tender speech. In any case, Fred must overcome his own afflictions before he would be any good for Peggy. He resolves to leave town and, while waiting for a flight, he wanders the plane graveyard seen from above in the film’s opening scenes. Lost among endless rows of unusable machines, he climbs inside one of the bombers whose propellers have been removed just like Homer’s hands. Inside the nose, amid dusty switches, he relives his trauma. The sounds of battle reverberate in Fred’s mind, even as the scrapyard’s foreman tries speaking to him. In that instant, Fred seems to move beyond his experiences and push forward. He emerges from the bomber and talks his way into a job with the foreman, turning old planes into prefab houses—a symbol that Fred, alongside Peggy, will work together to build a life over his past trauma.

Although Al, Homer, and Fred remain at the drama’s forefront, Wyler also builds out the women of The Best Years of Our Lives into layered characters. Milly, Peggy, and Wilma take on the traditional roles often assigned to women in 1940s cinema, serving as wives and lovers. Each of them functions in a caretaker capacity to their men as well. But as Wyler’s body of work suggests—including Jezebel , Mrs. Miniver , The Heiress (1949), and Roman Holiday (1953), among others—he maintains an affinity for pictures about strong women, earning him the label of a “woman’s director” alongside George Cukor. The film’s longer-than-average runtime allows time for his women characters to be more than reductive types. Wilma’s patience and understanding of Homer’s malady reveal themselves in her sensitivity. Milly accepts that Al has changed in the war, and she will adapt, as she always has. Peggy, a modern woman, employed at a hospital (where she has learned “more than you or I will ever see,” Milly tells Al), refuses to be so patient. She loves Fred, and when she realizes Marie does not love him, her vow to break up his marriage is a stunning break from Production Code morals. Nevertheless, the women do not force their men to change, like so many mothers and wives, the moral epicenters of Classic Hollywood cinema: Milly cannot force Al to stop drinking; Wilma cannot make Homer forget about his hands; Peggy cannot heal Fred’s mind. The soldiers must do that themselves. Still, observe how each woman puts her man to bed in one scene. Through their nurturing, the film asks that we identify with their care of these damaged men, compelling a desire to treat returning veterans with empathy and support.

Wyler poured himself into the production of The Best Years of Our Lives like no picture before, and he worked closely with Sherwood and Toland to achieve the right dramatic tone and visual treatment. It was a notably personal production for a director often placed in charge of studio assignments, since Wyler could relate to each of his three main characters. Russell later called the film “Wyler’s heart and soul.” The director furthered his personal connection in subsequent drafts of the script. He had the most in common with Al (a supportive wife and good job waiting for him), and Al’s reunion with Milly was based on Wyler’s reunion with his own beloved wife, Talli, whom he was away from for over a year while overseas. But then, Wyler also related to Fred, a bombardier, given his experience on the Memphis Belle . Homer, like Wyler, had to acclimate to his new disability. Many of these touches were realized in Sherwood’s rewrite of Kantor’s original novel, whereas Sherwood omitted much of the Hollywood artificiality from earlier drafts, such as a sequence where Fred plans to rob a bank, only to have Al talk him out of it. And imagine how hollow it would have been had Al, following his arc from an early draft, left his job as a loan officer to work in a garden nursery. Sherwood also added Homer as an amputee, along with the screenplay’s anxiety about nuclear war and isolationist conservatives. The differences between Kantor’s text and the final screenplay are many, and the changes attest to Wyler’s need to craft a genuine and meaningful statement.

The production shot from April 1946 for seventy-two days on a budget of $2 million, wrapping in August. Today, some elements may seem unrealistic given our gritty, handheld conception of aesthetic realism, but The Best Years of Our Lives represented a major stylistic departure for Wyler or any Hollywood production. Wyler said at the time that he was part of a “conspiracy against convention” in stylistic terms. Filmed near Los Angeles, not in Cincinnati, as Goldwyn’s publicity department claimed, the director insisted on capturing actual city streets, airports, and the B-17 graveyard in Ontario, California. For the interiors, Wyler ordered the construction of intentionally smaller sets to look like real spaces, as opposed to the lofty Hollywood interiors with impossibly high ceilings that allowed cameras to maneuver. The actors wore less make-up than a typical production, and their costumes, purchased from department store racks, had a lived-in appearance because the principal actors had been wearing them for weeks before shooting began. Compared to most releases during the postwar era, the film’s authenticity appeared unorthodox and raw. Still, Wyler’s approach behind the camera remained the same. He furthered his reputation as “40 Take Wyler” by demanding take after take, a particular frustration for some actors given the film’s exceptionally long unbroken shots. Scenes that seem effortless and relatively inconsequential took the longest to shoot. Wyler saw no reason to break them up into shorter segments, so a modest but long scene, such as Al seeing Homer in the bank, reportedly took thirty takes to get right. Editor Daniel Mandell assembled the footage during the shoot, meaning post-production took only a few short weeks to finalize, including Hugo Friedhofer’s folksy score.

