The Best Years of Our Lives

An Army sergeant, an Air Force captain, and a Navy sailor who lost both hands in the war return to the same small American town and struggle to rebuild their marriages, careers, and sense of self after combat. Each man confronts the gap between wartime sacrifice and an America that has moved on without them. The film became a landmark portrayal of veteran readjustment and disability.

Following V-J Day in September 1945, millions of American servicemen were rapidly demobilized and returned to a home front that had changed in their absence, facing housing shortages, strained marriages, employment competition, and, for the wounded, profound challenges of physical and psychological readjustment. The film's disabled veteran character was played by Harold Russell, a real double amputee veteran, in a landmark casting choice.

The story is fictional but was informed by extensive research into real veterans' postwar experiences, and Harold Russell's own wartime injury lent the film unusual authenticity.

Directed by William Wyler

Cast: Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Harold Russell, Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright

Positioned at Late 1945 within the Postwar homecoming phase of the war, as part of the Veteran demobilization. This is entry 149 of 150 in the chronological archive.

• veteran readjustment
• homecoming
• disability
• postwar America
• V-J Day

• 

  Judgment at Nuremberg

  1947

• 

  Grave of the Fireflies

  March-September 1945

• 

  Barefoot Gen

  August 1945

• 

  The Book Thief

  1938–1943

• 

  Swing Kids

  1939

• 

  Mrs. Miniver

  1939–1940