Drama

Romance

The Best Years of Our Lives

Samuel Goldwyn Productions

United States of America

English

Dana Andrews

Fredric March

Harold Russell

Teresa Wright

Myrna Loy

Cathy O'Donnell

Virginia Mayo

Hoagy Carmichael

Gladys George

Roman Bohnen

Ray Collins

Minna Gombell

Walter Baldwin

Steve Cochran

Dorothy Adams

Don Beddoe

Marlene Aames

Charles Halton

Ray Teal

Howland Chamberlain

Dean White

Erskine Sanford

Michael Hall

Victor Cutler

Claire Du Brey

Pat Flaherty

Jackie Jackson

William H. O'Brien

Bert Stevens

Marion Gray

Jimmy Ames

Carol Andrews

Mary Arden

Gertrude Astor

Edward Biby

Harry Cheshire

Sidney Clute

Tom Coleman

Joyce Compton

James Conaty

Heinie Conklin

Bert Conway

Clancy Cooper

Mady Correll

Roy Darmour

Hal K. Dawson

Lawrence Dobkin

Lester Dorr

Tom Dugan

Dick Earle

Edward Earle

Blake Edwards

Billy Engle

Ben Erway

Doris June Fesetta

Tennessee Ernie Ford

Louise Franklin

Harry Gillette

Herschel Graham

Earle Hodgins

Stuart Holmes

Ray Hyke

John Ince

Teddy Infuhr

Georgia Kane

Robert Karnes

Kenner G. Kemp

Donald Kerr

Gene Krupa

Ethelreda Leopold

Alyn Lockwood

Wilbur Mack

Susan Mann

Thomas Martin

Michael Mauree

Doreen McCann

Peggy McIntyre

Russell Meeker

Chef Milani

Harold Miller

Ernesto Molinari

William Newell

Georgie Nokes

Joe Palma

Leo Penn

Caleb Peterson

Norman Phillips Jr.

Jack Rice

Suzanne Ridgway

Mickey Roth

Loretta Russell

Ruth Sanderson

Ralph Sanford

Noreen Sayles

Stephen Soldi

John Tyrrell

Amelita Ward

Jan Wiley

Marek Windheim

Catherine Wyler

Gregg Toland

Hugo Friedhofer

George Jenkins

Daniel Mandell

Perry Ferguson

Irene Sharaff

Samuel Goldwyn

Robert E. Sherwood

William Wyler

Julia Heron

MacKinlay Kantor

Jonathan C. Boyle

John P. Fulton

Harry Redmond Sr.

Larry Gannon

Gordon Sawyer

Bill McLellan

Richard DeWeese

Emil Newman

Marie Clark

Robert Stephanoff

Andres Gomez

Another great Willy Wyler movie.

The story, with time, is quite expectable but the characters are well defined and developed by the cast.

Also, it is a good (and probably, too positive) review of the after WWII war lives of the US veterans.

A must to be seen.

CinemaSerf

This is really quite a touching story, recounting the experiences of three American veterans of WWII who return home and have to adapt to their new, not always welcoming, circumstances. Frederic March is "Al" who returns to a senior position in a bank - responsible for helping other returning soldiers with loans to start to get their lives back together; "Fred" (Dana Andrews) returns to a far less optimistic outlook, ending up working for peanuts selling perfume in a drug store, and finally the outwardly cheery "Homer" - who lost both his hands and who cannot decide whether his long term fiancée actually loves him anymore, or just feels pity. William Wyler and Robert Sherwood manage to interweave the inter-connected tales poignantly, illustrating the frustrations, bordering on despair, not only of the three men - in completely different ways; but also of their respective partners who must also adjust to their return, and to their new circumstances once the war is has been won. There are some strong performances from their ladies too - Myrna Loy and Teresa Wright, less so the always rather wooden Virginia Mayo and by the end you do have some, slight, semblance of an idea of just how tough it was for these men to lose the security and discipline of their army lives and to cope with a life that has, in many cases, just moved on without them.

Warner Archive Trailer

Homer's Homecoming

Best Movies

The Best Years of Our Lives

Cast & Crew

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Cast

Dana Andrews

Fredric March

Harold Russell

Teresa Wright

Myrna Loy

Cathy O'Donnell

Virginia Mayo

Hoagy Carmichael

Gladys George

Roman Bohnen

Box office

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