The Best Years of Our Lives marked the sixth and final collaboration between Wyler and Toland, who died in 1948. Together, they conceived a realistic aesthetic through a straightforward narrative, linear storytelling, modest camera movements, and deep focus photography—a far cry from the radical work Toland had done with Orson Welles. French theorist and critic André Bazin estimated that the film used only 190 shots per hour, about half of the average Hollywood film, due to Wyler’s insistence on long takes that immerse the viewer in the scene. Bazin’s study, one of the earliest to assess the film as Wyler’s masterpiece, argued that Wyler was not interested in emotional manipulation; he allows the viewer to see everything and make observations about what’s happening within in the frame. Bazin called Wyler’s approach an “invisible style” and noted that he makes it so “the spectator can (1) see everything; and (2) choose as he pleases. It’s an act of loyalty toward the spectator, an attempt at dramatic honesty.” Keeping the fore, middle, and background in focus enhances the effect, as does putting the action and reaction in the same shot, whereas a typical production might cut between them. Wyler’s deep focus staging is never more pronounced than in a bar scene where Homer and Butch play “Chopsticks” on the piano while Al watches. In the distance, Fred calls Peggy to tell her that he won’t see her again, a call that he promised to make at Al’s request. Al watches that too. Toland keeps all three figures in focus, and the scene parallels when the veterans sat at the same table in Butch’s earlier in the film, drinking together merrily, except now they are separated by spatial isolation and unspoken tension. Wyler’s interest in isolating his characters in visual terms led to his use of frames within frames: Al and Milly’s embrace at the end of a narrow hallway; Fred cramped in the bomber, reliving his trauma; Homer reuniting with his family from Al and Fred’s point of view through the cab window. Wyler understands that camera placement can involve the viewer by allowing us to search the scene and discover our own emotional reaction.

Indeed, The Best Years of Our Lives is not without emotional manipulation: when Wyler frames Homer looking out at a sunrise, or he catches Fred and Peggy’s eyes locked throughout Wilma and Homer’s wedding ceremony, he engages in sentimentalism that connected, and still resonates, with audiences in a profound way. At nearly three-hours with no intermission, the film does not align with what we now consider escapist or crowd-pleasing entertainment. Yet, it was the highest-grossing picture of 1946, after Song of the South , and followed by Duel in the Sun and The Jolson Story . With few exceptions, critics praised Wyler’s depiction of everyday life of a sort that rarely made it onto the screen. Bosley Crowther’s stirring review in The New York Times stated, “It is seldom that there comes a motion picture which can be wholly and enthusiastically endorsed not only as superlative entertainment, but as food for quiet and humanizing thought.” Everyone from General Dwight D. Eisenhower to anonymous servicemen wrote to Goldwyn’s company, thanking them for making such a true, human picture. Billy Wilder called it “the best-directed picture I’ve ever seen in my life.” Abroad, Bazin’s praise, which commends Wyler for the film’s “humility” toward his subject matter and audience, gave way to less generous assessments in the Cahiers du Cinéma in the 1960s, when Wyler’s filmography was associated with the contemptible “cinema of quality” against which New Wave filmmakers rallied. But at the Academy Awards ceremony in 1947, Wyler’s film resulted in Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (March), Best Supporting Actor (Russell), Best Film Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score. Much has been made about how Russell felt that his other Oscar that night, an honorary award for “bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance,” was one too many.

