It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas fantasy drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra. It is based on the short story and booklet The Greatest Gift, self-published by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1943, which itself is loosely based on the 1843 Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol.
The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has given up his personal dreams to help others in his community and whose thoughts of suicide on Christmas Eve bring about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody.Clarence shows George all the lives he touched and what the world would be like if he had not existed.
Although it was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, It's a Wonderful Life initially received mixed reviews and was unsuccessful at the box office. Theatrically, the film's break-even point was $6.3 million, about twice the production cost, a figure it did not come close to achieving on its initial release. Because of the film's disappointing sales, Capra was seen by some studios as having lost his ability to produce popular, financially successful films. Its copyright in the U.S. expired in 1974 following a lack of renewal and it entered the public domain, allowing it to be broadcast without licensing or royalty fees, at which point it became a Christmas classic
It's a Wonderful Life is now considered to be one of the greatest films of all time and among the best Christmas films.
Spoken languages: English
Subtitles: Danish,Swedish,Norwegian,Finnish
