1946 WWII Drama Ranked Among Cinema’s Greatest Films

It's hard to believe now, but there was a time in World War II when filmmakers and stars left Hollywood to be on the frontlines alongside the brave men and women of our country.

That time spent at war had a profound effect on many of these filmmakers, including William Wyler, who came back to make a masterpiece,The Best Years of Our Lives.

Clocking in at nearly three hours, this movie didn’t just sweep the 19th Academy Awards by winning seven Oscars (plus an honorary eighth); it completely rewrote the playbook on how Hollywood handles human trauma and veteran stories.

Eighty years later, it remains an important part of Hollywood history not only for its impact on us as viewers but also for all the small technical achievements as well.

Let's dive in.

• YouTubewww.youtube.com

1. It Tackled PTSD Before Hollywood Knew It

During the mid-1940s, American cinema was hyper-patriotic thanks to the end of the wars in both Europe and Japan.

Studios were focused on stories about heroes standing up to the Nazis and not as much on the real emotions people carried home after these conflicts.

The Best Years of Our Lives dared to look at the immediate aftermath of World War II with a sobering lens.

The story follows three veterans returning to the fictional Boone City: Al (Fredric March), a middle-aged banker who turns to alcohol to cope with his old life; Fred (Dana Andrews), a decorated captain who can only find his pre-war job as a low-wage "soda jerk"; and Homer (Harold Russell), a young sailor who lost both his hands.

This was the first movie to really take on the idea of PTSD at a time when Hollywood really didn't know what that meant.

It was also not a sunny look at what life would be like; people came back with physical and mental injuries to an America where they weren't sure they'd ever get a job or be able to if their families would accept them.

Wyler let the silence, the awkward family dinners, and the sudden panic attacks linger on screen. He showed these men really struggling. It proved that a film's stakes don't always need to be world-ending; sometimes, the struggle to simply exist in your own living room is what is gripping to an audience.

2. The Casting Choice That Changed Cinema

One of the most radical decisions producer Samuel Goldwyn and director William Wyler made was casting Harold Russell as Homer. Russell wasn’t a Hollywood actor; he was a real-life WWII veteran who had lost both of his hands in a training accident.

This was so brave and so authentic.

Russell brought a real vulnerability to the screen that completely shattered traditional Hollywood casting. When Homer takes off his mechanical hooks before bed and explains that he is left completely helpless, you can feel the rawness of the scene.

Russell’s performance was so profoundly moving that the Academy gave him an Honorary Oscar for "bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans," alongside the competitive Best Supporting Actor trophy. He remains the only actor in history to win two Oscars for the exact same performance.

And when you watch the movie, you'll see that he absolutely deserved them.

3. A Deep-Focus Masterclass by Gregg Toland

For the cinematographers out there, The Best Years of Our Lives is arguably just as vital a text as Citizen Kane. And both films were shot by the legendary DP Gregg Toland.

Toland brought his pioneering deep-focus cinematography to Wyler’s set, allowing objects and actors in the extreme foreground, midground, and background to remain flawlessly sharp simultaneously.

The focus was on how they could make this movie feel as real as possible.

When they shot in houses or other sets, Wyler had the interiors built to actual, realistic scales. This forced the camera into tight, claustrophobic spaces with the actors and mirrored the emotional suffocation the characters felt as they tried to squeeze back into their old lives.

This is such a smart way to keep things feeling authentic to the experiences of these men, and it shows the audience they're just like us, but dealing with traumas we could not ever imagine.

• YouTubewww.youtube.com

Why This Movie Still Matters

The Best Years of Our Lives was a massive gamble.

Studios explicitly warned Goldwyn that audiences wanted escapism, not a three-hour mirror held up to their collective post-war anxieties.

But Wyler was a man who had seen the frontlines firsthand and knew there was going to be a whole market of guys coming back who needed this movie. They needed to be heard, understood, and appreciated.

If you look at the greatest cinematic achievements, the ones that endure are the films that manage to capture a specific cultural moment so perfectly that they become timeless.

Well, this film rose to the occasion. It was built on trusting the audience's intelligence and leaning into a gritty, honest approach; it became the highest-grossing film of the year and an instant cultural touchstone.

It taught a generation of filmmakers that you don't have to sacrifice box office success to tell a deeply human, uncompromising story.

Summing It All Up

If you haven't queued this one up yet, do yourself a favor and study how the masters did it. You can glean so much from watching these older movies and seeing how they reflect the people of the time and empathize with universal struggles we still see to this day.

Are you a fan of this film? What's your favorite part?

Let me know what you think in the comments.