Not everyone felt enthusiastic about Wyler’s film. A year after its release, HUAC’s investigation into Communism took a sharp look at Hollywood, and The Best Years of Our Lives became one target among many—during hearings that made accusations without evidence and unconstitutionally questioned political and ideological loyalties. HUAC chair J. Parnell Thomas, the Republican representative from New Jersey who delighted in making headlines, cited the film as Communist propaganda. The FBI delivered reports to J. Edgar Hoover about whether the film contained Communist messages. In a particular stroke of hypocrisy, the film’s representation of excessive drinking and divorce raised issues for the FBI, who believed that only Communists could be responsible for its displays of moral indecency. The bureau also questioned whether Howland Chamberlin (as the drug store manager), Roman Bohnen (as Fred’s father), and screenwriter Howard Koch (who allegedly contributed an uncredited rewrite) were Communists. All three would be blacklisted by 1950, along with dozens of others, when Hollywood’s top brass agreed to not knowingly employ Communists or “any disloyal elements”—reinforcing the blacklist in the wake of the Hollywood Ten’s citations, and jail time, for refusing to answer the committee’s questions. By 1947, over forty Hollywood actors, directors, writers, and others in the film industry were subpoenaed to Washington, D.C. before HUAC’s committee of demagogues. Any film or person who called for free speech, sought social justice, or questioned Americanism could be labeled a traitor or communist.

Wyler, backed by the Committee for the First Amendment, a coalition of Hollywood talent (including Fredric March and founding member Myrna Loy) who sought to defend the accused from HUAC, launched a counter-campaign. Wyler appeared on a radio broadcast called “Hollywood Fights Back,” where many spoke out against HUAC. “I’m convinced I wouldn’t be allowed today to make The Best Years of Our Lives as it was made a year ago,” Wyler said. “They are making decent people afraid to express their opinions.” Gene Kelly made an appearance on the broadcast as well. Kelly asked the audience if they had seen The Best Years of Our Lives . “Did you like it? Were you subverted by it? Did it make you un-American? Did you come out of the movie with the desire to overthrow the government?” The lasting effect of the HUAC hearings, coupled with separate hearings by Wisconsin’s Republican senator Joseph McCarthy about the Communist influence on American soil, led to a temporary blot on the film’s reputation and legacy. With HUAC’s antennae raised to any political views that questioned aspects of American culture, and Hollywood filmmakers self-regulating to avoid getting noticed, no bolder film about veterans than The Best Years of Our Lives would come out the postwar era. Not until decades later, after the end of HUAC and people started to confront the consequences of the Vietnam War, would countless films—including The Deer Hunter (1978) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989)—hope to confront the veteran experience. Among them, only Hal Ashby’s Coming Home (1978) comes close to achieving the unflinching humanity and internal realism of Wyler’s film. As Roger Ebert observed, “As long as we have wars and returning veterans, some of them wounded, The Best Years of Our Lives will not be dated.”

Though the concept of the American Dream emerged in the postwar era, Wyler’s film questions the illusion of American idealism, the stuff of highly regulated Hollywood motion pictures, family television, and cheery capitalism. The Best Years of Our Lives addresses the country’s failures through melodramatic circumstances and a precise, albeit observational style, offering three deeply personal stories that acknowledge realistic postwar human suffering and, by extension, sociopolitical despair in America. With his unobtrusive style and commitment to authenticity, Wyler avoids a Hollywood ending; his veterans’ troubles are not easily resolved, and not with undue cynicism. Even though Wyler loves his country, he knows it can do better. Given that The Best Years of Our Lives confronts the problems facing veterans, the title raises questions. Did these Best Years take place in the past, in the blissful ignorance before these men went to war? Are they the unrealized years at home that were lost during the war, and therefore represent something to be mourned? Fred tells Peggy, “the best years of my life have been spent.” She disagrees and claims their best years are still ahead of them. Instead of mythologizing the war and America’s victory, Wyler’s film refuses to concede to blind optimism, but he does offer hope. Only after confronting the reality of postwar America, in all its prospects and human failures, does the film embrace the healing possibilities of the future.

Bibliography:

Beidler, Philip D. “Remembering ‘The Best Years of Our Lives.’” The Virginia Quarterly Review , vol. 72, no. 4, 1996, pp. 589–604. JSTOR , www.jstor.org/stable/26439127. Accessed 17 July 2020.  

