The Best Years of Our Lives

"Three wonderful loves in the best picture of the year!"

1946 2h 51m EN

🙌

7.7

BANGER

★7.7TMDB · 769

DramaRomanceWar

Synopsis

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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.

“Three wonderful loves in the best picture of the year!”

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Cast

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

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: William Wyler
Writers: Robert E. Sherwood
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

RUNTIME

Did you know

Clocks in at 171 minutes — on the longer side of feature-length cinema.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $2.1M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Grossed $24M — a 11.3× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

ERA

Did you know

80 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by William Wyler, shot by Gregg Toland. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Hugo Friedhofer. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Daniel Mandell shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Dana Andrews and Fredric March and Harold Russell carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

William Wyler directs. Gregg Toland behind the camera. Hugo Friedhofer scores. Daniel Mandell cuts. A long sit — settle in. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Clocks in at 171 minutes — on the longer side of feature-length cinema.
2Shot for just $2.1M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
3Grossed $24M — a 11.3× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.
480 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
5Directed by William Wyler, shot by Gregg Toland. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Original score by Hugo Friedhofer. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
7Editor Daniel Mandell shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
8Dana Andrews and Fredric March and Harold Russell carry the top of the cast.
9Marketing tagline: "Three wonderful loves in the best picture of the year!".
10IMDB entry: tt0036868 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
11Classified under 10 themes, including "post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd)", "war veteran", "world war ii", "bodily disabled person".
12Released under 24 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Gregg Toland
Original score: Hugo Friedhofer
Editing: Daniel Mandell
Costume design: Irene Sharaff
Makeup / hair: Robert Stephanoff
Runtime: 171 min · 2h 51m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $2,100,000
Box office: $23,650,000
Return: 1126% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): NR
IMDB: The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Awards

Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay
Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic or Comedy Score
National Board of Review: Top Ten Films
Academy Award for Best Film Editing
BAFTA Award for Best Film
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Director
Academy Award for Best Picture

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

William Wyler

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Community reviews

What people are saying

Andres Gomez2015-04-16
★ 8/10
Another great Willy Wyler movie. The story, with time, is quite expectable but the characters are well defined and developed by the cast. Also, it is a good (and probably, too positive) review of the after WWII war lives of the US veterans. A must to be seen.
CinemaSerf2022-07-07
★ 7/10
This is really quite a touching story, recounting the experiences of three American veterans of WWII who return home and have to adapt to their new, not always welcoming, circumstances. Frederic March is "Al" who returns to a senior position in a bank - responsible for helping other returning soldiers with loans to start to get their lives back together; "Fred" (Dana Andrews) returns to a far less optimistic outlook, ending up working for peanuts selling perfume in a drug store, and finally the outwardly cheery "Homer" - who lost both his hands and who cannot decide whether his long term fiancée actually loves him anymore, or just feels pity. William Wyler and Robert Sherwood manage to interweave the inter-connected tales poignantly, illustrating the frustrations, bordering on despair, not only of the three men - in completely different ways; but also of their respective partners who must also adjust to their return, and to their new circumstances once the war is has been won. There are some strong performances from their ladies too - Myrna Loy and Teresa Wright, less so the always rather wooden Virginia Mayo and by the end you do have some, slight, semblance of an idea of just how tough it was for these men to lose the security and discipline of their army lives and to cope with a life that has, in many cases, just moved on without them.