And in this picture about a young fellow who wants to break away from his small-town life and responsibilities but is never able to do so because slowly they close in upon him, Mr. Capra, back from the war, has resumed with a will his previously manifest penchant for portraying folks of simple, homely worth.

‘Drive My Car’: In this quiet Japanese masterpiece, a widower travels to Hiroshima to direct an experimental version of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya.”.

‘Passing’: Set in the 1920s, the movie centers on two African American women, friends from childhood, who can and do present as white.

‘Spencer’: Kristen Stewart stars as an anguished, rebellious Princess Diana in Pablo Larraín’s answer to “The Crown.”.

‘Summer of Soul’: Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, Mavis Staples and others shine in Questlove’s documentary about the Harlem Cultural Festival.Scott and Manohla Dargis, selected their favorite movies of the year. Stewart, who does most of the heavy suffering in this film, and it is he who, in the end, is most deserving of the white meat and the stuffing. And a whole slew of cozy small-town characters who have gone through a lot in the past two hours are waiting around to eat it-or, at least, to watch James Stewart gobble it up. He would find it very much to his taste.įor a turkey dinner, with Christmas trimmings, is precisely what’s cooking at the end of this quaint and engaging modern parable on virtue being its own reward. Fellows should be among us to see Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which opened on Saturday at the Globe Theatre. He held that the final curtain of every drama, no matter what, should benignly fall upon the whole cast sitting down to a turkey dinner and feeling fine. The late and beloved Dexter Fellows, who was a circus press agent for many years, had an interesting theory on the theatre which suited his stimulating trade. Below is how the critic Bosley Crowther reviewed “It’s a Wonderful Life” for The New York Times on Dec. We dug up 10 of those reviews from our archives, which we’ve rounded up here, along with info on where to stream them.

Others just weren’t particularly holiday-focused. Many of the holiday movies we consider classics or cult favorites today did not seem destined for such glory when we first reviewed them.

It's a wonderful life