It’s A Wonderful Life

Screening Dates:
Sat 21 December 12:00pm
Tue 24 December 5:30pm

The screening on Wed 18 December at 2.30pm is Silver Screen
The screening on Sat 21 December at 12pm is accompanied by The Mistletoe Bough (2 mins, 1904)

Director: Frank Capra
Starring: Gloria Grahame, Lionel Barrymoore, James Stewart, Donna Reed. Ward Bond

One of the most popular and enduring films ever made, Frank Capra‘s It’s A Wonderful Life is a gloriously sentimental testament to homely small-town moral values.

Masterfully crafted, the film opens with angels discussing George Bailey (James Stewart), a man so beset with problems that he contemplates a Christmas-time suicide.

As George prepares to jump from a bridge his guardian angel Clarence Oddbody intervenes and shows him how badly Bedford Falls would have turned out without his good deeds.

Filled with a renewed joy of life George returns to his family for Christmas. James Stewart gives one of his finest, most affecting performances and the film looks better than ever in its new restoration.

The screening at 12pm on Saturday 21 December is accompanied by The Mistletoe Bough, a two-minute gem of a Christmas ghost story from 1904, featuring some early trick photography, and released as part of the BFI’s Gothic season.