It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Coming back form the war is one of the most popular movie themes of all times, especially for the Americans, since they didn't have the experience on fighting on the home ground for more than 200 years. Cultural and emotional shocks for both the veterans and their family and friends is the subject for one of the best movies that describes the returning of warriors after the WWII, William Wyler's "The best years of our lives". Centered around three totally different stories, the crafty director manages to cover all the angles and to show that the things and the people are not who and how they seem like at the first look. The toll of war is basically same for all three men and their families, regardless of their approach, mental posture and starting and ending points. Although basically tragic, this post war syndrome story ends with a strong positive message for the generation of "baby boomers" it was meant in the first place. "The best years of our lives" is a solid, real and strong script that manages to avoid most of its inevitable pathetic.

A really interesting and remarkable film, all the more so for being made in almost the immediate aftermath of the Allied victory of the Second World War when you'd expect Hollywood to produce celebratory even triumphal movies. Instead the viewer is presented with the intertwining stories of three battle-scarred veterans, ex-banker Fredric March, who tries to blot out his memories of the war from a bottle, shop assistant Dana Andrews, sufferer from PTSD, who low-status civvy-street return to the same lowly, indeed lower status job doesn't satisfy the ambitions of his floozy wife Virginia Mayo and young Harold Russell, a real-life vet and first time actor whose hands got blown off in a bomb explosion. Complications arise in particular when Andrews reciprocates March's daughter's attraction to him.The film trails its future intentions in its opening scene when Andrews returning pilot is unable to pay the fare of a regular flight back home, his place on the plane taken by the next in line, a rich middle aged businessman who can afford the cost of extra luggage which he gets carried around for him a black attendant. The way that nations treat their returning fighting forces still makes the news today, but back then was seen to be particularly patronising, unsympathetic and miserly. All three men struggle to adjust to everyday life and come up variously against snobbery, condescension and ignorance, but with all of them too, their wartime experiences have scarred them crippling them emotionally and making it hard for them to fit back into society after five years away.For me however, I just could have done without the romance that springs up between Andrews and Wright, which, sensitively written and played as it was, seemed to belong to a different, melodramatic if still modern movie with its outlook on divorce. Similarly, the happy ending that all three men get seemed a little too much to be playing to the gallery, because I'm pretty sure that it wasn't the case for many a returning vet at the time.The acting by all is sensitively and intuitively played, not forgetting the fine work by the women too, Mayo, Wright, Myrna Loy as March's worldly-wise wife and Cathy O'Donnell as Russell's loyal fiancée while director Wyler, ably assisted by master cameraman Gregg Toland is a masterclass in understatement. It would have been easy for Wyler to milk certain scenes and lapse into sentimentality but he never does so. A box office smash on release and much garlanded with Oscars, it's an excellent, engrossing and perceptive study of how the war affected the lives of both active participants and their families back home.

I must have seen this film ten times on the Bill Kennedy Show while growing up. Sometimes in snippets and often times all the way through. I have seen it over a half a dozen times on Turner Classic Movies. I remember seeing it in my high school English Literature text book. The only screenplay I ever saw in a book about serious literature. Now I finally have a DVD copy of it for my personal collection. I still can't believe it runs nearly three hours. It just never seemed that long.Strange how time is affected when you become involved in a story. CITIZEN KANE always seems longer than it really is; nearly three hours and yet it barely comes in under two hours. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES is the exact opposite. It seems like it comes in under two hours, but runs nearly three.Go figure.This is an entirely character driven story that doesn't depend on sex and violence to carry the narrative. It could have easily degenerated into soap opera, but somehow never does. The chemistry between the three male leads; Dana Andrews as Fred Derry, Harold Russell as Homer Parrish and Fredric March as Al Stephenson is largely responsible for this. But this is still one of the greatest examples of ensemble acting in cinema because it all seems so ordinary and everyday and effortlessly true to life.The women are also a revelation. Myrna Loy as March's wife Milly Stephenson hits all the right notes as the beleaguered wife, Teresa Wright shines as their bewildered daughter, unwillingly caught in a love triangle between Fred Derry and his wife, Marie, memorably portrayed by Virginia Mayo. Cathy O'Donnell is achingly poignant as Homer Parrish's girl friend Wilma Cameron, sympathetically standin' by her man with no hands.Russell won two Oscars for his moving portrayal as Homer Parrish and I have never been more reluctant to write a spoiler. This time I'll just advise you to see for yourself what his performance is all about. Dana Andrews as Fred Derry gives one of the best interior monologues you will ever see in film and hungover Fredric March waxes eloquent about the rights of the returning veteran.Here is a great place to start dissecting that complex of relationships that make for absorbing drama. There is nothing forced or histrionic about this film. The ending I found resoundingly fitting as everything fell into place. You should easily be able to relate the experiences of your own life to what you see on the screen. Even so, this 'life as it is' version of service men returning home from war will register stirring, vivid images in your mind that will stay with you for the rest of your life.

In a movie full of superlative acting performances, including Oscars for two of the three returning vets, it was the third vet, Fred Derry, played by Dana Andrews, who "steals" the movie--thus making Andrews's performance the best to not win the Oscar in it's history. This movie contains many notable scenes, the four that touched me most were: when Fredric March starts drinking heavily before his being honored before the bank trustees--I felt myself tensing up, hoping he wouldn't "blow it" at the podium, and that's tribute to masterful direction and acting.The second scene was when Fred Derry is told by March to stop seeing his daughter, and when Fred goes to the phone to break it off, you can see him in the back of the bar, talking on the phone, and when he hangs up the receiver, he holds it for a long moment, and that was powerful to see, even though he was in the back of the bar, and a scene was playing out in the foreground, your eyes are always on Fred on the phone.Third is the terror of the plane field full of decapitated war planes, which the director used to mimic the broken psyches of the returning vets who had been tossed aside. Finally, the final scene of the wedding, where Fred reunites with Teresa Wright's character, and you see him from behind, as the best man, and he turns to look at her and she is tearing up--Wyler uses a large hat to help "funnel" her face towards Fred's--he turns back to the wedding, and when they go into their wedding vows, he turns again towards her, and they never look away, and when the pastor says "you may kiss the bride", and Homer and Wilma share a modest kiss, Fred staggers towards Teresa Wright and plants a kiss of pure unadulterated passion on her, and it's the best scene ever filmed, in my opinion. I'm tearing up now.