daily stream: the first BAFTA Best Film (which also won the Oscar Best Picture that year)
1946’s *The Best Years of Our Lives* is streaming on Prime on both sides of the Atlantic
As I post this, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts is handing out their awards for 2022(ish)’s movies in London. The BAFTAs are often seen as harbingers for the Oscars, and indeed, the very first film to win a BAFTA for Best Film, in 1947, also won the Oscar for Best Picture for that year.
That was 1946’s The Best Years of Our Lives, a sudsy melodrama about three soldiers from wildly different backgrounds and wartime experiences returning to their hometown in the US after the end of hostilities in Europe. It is notable for lots of reasons, but perhaps the one it is best remembered for now is its casting of Harold Russell, an actual disabled veteran, as one of the returning soldiers who struggles to reintegrate into civilian life, partly because of the loss of his hands and his subsequent reliance on hook prostheses. (Read my review from 1999.)
US: stream on Prime; rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
UK: stream on Prime; rent/buy on Prime
See The Best Years of Our Lives at Letterboxd for more viewing options.
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I first saw this in a college film course, and failed to truly appreciate it for a variety of reasons (undiagnosed sleep issues and neurodivergence really butted heads with the way that course was structured, but I digress). I finally revisited it a year or so ago, and was so glad I did. Sudsy is right, but IMO it earns it, it's so full of heart and doesn't shy away from the hardship. And that scene of Homer showing Wilma everything he has to do to get ready for bed- gosh, what a scene.
So glad you chose to highlight this one!