Gerber, David A. “Heroes and Misfits: The Troubled Social Reintegration of Disabled Veterans in ‘The Best Years of Our Lives.’” American Quarterly , vol. 46, no. 4, 1994, pp. 545–574. JSTOR , www.jstor.org/stable/2713383. Accessed 19 July 2020.  

Harris, Mark. Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War . Penguin Group, 2014. 

Herman, Jan. A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood’s Most Acclaimed Director, William Wyler . Phantom Outlaw Editions, 2015. 

Isaacs, Hermine Rich. “William Wyler: Director with a Passion and a Craft.” Theater Arts 31 no. 2, 1947.

Kozloff, Sarah. The Best Years of Our Lives . BFI Film Classics. British Film Institute, 2011. 

–. “Wyler’s Wars.” Film History , vol. 20, no. 4, 2008, pp. 456–473. JSTOR , www.jstor.org/stable/27670746. Accessed 17 July 2020.  

Miller, Gabriel. William Wyler: The Life and Films of Hollywood’s Most Celebrated Director . The University Press of Kentucky, 2013. 

Polonsky, Abraham. “‘The Best Years of Our Lives’: A Review.” Hollywood Quarterly , vol. 2, no. 3, 1947, pp. 257–260. JSTOR , www.jstor.org/stable/1209411. Accessed 17 July 2020.

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The Best Years

2020, Drama/Comedy, 2h 9m

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The best years   photos.

Italy, 1980. Three 16-year-old idealists, Paolo, Giulio and Riccardo, share everything like brothers. Along with them is Gemma, Paolo's girlfriend, who quickly becomes a full part of their lives. But life catches up with them and the young friends embark on different paths. Paolo (Kim Rossi Stuart) graduates with a degree in literature and has a hard time finding a teaching position. Giulio (Pierfrancesco Favino) becomes a successful lawyer and soon trades his youthful ideals for wealth and fame. Riccardo (Claudio Santamaria) bounces from one job to the next, from failed actor to wannabe journalist. Gemma (Micaela Ramazzotti) leaves Rome for Naples where she struggles to make ends meet, only to return a few years later and reunite with Paolo. When Gemma and Giulio begin having an affair behind Paolo's back, the group seems to fall apart irrevocably. As years go by, the four friends reconnect and lose touch over and over, while struggling with their hopes, disillusionments, successes, failures and the passage of time.

Genre: Drama, Comedy

Original Language: Italian

Director: Gabriele Muccino

Producer: Marco Belardi , Paolo Del Brocco , Raffaella Leone

Writer: Gabriele Muccino , Paolo Costella

Runtime: 2h 9m

Production Co: RAI Cinema

Cast & Crew

Pierfrancesco Favino

Micaela Ramazzotti

Kim Rossi Stuart

Claudio Santamaria

Nicoletta Romanoff

Gemma adolescente

Gabriele Muccino

Screenwriter

Paolo Costella

Marco Belardi

Paolo Del Brocco

Raffaella Leone

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THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES

"it can be hard to come home".

What You Need To Know:

(BB, CC, PPP, Cap, V, S, N, AA, D, M) Strong moral worldview that draws attention to a Christian wedding at the uplifting ending, plus very strong Pro-American, patriotic content and light pro-capitalist content; no foul language; brief fight scene with one good slug; unmarried girl kissed by a married man; upper male nudity; alcohol use and drunkenness; considerable smoking, cigars and cigarettes; and, a divorce.

More Detail:

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES is an Academy Award winning Best Picture about three soldiers returning to the same town at the end of World War II. While compassionately showing the difficulties of readjusting to civilian life, the movie does feature some smoking and alcohol abuse.

The movie opens with Fred (Dana Andrews), Homer (Harold Russell, and Al (Fredric March) catching a ride on a B-17 back to Boone City. Fred, a bombardier, has nightmares about friends going down in flames. Homer, whose ship was sunk, lost his hands and has become very adept at using prosthetics. Al returns from the Army to a promotion at the local bank and two children who have grown up while he was gone. The night he returns home, he takes his reserved wife and daughter “on the town” and gets stumbling drunk.

When Fred has difficulty finding a good job, his wife, who loves to spend money on the high life, seeks a divorce. Homer rejects his family and his fiancée because he wants to be treated as a normal man. Try as they might, Homer is just too self-conscious about his hands. Meanwhile, Al struggles at the bank with being too generous making loans to veterans.

