The genius of this movie is that you don't cry at the sad parts. You cry at the happy parts.

Nikki successfully fighting off her feelings with jokes and sarcasm for 99% of the movie…and then breaking into tears in the last 5 minutes lol.

The "Crow" is actually "Jimmy the Raven." he's appeared in every single Frank Capra movie after 1938. He's also the "crow" that landed on Scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz." He was trained to do a bunch of different tricks, like typing and opening letters. On set, when they called Jimmy, both Jimmy Stewart and Jimmy the Raven would respond.

The beauty of it is now you get to watch this film every Christmas for the rest of your life. And cry every time. Its perfect.

For me,  it's when Mary shakes her head and backs away as Uncle Billy gives her credit for collecting the money.  It's such a very real display of humility.  Great acting.

i'm just noticing that the end quote 'no man is a failure who has friends' is an answer to what's planted early in the movie - potter calling george's father and uncle failures, george defending them, but then spending his entire life questioning whether potter was right. clarence sets him straight with that.

“Where’s the bell?”
bell rings
Uncontrollable sobbing
New favorite channel!

When George has the meltdown in front of his kids & seems like a "bad dad" that, to me, shows what an amazing dad he is. He has never acted that way before. When he yells, the kids & Mary are shocked and upset because that is something they've never seen him do before. If he was always like that it wouldn't have been such a big reaction. Mary immediately running to the phone because she KNOWS something is wrong, he was just so out of character.

God I love this movie. I could talk about it forever.

"I don't know if I can post this. That was f***ing embarrassing!"  Nikki, it hit you exactly the same way it's hit almost everyone who's ever seen this movie. 🙂

This movie saved my life in 2010 and now I watch it every year!

I’m 68 years old. I’ve watched this hundreds of times over the past fifty years. I still cry at the end. Every, single, time.

"Where's the bell?"   What great timing.  :)

Your question at the end, “where’s the bell?” Was perfectly timed!

Nikki, you DIDN'T cry out of sadness. You cried for the JOY of everyone helping George.

Don’t be too hard on George when he went to visit Mary. He’d just come to the realization that his dreams of traveling, going to school, and building big things were dead. It’s a really hard thing to lose your dreams after holding onto them so long. Most first time reactors miss that subtlety.

In addition to watching It's A Wonderful Life I have now added watching Nikki watch Its A Wonderful Life to my Christmas traditions

Technically, it's been Christmas the entire movie...

The movie starts when people are praying for him...

Clarence the Angel spends an hour learning about George, and then meets him in the bridge.

In about halfway through, it's kind of funny how many times she's said she doesn't know how she feels about George, she goes back and forth, and that's KIND of the point.

Nobody is perfect, we all have flaws.

Really wondering how she'll feel by the end of the movie, and if she'll see why this is one of the best Christmas movies of all time....

Onward 🍿

This film has literally saved lives, starting with James Stewart, who was suffering from extreme PTSD from what he had experienced as a US Bomber pilot in WWII. He rose from Private to Full Bird Colonel in less than 5 years, and at the end of the war he had 17 Combat missions over Europe and was the group Operations Officer for his squadron. His orders were the ones that sent crews he knew to their deaths in a plane that had a nearly 5% mortality rate (that adds up fast!). After the war he remained in active reserve and was the first pilot to fly the B-52, in which he had 18 hours.
This was the first film he did after the war, and the scenes you see where he is breaking down were quite real. In interviews decades later he talks about how veterans of the war would come to him and tell him that this film is what kept them from doing something very rash and stupid when the demons came to them at night.

The eccentricity of Uncle Billy, with his forgetfulness (which is why he always had strings on his fingers to remind him of important things), his association with a wide assortment of wild animals and his drinking all are present throughout the story but not really discussed in dialogue except for the comment by Ma Bailey about him being in an insane asylum in the alternate reality. George and his influence and keeping the business going, and keeping Uncle Billy employed, is what prevented Uncle Billy from seriously losing his mind.
Films from previous decades often did not explain every aspect or detail, but let the audience figure things out for themselves. Audiences expected to bring their own knowledge and experience to films and didn’t expect the film to have to tell them everything.

"Where's the bell?"

Bell rings

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