A classic title and 1942 WW2 movie with an all star cast. I wanted to click "Want to see', but with the inexplicable changes RT has made i find that button impossibly unobvious. Cuz I want to see it again... cuz I forget if i ever saw it. Cast: Dame May Witty, love that name, born in 1865. & GREER Garson... never heard of another female, or anyone, 1st name greer.

Cheers, tears, and fears make this a wonderful movie from start to finish. It cannot be put into a box of "romance", "war movie", "comedy", "tragedy", "thriller", "heart-warmer", but is a mixture of all!

This movie about a family facing the trials and tribulations of the early years of WWII in England shows the joys of family life, a favourite topic of MGM. It starts out with trifles like a wife being embarrassed to let her husband know how much money she spent on a hat and then segues into children going off to war and Nazi airmen parachuting into the back garden. While it's a bit lengthy at times for modern tastes, I think, it's full of gems like the bunker scene where the two parents, their two children, and the family cat, Napoleon, take shelter while a huge, violent bombing raid unfolds above them. Explosions and gunfire on the soundtrack gradually lead to jolts and shaking in their sandbagged shelter. It's a masterful combination of sound design, acting, and pacing and completely suspenseful and terrifying. It's also a metaphor for the whole movie and the way it subtly and gradually shifts from trifles and superficialities to life and death situations almost without the spectator noticing. It's the kind of film that makes an impact on you without doing so overly overtly.

Hasn't aged well. Greer Garson won the Academy Award for this film.

World War II from the middle-class Brits' perspective. We join a hard-working family, share their modest concerns just before the onset of hostilities, then stand by as their priorities drastically shift. In one moment, lavish expenses, exclusive flower shows and snooty neighbors comprise the extent of their worries. In the next, ears are tuned for air raid sirens, an eldest son races to join the RAF and a desperate Nazi paratrooper appears in the garden. Mrs. Miniver was indeed propaganda, boosting the Allied cause while the wounds of the Nazis' blitz on London were still fresh, but it's far more subtle than the loud, whitewashed, nationalistic newsreels that usually represent that term. Here, we identify with the squabbles of pre-war life, feel the conflicted emotions of standing up for one's beliefs at great personal risk, linger on the dark terror of a quaking single-family bomb shelter at bedtime. Those latter moments seem to stretch forever; a powerful blend of whimpering children and brave-faced parents that squeezes every last drop of empathy from a very ripe scenario. The Minivers are little more than pawns in this global game, but because the first act is so effectively disarming, it's easy to feel trapped, unprepared, in that bunker right beside them. We fear the worst for their son, who routinely alerts family to his safety by cutting engines during household fly-overs, but this war is no distant specter. By the famously rousing final soliloquy, recited amidst the ruins of a bombed-out chapel, every single member of the community has paid tolls in one form or another. Critically beloved, Mrs. Miniver took home six Academy Awards (including best picture and best director) and was almost immediately adapted to radio for broader dissemination. Even Joseph Goebbels, the infamous Nazi propaganda minister, held it up as a prime example of the kind of cinema he wanted to create with the German media machine.

A classic movie that with a simple script gets you to convey a strong message, I liked the simplicity of the storytelling.

Ridiculous that reviewers would complain about the film's "propaganda." Implying that there was something false or overdone in the presentation of the conflict and the stakes involved. The enemy was Nazis. Hitler. It wasn't propaganda, it was rallying to a just and noble cause. A war that had to be won. Cities and towns were bombed, civilians did die, hundreds, thousands. GB was almost brought to its knees. Dunkirk was a magnificent feat of courage and sacrifice. The meaning and magnitude of the film has only grown with the years. Though it was weird the obvious chemistry between Greer Garson and actor playing her son.

this movie is ok, but can you believe that Greer Garson bagged the guy who played her son in real life?!?! hollywood is crazy sometimes lol

It's hard not to keep watching Greer Garson's amazing face in this movie as the mother managing her family at home near London during WWII. First we see family worrying about a far-off war and then we move to family in bunkers with the war on their doorstep. Just when you think they film is getting too syrupy, the excellent cast brings you back to caring deeply for what happens to this family and their friends.

Impossible to take this seriously. A puff piece of propaganda that desperately builds the twee myths of Britain, stiff upper lip, country living and courtesy. All a load of pompous nonsense. No wonder Churchill loved this film, it stirs the hearts of the unthinking. Daft winner of a best picture but if it's time, this brainwashing nonsense would have been just the tonic in 1942. Hopefully modern eyes can this dross for what it is. Rubbish.

Wonderful film that brings the point home about why we must fight to preserve our freedom and the horrible sacrifices given by so many. This is very relevant today!

