It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

 "Why don't you kiss her instead of talking her to death?"

Yes, I know. I should have seen this film long before the run-in to my forty-seventh Christmas. At least I've seen it now. It's awesome, obviously.

What's striking on a first viewing is how very late in the film we get the bit where aspiring angel Clarence shows George how awful his community would be without him. We get nearly two hours of George, a nice guy- well, by 1946 standards- having his dreams of travel and architectural glory slowly crushed as he stays in the same town, putting others before himself and living a modest, humble life. Some of the scenes are quite distressing, not least his and Mary's honeymoon being ruined by the Wall Street Crash.

What's also striking is that the film disapproves of capitalism red in tooth and claw and insists that community matters far more than money, an important point for any age. Bedford Falls is a nice place: Pottersville is an obvious inspiration for Biff's changed 1985 of Back to the Future Part II.

Jimmy Stewart is, of course, the perfect leading man, the cast is superb with Lionel Barrymore, especially, engaging in some truly splendid chewing of the scenery, and the entire thing looks perfect. I'll even forgive the film, as someonewho knows, for its rather amusing total failure of realism in depicting George's deafness. As anti-Dickensian riffs on A Christmas Carol go, this is pretty much cinematic perfection.