By the time [the three servicemen] are saying goodbye to each other, all I was thinking about was how I hope they reunite... and being elated that they do.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 22, 2024

Perhaps no film detailed the struggles of our heroes returning home from battle as well. Its groundbreakingly authentic views were bolstered by Harold Russell’s visceral and tender-hearted performance.

| Jun 8, 2023

On the surface, the tale seems easy-going and loosely knit. But it is compounded of an abundance of illuminating detail. The characters are of more than one dimension.

| Aug 16, 2022

It has something to say to a dozen other publics... What I regret is that Sherwood, Wyler and Goldwyn should have preferred to say it in such naïve, really such rock-bottom terms.

| Aug 8, 2022

It's too schematic and it drags on after you get the points. However, episodes and details stand out and help to compensate for the soggy plot strands, and there's something absorbing about the banality of its large-scale good intentions.

| Jul 28, 2022

Nonetheless, these reservations are not intended to diminish the eminent merits of The Best Years of Our Lives, in which the mastery of one of the world's greatest directors is ever on display.

| Feb 25, 2022

The Best Years of Our Lives remains so singularly honest in its description of veterans that Wyler's treatment cannot help but supply an editorial on the social landscape of postwar America.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 12, 2022

Splendid producing, acting, directing of a realistic, down-to-earth plot such as this results then in a living portrayal of what peoples actually are experiencing today.

| Aug 16, 2021

Very much of its time in some ways, but what makes it memorable is how ahead of its time it was in the ways that really mattered.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 25, 2021

The Best Years of Our Lives is the most rewarding picture in a long, long time.

| Jul 13, 2021

The Best Years of Our Lives is a fine example of what Hollywood Is capable of doing once they set their minds to it.

| Apr 14, 2021

The Best Years Of Our Lives is an eloquent tribute to returned veterans [and] a magnificent, brilliant contribution to motion pictures as an art.

| Apr 14, 2021

Every member of the cast Is so much like some one you know, every one so natural and likable, as real and pathetic as any human being close to your heart, but Fredric March, Dana Andrews, and Harold Russell give faultless performances.

| Apr 14, 2021

The playing is magnificent -- especially that of Fredric March.

| Apr 14, 2021

[Wyler] has made another film that uses all the knowing tricks of Mrs. Miniver, and uses them to far better purpose, because this time Mr. Wyler is dealing with a class of people and a set of circumstances that he thoroughly understands.

| Apr 14, 2021

It has everything it should have -- a literate and often sharp and honest script by Robert E. Sherwood, supple direction by William Wyler, and is ingratiatingly played by at least one actor -- Frederic March.

| Apr 14, 2021

The photoplay, which runs for 165 minutes, is approximately three times as good as its nearest American competitor, vintage 1946.

| Apr 14, 2021

The characters in The Best Years of Our Lives are alive and interesting as they take their parts in the drama. One of these you'll remember a long time -- that fine lad, Harold Russell, the natural actor who sets the pace for the Hollywood players.

| Apr 14, 2021

Don't get the impression that this is a "sermon" or a picture with a "great message" (although there is e message there). No -- it's simply a true-to-life drama so expertly presented that its wonderful entertainment.

| Apr 14, 2021

The players without exception have quickly recognized the challenge of a remarkably forthright script and they respond handsomely.

| Apr 14, 2021