It's a Wonderful Life It's a Wonderful Life It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas fantasy comedy-drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra, based on the short story and booklet "The Greatest Gift", which Philip Van Doren Stern wrote in 1939 and published privately in 1945. The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has given up his dreams in order to help others, and whose imminent suicide on Christmas Eve brings about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers). Clarence shows George all the lives he has touched, and how different life in his
It's a Wonderful Life II lives, won most of the awards that year, including four of the five for which "It's a Wonderful Life" was nominated. (The award for "Best Sound Recording" was won by "The Jolson Story".) "The Best Years of Our Lives" was also an outstanding commercial success, ultimately becoming the highest-grossing film of the decade, in contrast to the more modest initial box office returns of "It's a Wonderful Life". "It's a Wonderful Life" received a Golden Globe Award: Capra won the "Best Motion Picture Director" award from the Golden Globes, and a "CEC Award" from the Cinema Writers Circle in