Al’s daughter Peggy (Teresa Wright) falls in love with Fred while he’s still married. Al does his best to squelch the relationship. Fred prepares to leave town, but at the last moment gets a good job with a firm dismantling thousands of warplanes. In a very moving scene that’s also a classic use of deep focus cinematography, Fred strolls past a graveyard of B-17s and says, “We sure could have used these early in the war.” The astounding effort involved in winning the war, on the homefront and overseas, just stopped.

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES does a remarkable job capturing the issues returning American veterans faced after World Wart II. The direction by William Wyler (BEN-HUR) is superlative. Harold Russell, a real WW II double amputee, gives a startling, profoundly touching and realistic performance that’s one of the most honest portrayals you may ever see at the movies. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES is patriotic and pro-free enterprise with strong Christian elements in a wonderful wedding scene, but it does have some troubling misuse of alcohol and considerable smoking.

The movie won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (William Wyler), Best Actor (Fredric March), and Best Supporting Actor (Harold Russell). It struck a chord with the many veterans returning home around the world. It was immensely popular in Great Britain as well. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES is a true masterpiece.

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• Standard DVD

The Best Years of our Lives (Blu-ray)

Review by: Matt Brighton

Plot: What’s it about?

William Wyler’s The Best Years of our Lives is one of those movies that stays with you. And it’s one of those movies, like Annie Hall , that’s still relevant long after the awards have been presented.  I wasn’t alive in World War II and my parents were yet to be born, so to say that I can relate to this movie is something of an understatement.  But like many great films it’s all about the messages contained within.  Like it’s a Wonderful Life and so many other great films of the time, this film has aged well and it’s one of several Best Picture winners that’s still very deserving of its spot.  Oddly enough, it’s also one of three films to maintain its place in the American Film Institute’s list of Top 100 American films in both lists (#37 on each) – the only other two were #1 ( Citizen Kane ) and The Godfather: Part II . While there are those that might debate its place on those lists, it can’t be argued that the film is indeed worthy.  Our country has been at war for some time now and we seem to forget some of the sacrifices that our elders went through to ensure that America was, in fact, the land of the free and the home of the brave.  Ladies and gentlemen, these truly were The Best Years of our Lives …

The film follows three soldiers, bombardier Fred Derry (Dana Andrews), sailor Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) and infantry sergeant Al Stephenson (Frederic March) meet while on the way home to Boone City. Homer has lost his hands and has become skilled at using his new hooks, but he doesn’t know how to deal with his well-meaning family, or how to handle his fiancée (Cathy O’Donnell in her first role). Fred hopes for a new job, but winds up back at the same drugstore that employed him before the war. Fred’s wife Marie (gorgeous Virginia Mayo), whom he married just days before leaving for the war, no longer seems like a good match. Finally, Al returns to his wife (Myrna Loy) and grown kids, gets a new job in his old bank (handling small loans to G.I.s) and spends most of his time drunk. The three men occasionally meet with a stirring camaraderie that could come only with their shared experience. To make matters more complicated, Fred falls in love with Al’s daughter Peggy (Teresa Wright).

Director Wyler and screenwriter Robert E. Sherwood probably had to make several concessions in creating this adult-themed material, and it shows; some characters and sequences are more restrained and tentative than others, but overall it’s still a stirring piece of work. Hoagy Carmichael has a nice, warm role as Homer’s uncle (and plays the piano). Also, be on the lookout for quick glimpses of Gene Krupa and other musicians of the era. Oddly, only March and Russell were nominated in the acting categories, and they both won. Russell was a real veteran with real hooks for hands, and he won a second, honorary Oscar for “for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance.”

Video: How’s it look?

Warner has taken care of this title and its been presented in a full-frame black and white image, the movie won’t fill up your screen, but right away I did notice an increase in sharpness that wasn’t present before. The movie had always had somewhat of a soft look and feel to it and with increased contrast and black levels seeming more solid, I feel that this is, by far, the best the film has ever looked on a home video format.  For comparison’s sake, there are a few scenes of the movie in the featurettes, so you can see how improved the picture is. It’s easy to be spoiled by some of the newer releases, but for a film that’s now sixty five years old it looks pretty darn good. I doubt anyone will be disappointed.

