It's A Wonderful Life - Awards and Honors

Awards and Honors

Prior to the Los Angeles release of It's a Wonderful Life, Liberty Films mounted an extensive promotional campaign that included a daily advertisement highlighting one of the film's players, along with comments from reviewers. Jimmy Starr wrote, "If I were an Oscar, I'd elope with It's a Wonderful Life lock, stock and barrel on the night of the Academy Awards". The New York Daily Times offered an editorial in which it declared the film and James Stewart's performance to be worthy of Academy Award consideration.

It's a Wonderful Life received five Academy Award nominations:

• Best Picture for Frank Capra
• Best Director for Frank Capra
• Best Actor for James Stewart
• Best Editing for William Hornbeck
• Best Sound Recording for John Aalberg

The Best Years of Our Lives, a drama about servicemen attempting to return to their pre-World War II lives, won most of the awards that year, including four of the five for which It's a Wonderful Life was nominated. (The award for "Best Sound Recording" was won by The Jolson Story.) The Best Years of Our Lives was also an outstanding commercial success, ultimately becoming the highest grossing film of the decade, in contrast to the more modest initial box office returns of It's a Wonderful Life.

Capra won the "Best Motion Picture Director" award from the Golden Globes, and a "CEC Award" from the Cinema Writers Circle in Spain, for Mejor Película Extranjera (Best Foreign Film). Jimmy Hawkins won a "Former Child Star Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Young Artist Awards in 1994; the award recognized his role as Tommy Bailey as igniting his career, which lasted until the mid-1960s.

American Film Institute Lists

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies — #11
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions — #8
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:
  • Mr. Potter - #6 Villain
  • George Bailey - #9 Hero
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:
  • Buffalo Gal (Won't You Come Out Tonight) - Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
  • "What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word, and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down." - Nominated
  • "To my big brother George, the richest man in town!" - Nominated
  • "Look, Daddy. Teacher says, “Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.”" - Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers — #1
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) — #20
• AFI's 10 Top 10 — #3 Fantasy Film