J Dean (flixsterbum)

God, I love this movie! It never fails to reduce me to a blubbering idiot several times throughout the movie, and by the time we hit the finale in the Bailey living room, I'm a wreck. George and Mary Bailey are the perfect screen couple, not sickeningly cute, with a small wry streak but basically two decent people who are perfect for each other. It's sentimental, but never really sappy, mostly because Stewart's portrayal of George Bailey has a bit of a dark streak in him. He gets angry, he lashes out, he can be bitter about his life. In short, he's a good ol' American human being, and it's that performance that anchors this one in enough reality to keep this from being eye-rollingly sappy. A truly timeless classic; in my humble opinion, one of the best movies ever made.

One of my all-time favorites. It really is amazing just how great this movie is. Every time I watch it, it astounds me just how many great lines there are in this and how many of them have since been woven into the fabric of everyday speech even now. You can't go wrong with a love story involving Nazis and Humphrey Bogart. Bergman is radiant, Bogart is at his Bogartest, Sydney Greenstreet is corpulentastic, Peter Lorre is weaselriffic, and my favorite, Claude Rains, is Vichy-wunderbar. A great date movie, a great World War II flick, a great movie for aspiring screenwriters to study, just a great movie!