Audio: How’s it sound?

Uncompressed sound is a great thing and I’m usually in favor of involving every channel in my house to justify my purchase of all the A/V gear. Thankfully Warner has a lot more common sense than me and has utilized a DTS HD Master Audio 1.0 soundtrack. Yes, we only get one channel, but the sound emanating from it sounds rich and natural. This film was made far before the multi-channel soundtracks that we have today and suffers by comparison. But when you consider what you’re listening to, it doesn’t sound that bad. Vocals are rich and warm and there’s even a few songs that liven up the film. I didn’t detect a ‘hiss’ that’s sometimes associated with films of the era. This soundtrack won’t blow the roof off the place, but I was pleasantly surprised with how this mono track sounded.

Supplements: What are the extras?

You would think that one of the most acclaimed movies of all-time and a Best Picture winner to boot might have a little more to offer on Blu-ray, but sadly we only get the same recycled extras that appeared on the standard DVD from HBO (issued in 1998).

• Introduction by Virginia Mayo – As stated, it’s a brief one minute introduction to the film by Virginia Mayo.
• Interviews with Virgina Mayo and Teresa Wright  – Again, pretty self-explanatory, both actress are interviewed (remember this is “vintage” footage) and both recall some events from the set. Nothing too terribly intriguing, but it does make us wish there were some more features of substance present.
• Theatrical Trailer

Disc Scores

• Video Codec: AVC
• Audio: DTS HD Master
• Audio: Mono
• Audio Commentary
• Deleted Scene(s)
• Documentary
• Digital Copy

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‘Coup de Chance’ Is Woody Allen’s Best Film in Years

'coup de chance' restores the masterful filmmaker to his deserved position as one of the screen’s most profound storytellers. .

Unfairly derailed by obvious, headline-demanding personal problems, Woody Allen ’s phenomenal career returns to where it should never have paused in the first place with this languidly paced but endlessly mesmerizing combination of domestic-crisis love story and suspense-layered murder mystery—his first (and best) film in years. Set in the upper-class echelons of Paris and written, acted and filmed entirely in French, the title Coup de Chance translates as “stroke of luck,” and that’s exactly what it is, restoring the masterful filmmaker to his deserved position as one of the screen’s most profound storytellers. 

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The film centers on what outwardly appears to be the perfect marriage of Fanny and Jean Fournier, a rich, attractive couple who don’t seem to have a care in the world. The envy of even their most familiar friends, the Fourniers are like glamorous role models in glossy articles in French Vogue: trendy clothes, a fashionable lifestyle, regular patrons in the most expensive restaurants, a lavish apartment, and a gorgeous ivy-covered weekend house in the country. Fanny (charming, appealing Lou de Laâge ), having survived a miserable first marriage to a lazy, abusive musician, has hit pay dirt with Jean (dashing Melvil Poupaud ). She stays busy working for an exclusive art gallery. He doesn’t do anything but make money as an entrepreneur and a business advisor to rich friends. Two lives well lived, but as in all Woody Allen movies, perfection isn’t everything. The wrinkle in the seamless canvas is boredom. Fanny considers their life missing the proverbial lost chord. She’s tired of weekends with superficial guests who talk about money, travel and the world’s best hotels and wines, has no interest in Jean’s passion for deer hunting, and longs for a change.

Opportunity knocks when Fanny accidentally runs into Alain ( Niels Schneider ), an old schoolmate and once-potential boyfriend she hasn’t seen in years, now a published (and intriguingly divorced) writer working on a new novel, and wonders: if she had married him, would it have led to a different, more exciting life? Against her better judgment, curiosity and a dormant sexuality invade her subconscious. The former school acquaintances begin to meet for casual lunches in the park. Suddenly Jean can’t reach her at work. Cooking spaghetti at his apartment, buying a lottery ticket, change is gradual. Alain makes the mistake of calling when he thinks she’s home alone, and Jean makes the mistake of answering the phone. A coincidence turns into an infatuation and the result is a passionate, full-blown affair. Humiliated and furious, Jean hires a detective, and 48 minutes into the film, irony turns lethal and romance turns to murder. But this is, above all, a Woody Allen movie, so even tragedy blends with humor. I’ll refrain from any spoilers, so you’ll have to ponder who does what to whom—and how. But in another left turn, a new character moves to center stage when Fanny’s mother, suspicious and a devout reader of crime novels, embraces paranoia and continues the narrative in ways that will leave your mouth wide open with shock. Nothing happens the way you think it will, and Coup de Chance will keep you riveted with suspense and surprise.

