Editing It's a Wonderful Life (section)

==Awards and honors==
Prior to its Los Angeles release, Liberty Films mounted an extensive promotional campaign that included a daily advertisement highlighting one of the film's players, along with comments from reviewers. [[Jimmy Starr]] wrote, "If I were an Oscar, I'd elope with ''It's a Wonderful Life'' lock, stock and barrel on the night of the Academy Awards". The ''New York Daily Times'' published an editorial that declared the film and James Stewart's performance to be worthy of Academy Award consideration.<ref>Wiley and Bona 1987, p. 163.</ref>

''It's a Wonderful Life'' received five [[Academy Award]] nominations:<ref name="Oscars1947">[http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/legacy/ceremony/19th-winners.html "The 19th Academy Awards (1947) Nominees and Winners"]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141008115359/http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/legacy/ceremony/19th-winners.html |date=October 8, 2014}}. ''oscars.org''. Retrieved August 17, 2011.</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year !! Award !! Result !! width=500|Nominee / Winner
|-
|rowspan=6|[[19th Academy Awards|1946]] || [[Academy Award for Best Picture|Best Picture]] || {{nom}} || [[Liberty Films]] <br /> <small>Winner was [[Samuel Goldwyn Productions]] – ''[[The Best Years of Our Lives]]''</small>
|-
| [[Academy Award for Best Director|Best Director]] || {{nom}} || [[Frank Capra]] <br /> <small>Winner was [[William Wyler]] – ''[[The Best Years of Our Lives]]''</small>
|-
| [[Academy Award for Best Actor|Best Actor]] || {{nom}} || [[James Stewart]] <br /> <small>Winner was [[Fredric March]] – ''[[The Best Years of Our Lives]]''</small>
|-
| [[Academy Award for Best Film Editing|Best Film Editing]] || {{nom}} || [[William Hornbeck]] <br /> <small>Winner was [[Daniel Mandell]] – ''[[The Best Years of Our Lives]]''</small>
|-
| [[Academy Award for Sound|Best Sound Recording]] || {{nom}} || [[John Aalberg]] <br /> <small>Winner was [[John P. Livadary]] – ''[[The Jolson Story]]''</small>
|-
| [[Academy Award for Technical Achievement|Technical Achievement Award]] || {{won}} || [[Russell Shearman]] and [[RKO Pictures|RKO Radio Studio Special Effects Dept.]]<br /> <small>For the development of a new method of simulating falling snow on motion picture sets.</small>
|}

''The Best Years of Our Lives'', a drama about servicemen attempting to return to their pre-World War II lives, won most of the awards that year, including four of the five for which ''It's a Wonderful Life'' was nominated. (The award for "Best Sound Recording" was won by ''[[The Jolson Story]]''.) ''The Best Years of Our Lives,'' directed by [[William Wyler]], Capra's business partner along with [[George Stevens]] in Liberty Films, was also an outstanding commercial success, ultimately becoming the highest-grossing film of the decade, in contrast to the more modest initial box-office returns of ''It's a Wonderful Life''.<ref>Finler 1988, p. 177.</ref>

''It's a Wonderful Life'' received a [[Golden Globe Award]] for Capra as [[Golden Globe Award for Best Director|Best Motion Picture Director]]. He also won a "CEC Award" from the [[List of film awards|Cinema Writers Circle]] in [[Spain]], for ''Mejor Película Extranjera'' (Best Foreign Film). Jimmy Hawkins won a "Former Child Star Lifetime Achievement Award" from the [[Young Artist Awards]] in 1994; the award recognized his role as Tommy Bailey as igniting his career, which lasted until the mid-1960s.<ref>Flick, A. J. [http://www.classicmovies.org/articles/aa072797.htm "So Long, Jimmy"]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725180049/http://www.classicmovies.org/articles/aa072797.htm |date=July 25, 2011 }}. ''classicmovies.org''. Retrieved August 17, 2011.</ref>

The film was included by the Vatican in [[Vatican's list of films|a list of important films]] compiled in 1995, under the category of "Values".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://old.usccb.org/movies/vaticanfilms.shtml |title=Vatican Best Films List |work=Official website of the [[United States Conference of Catholic Bishops|U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops]] |access-date=April 20, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120422064928/http://old.usccb.org/movies/vaticanfilms.shtml |archive-date=April 22, 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The February 2020 issue of ''[[New York Magazine]]'' lists ''It's a Wonderful Life'' as among "The Best Movies That Lost Best Picture at the Oscars."<ref>{{cite news|title=The Best Movies That Lost Best Picture at the Oscars|url=https://www.vulture.com/article/best-oscar-best-picture-losers.html|magazine=[[New York Magazine]]|access-date=March 17, 2025}}</ref>