The Best Christmas Movie Is Also a WWII Movie

What It's a Wonderful Life tells us about America in 1946

My main job this week is to prepare to teach a sophomore-level course on World War II during Bethel’s January term. One benefit of “J-term,” when students take just one three-hour class each day for three weeks, is that I have ample time to show clips from some of the many movies made around the world about the world’s worst war. Most of them will come from countries other than my own, but as we near the end of the course, I always like to show how Hollywood imagined postwar America. To my mind, I have two 1946 movies to choose from.

Option #1 is The Best Years of Our Lives, the still-powerful story of three veterans who each struggle to reassimilate into life in a small town. It won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for William Wyler, who lost some of his hearing while filming documentaries aboard American warplanes.

I’ve used Best Years many times, and probably will again next month. But I’m sorely tempted to go with an even more beloved movie, one that most of my students have probably watched in the weeks leading up to J-term… without ever thinking about it as a war film.