"The Best Years of Our Lives" is a movie from 1946 directed by William Wyler, one of the greatest directors of the classic Hollywood. The film, which takes place in a little town of the USA, is a drama about the problems that several veterans of the Second World War have to overcome when they come back home.
The three main characters (Al, Fred and Homer) meet by chance in the plane that is going to take them back home after the war. They live in the same town but they'd never met before. During the journey they share their experiences and they become friends immediately. The rest of the movie we are going to witness how difficult is going to be for all of them to come back to their lives due to the physical and psychological scars that the war has caused to them.
Never before have I seen in my entire life such a touching and moving film like this! Everything in it fits perfectly. It's incredibly entertaining and at the same time is absolutely thought-provoking because the characters seen on the screen and the situations they cope with are universal and timeless, thus anyone can feel identified with them. Nevertheless, many would argue that the length of the movie (almost three hours) may be a drawback but I don't agree. In fact, the producers (as usual) organized a test screening before the official premiere, to check what the audience didn't like about the film, but the people considered the plot so haunting and gripping that the producers eventually decided not to modify a single scene of the movie, which is not very frequent.
Widely praised by critics and awarded with 8 well-deserved Oscars (including best motion picture), this masterpiece soon became a huge box office success that still remains (adjusting the ticket price to inflation) as one of the most top-grossing movies of all time. I never get tired of watching it and every time I do it I can't help thinking: "it's a real shame they don't make movies like this anymore!".
"The Best Years of Our Lives" is definitely my favorite movie of all time, by far (alongside "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial").
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