I wouldn’t describe Woody Allen as a reluctant director, but in this film, his laid-back style has the feel of a jazz improvisation, which is reflected to the hilt in the changing tempos of the screenplay, and in everything from the beauty of the elegant cinematography by the accomplished Vittorio Storaro to the intimacy of the background ballad music by great jazz musicians such as Nat Adderley , Milt Jackson and the Modern Jazz Quartet. 

Superb performances by a sterling cast are an enormous help, too. Especially Lou de Laâge, whose Fanny is endlessly fascinating in a quirky but realistic way, full of unique revelations and traces of Diane Keaton . Her mid-tempo acting style—expressive, with great feeling—easily held my attention from beginning to end. In Woody Allen, she seems to have found the right director to bring out the unexpected strength in the face of adversity needed to meld the power of humor and logic. Coup de Chance is about fate—and the consequences of luck. Woody’s “take” is there is no such thing as fate; we make our own luck. And she, in turn, brings out the intention of her director in spades. Like his films, which are incisive, brightly lit social observations about the human condition, hers is a mirror that masks the darkness of the human heart with the wit, intelligence and survival of the human spirit.

• SEE ALSO : How Opera’s Crisis Can Become an Opera Renaissance

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Screen Rant

Don’t tell mom the babysitter’s dead review: this decent, fun remake can’t beat the original's charm.

The lighthearted revamp of Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead doesn’t quite match the charm or appeal of the original cult classic.

• The remake of Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead successfully balances old and new elements.
• Important themes and characters from the original are not fully utilized in the remake.
• Those familiar with the 1991 film will appreciate the nostalgia and callbacks, but the remake may fall short for new viewers.

Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead , the 2024 remake of the beloved 1991 cult classic comedy, attempts to bring the quirky charm of the original to a new generation. Starring Simone Joy Jones, Jermaine Fowler, and Nicole Richie, this modern revisioning aims to capture the lighthearted spirit that made the Christina Applegate-led film a fan favorite. While the remake offers a fun, nostalgic moment for fans of this forgotten 1990s kids’ movie , it struggles to enhance or elevate the brilliant charm that made its predecessor so memorable.

A group of siblings are forced to reckon with the sudden death of their elderly babysitter. Shortly after their mother heads off on a personal vacation, the siblings discover they’ll have the place to themselves - but they’ll have to keep the secret until their mother comes home.

• The modern remake is fun so long as it's not taken too seriously
• Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead captures the overall spirit of the original
• The film misses the mark when it comes to the charm & sensibilities of the original
• The remake's characters don't have as much of a driving force

The film's strength lies in its ability to reference the 1991 version. However, for those seeking a truly satisfying comedic experience, rewatching the original may prove to be a more rewarding choice. The remake's reliance on our suspension of disbelief, coupled with its inability to fully capture the magic of the simpler times of the early '90s, makes it a less compelling standalone film. While Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead provides a feel-good experience for those in the mood for a bit of absurdity, it falls short of surpassing the original's enduring appeal.

Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead Delivers A Perfect Balance Of Old & New

The remake does a good job at referencing the original, while making it its own.

This fun, but unnecessary remake manages to strike the perfect balance between paying homage to the original and introducing fresh elements for a new generation. Shot in the same house used in the original, a fun nostalgic callback, the film maintains originality while infusing updated elements and scenarios for a more streamlined narrative. For instance, the youngest sibling from the original, Walter, is merged with the character of Zach, and the younger sister, Melissa, is a tech genius who helps create Tanya’s new identity. The movie incorporates enough modern touches without overdoing it, emphasizing the timeless nature of the premise.

Many will be excited to find that some of the most iconic quotes from the 1991 version are cleverly woven into this updated script.

Significant efforts have been taken to provide a more detailed and somewhat convincing explanation for the mother's long absence. While the original seemed to suggest she was simply spending time with a boyfriend, the remake offers a more nuanced backstory, with the mother experiencing a nervous breakdown after a mishap at work. Sure, there could have been more plausible reasons explored for a parent needing to travel abroad for an entire summer without her children, but the original element of absurdity remains, continuing the charm and silliness of the 1991 classic.

Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead truly succeeds in catering to fans of the original, showcasing a strength that shouldn't be overlooked when it comes to the art of the remake. Many will be excited to find that some of the most iconic quotes from the 1991 version are cleverly woven into this updated script, such as " I'm right on top of that, Rose " and " The dishes are done, man. ” These callbacks serve as a fun nod to the film's roots while seamlessly incorporating an updated narrative.

Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead (2024)

The best parts of the original don’t tell mom the babysitter’s dead are afterthoughts in the remake, important themes and characters aren’t utilized to their full potential.

While the remake of Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead does a decent job at paying homage to the original, it falls short in capturing the essence of some of the most beloved aspects of the 1991 film. One of the most notable disappointments is the portrayal of Rose, a standout in the original. Originally played by Joanna Cassidy, Rose Lindsey was kind, lighthearted, and made adulthood seem fun and glamorous, essentially serving as a role model for the young protagonist.

Nicole Richie, who was tasked with filling these big shoes, delivers a decent performance, but ultimately fails to fully embody the spirit of the original Rose. Despite her efforts, Richie's acting often feels forced, and it becomes apparent that she may not have thoroughly studied Cassidy's portrayal in the original film, nor truly made the role her own. However, a brief, but great and fun cameo from Cassidy provides a glimmer of forgiveness for Richie's shortcomings, but it's not enough to completely compensate for the lack of depth in her performance.

Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead can definitely be an enjoyable, quick watch for those who are willing to suspend disbelief and have prior knowledge of the original film.

Another crucial element that feels like an afterthought in the remake is Tanya's passion for fashion. In the original, fashion was a central theme, with Applegate’s character, Sue Ellen, possessing a love for it that was a driving force behind her actions and decisions, particularly her pursuit of a job at a fashion company. Her dedication to fashion was palpable, and it served as a defining characteristic that made her relatable and endearing. However, in the remake, fashion takes a backseat, feeling more like a superficial addition rather than an integral part of Tanya's character.

Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead can definitely be an enjoyable, quick watch for those who are willing to suspend disbelief and have prior knowledge of the original film. The modern updates and callbacks to the original provide a sense of nostalgia for fans of the 1991 version. However, for those unfamiliar with the source material or expecting a more substantial update, the remake may feel more like a made-for-TV movie better suited as background noise. While it's a valiant effort, the remake fails to deliver the same level of charm, humor, and heart that made the original so memorable.

Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead will release in theaters on April 12, and will be available to stream on BET+ on May 16.

• Cast & crew

Challengers

Tashi, a former tennis prodigy turned coach is married to a champion on a losing streak. Her strategy for her husband's redemption takes a surprising turn when he must face off against his f... Read all Tashi, a former tennis prodigy turned coach is married to a champion on a losing streak. Her strategy for her husband's redemption takes a surprising turn when he must face off against his former best friend and Tashi's former boyfriend. Tashi, a former tennis prodigy turned coach is married to a champion on a losing streak. Her strategy for her husband's redemption takes a surprising turn when he must face off against his former best friend and Tashi's former boyfriend.

• Luca Guadagnino
• Justin Kuritzkes
• Josh O'Connor
• 1 Critic review
• 1 nomination

• Tashi Donaldson

• Art Donaldson

• Patrick Zweig
• Umpire (New Rochelle Final)

• Art's Physiotherapist

• Art's Security Guard
• (as a different name)
• Tashi's Mother
• Line Judge (New Rochelle Final)
• TV Sports Commentator (Atlanta 2019)

• Leo Du Marier
• Woman With Headset (Atlanta 2019)

• Motel Front Desk Clerk
• Motel Husband

• New Rochelle Parking Lot Guard
• USTA Official …
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia To prepare for her role, Zendaya spent three months with pro tennis player-turned-coach, Brad Gilbert .
• Connections Referenced in OWV Updates: The Seventh OWV Awards - Last Update of 2022 (2022)
• When will Challengers be released? Powered by Alexa
• April 26, 2024 (United States)
• United States
• Những Kẻ Thách Đấu
• Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
• Pascal Pictures
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 11 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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