It's a Wonderful Life - Best Christmas Film Ever

It's a Wonderful Life, one of the most critically acclaimed films ever made, was produced and directed by Frank Capra. It was based on the short story "The Greatest Gift", which Philip Van Doren Stern wrote in 1939 and privately published in 1945. The film is one of the most loved films in American cinema and has become traditional viewing during the Christmas season, along with such popular classics such as A Christmas Carol, White Christmas, Meet Me in St. Louis and Miracle on 34th Street. 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 community of Bedford Falls would be had he never been born.