Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946) is one of the best-loved films of Classical Hollywood cinema, a story of despair and redemption in the aftermath of war. It stands as one of the central movies of the 1940s, and a key text in America's understanding of itself. This is a film that remains relevant to our own anxieties and yearnings, to all the contradictions of ordinary life. Nostalgia, humour and a tough resilience weave themselves through this movie, intertwining it with the fraught cultural moment of the end of World War II. It offers a still-compelling merging of fantasy and realism that was unique when it was first released and has rarely been matched since. Michael Newton's study investigates the source of it's a Wonderful Life's extraordinary power and its long-lasting impact. He traces the development and production of the film, examining the role of key figures such as director Frank Capra and star James Stewart. He then goes on to analyse the movie's aesthetic processes and procedures. Newton's careful analysis explores all those aspects of the film that are fundamental to our understanding of it, particularly the way in which it brings together tragedy and comedy. Finally, Newton tells the story of the film's reception and afterlife, accounting for its initial relative failure and its subsequent immense popularity.