Saying it is the best Christmas movie ever is a massive short sell of such an astonishing movie. It’s a Wonderful Life is one of the best movies ever. The kind of movie that is so good critics, snobs, and the average viewer all are enamored with it for various reasons.

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Very few movies can make me ball my eyes out like It’s a Wonderful Life. It is soul crushing, and life preserving from the first moment of the film. 

The film follows God and an Angel as they watch a highlight reel of man’s life building up to a culminating low point that has led an entire town to pray for him. Jimmy Stewart is George Bailey. He is a kind, idealistic, well intentioned man that is every bit as sweet as he is human. Watching these characters grow and intricately interact and influence each other creates a unique and genuinely marvelous perspective and experience.

The film is truly perfect, and that’s because it does a few things exceptionally well and captures incredibly complex themes as good as they have ever been depicted on film. Things like depression, suicide, honesty, capitalism, consumerism, parenthood, guilt, hatred, service, faith, God, and friendship are captured in such a sublime way it is hard to not feel it at your core.

The performances are memorable and fantastic, and offer a vast array of characters and their varying levels of morality and likability. Jimmy Stewart gives one of his best and most memorable performances which offers complexity and range. Donna Reed is beautiful, lovable, and entrancing. Lionel Barrymore as Mr. Potter is hateful, cruel, and symbolizes everything wrong with the rich profiting off the poor. Every other supporting character is just as memorable and strong. 

The film gets better and more relevant with each passing year, as the vast majority of us are still fighting classism and trying to find joy in a world that values profits over Christlike love. All of this being said it never feels overly dramatic, and like the real life of me and many others, the most stressful and heartbreaking moments are moments of contemplative darkness, and doubt. 

Whether you come to the film for a Christmas movie, a love story, or a symbol of faith and hope in a world that feels dreary, It’s a Wonderful Life has what you are looking for in spades. The film is truly one of the best that has ever, and ever will be made. It contains multitudes and is one of those movies that is an argument for the medium as a whole. It’s a classic that stands alongside other Jimmy Stewart classics that they really don’t make ‘em like they used to.