Should be shown in schools

I agree but the schools are worried about offending minorities who don't believe in angels. So it's not going to happen.

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I'd never have thought of this film in those ways. I see it as a man who does good by being good and temporarily looses his self belief. It's more likely to be banned because George's way of doing business is so community orientated it borders on socialism.

This is the last movie that should ever be shown anywhere. It's a Wonderful Life was panned and ignored by audiences at the time and later became a joke for decades, because it was sentimental claptrap that pushed self-sacrifice as a virtue and didn't have the guts to follow through on its own premise. A better screenwriter would've had George feeling suicidal, then having an epiphany in which he decides to stand up to Mr. Potter and then leave Bedford Falls with his family to finally live out some of his dreams.

Instead, the movie has him rescued by a deus ex machina, and then happily becoming mired in the same miserable circumstances that led him to his suicidal tendencies in the first place, because according to the movie's message, your life is defined by how much you fulfill other people's dreams and wishes, even if it comes at your expense and at great personal cost.

Another issue with this film is that it definitely has an anti-aspirational, anti-upward social mobility/populist theme. The underlying message is that it's a "sin" to want to move up and out in the world because you're a dreamer/not thinking of your fellow man/etc. This is one of the tenets of populism, that it's bad to want to rise above your station because then you're selling out the community (i.e., "forgetting your roots") or becoming an elitist.

I disagree, I think that under all the Capra-corn is a film for adults, and kids of high school age would miss most of the film's important points.

Because yes, this is a film about adulthood, and all its disappointments and re-adjustments and things that don't pan out and the inevitable changes of plan that life forces on you. Grownups understand that yes, sometimes what you get instead of what you wanted is actually better, but kids don't understand that. I think a modern coddled high schooler would look at this film, and just see someone whose plans are frustrated by reality, and feel even more frightened of growing up.

It should be. It’s a great educational tool for how the stock market crash happened. And how banks actually work.

Potter buying people shares of the savings and loan for 50 cents on the dollar is the epitome of Obamacare’s “free healthcare for all”, Medicare for all etc...In the end Potter controls everything and people are forced into centrally controlled garbage housing that is a miserable hell. Just like Obamacare, the VA, Chicago, and everything else the Democrat party promises to fix. For free of course.

Unfortunately schools are too busy brainwashing ignorant teachers and students with non scientific garbage on climate whatever they’ve named it today. Tomorrow they’ll call it something else.

I saw this in the 5th grade, in school