Great human relationship film featuring an all-star cast set in small-town England in 1939 as the Nazi's invade Poland and WWII begins in earnest. See the beautiful Greer Garson and Teresa Wright play key roles attracting and giving love to all in their community which helps their small town carry the burdens placed on the English people as they defended their small island from the worst of Hitler's airborne killers.

I became very involved emotionally in this film.. The acting was superb...The ending scene in the bombed church was moving. I was just 6 when the USA got involved in WWII and 11 when it ended. Having known a few friends and family that were in the midst of the bombings over Europe, thunder storms were very frightening and never forgotten. Even in the movie, I felt my heart racing during those bombing raids.

I get why this film won best picture during WW2 but it sure is was slow. I did enjoy seeing "Clarence" from It's a Wonderful Life though and I thought they did a decent job recreating life during the Blitz.

A true 1940s war classic, this film is powerfully delivered by Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, and the Oscar-winning Teresa Wright (Best Supporting Actress 1942). A sentimental, dramatic, and warming film.

Mrs. Miniver, one about a mother (Greer Garson) of an English family who struggles to survive in the first months of World War II, is mostly okay. Don't get me wrong, Garson does a great job at realizing the main character, that can be said to Teresa Wright, Walter Pidgeon and Henry Travers. I just think the movie around it is a little overrated. Most of the film's problems focus on the cliched subplot concerning Carol and Vin's marriage. Seriously, I hate the typical stern aristocratic dowager trope because I know she's going to have a change of heart near the end, even though here it had a good payoff. On the plus side, the strongest points involve the main story where the Miniver family makes a living around the War. Since Clem, Carol and Vin are absent most of the time, she has to do everything herself, raising the children, protecting them from the bomb blasts, and reporting a nearly-dead Nazi in her house to the police. If the movie focused on her survival during the deadly event all throughout, it would have been stronger. As is, Mrs. Miniver, the movie, has its heart in the right places, but it's not exactly significant like everyone says. If you love the picture, that's okay, but I, a minority, think it's uneven and so-so. (3 Silver Cup-winning Miniver Roses out of 5)

It is effective at what it does

The Oscar for Best Picture awarded in 1943 went to Mrs. Miniver. In all, the film would earn six Oscars in total, out of 12 nominations. Centered on an upper middle class family in pre-war England, the Minivers are a family about to experience what being drawn into World War II will require of them, and take from them. The movie chugs a bit before gaining its steam, but once fully engaged it is a delightful journey. Greer Garson is the Miniver matriarch and holds the family firm as her husband Clem (Walter Pidgeon) heads off to the beaches of Dunkirk and her son Vin (Richard Ney) enters the Royal Air Force. While they are gone she deals with a wounded Nazi soldier and also the discontent of Lady Beldon. The Lady Beldon (May Whitty) is a local aristocrat who is unhappy with the changes happening within the class system as a result of World War I, and who is even more upset that her granddaughter Carol (Teresa Wright) has fallen in love with Vin Miniver. Walter Pidgeon and Richard Ney both give solid performances (Pidgeon being nominated for Best Actor), but the movie is very much feminine-centric. Greer Garson is clearly the brain and strength of the story with Teresa Wright providing the heart. May Whitty's role is much smaller, but watching her stodgy resolve being tested by both her granddaughter and Mrs. Miniver provides some of the films finest moments. All three women were nominated for acting nods, with Garson and Wright taking home Oscar statues. With any wartime flick, one can anticipate the loss of at least one main character. This film pacifies that anticipation, but in a very unexpected way. The film is regarded by many as a propaganda film of sorts. This was one of the first movies to show the impact of the impending war on an individual family. Its intent was to shake the complacency that many in America had about entering into World War II, and it worked. Several marquis posters touted that the film had been "voted the greatest movie ever made". I'm not sure I would go that far, but it is a really strong one, and worthy of being given the respect and label of "a classic".

Much of the early runtime, dedicated to the Minivers' own melodramas, consumerism, and day-to-day, is necessary to effectively put into perspective the devastation and disarray of England's foray into the Second World War from the point of view of a single family. Yes, much of the film can be described as a propaganda piece by modern standards, but considering the universal agreement of its perspective at the time among the audience members of the English-speaking world (and the factual basis of the environment), it was simply a universally appealing setting. But Mrs. Miniver rises above simple crowd-pleasing fare, with its commentary on the conflict's effect on social structures, family, and its clever integration of time through the grandfather clock, all of which is bolstered by well-realized characters. A solid piece of wartime filmography. (3.5/5)

It is good and poignant melodrama fueled by Wyler's meticulous direction and mostly by Garson's performance.