Is 'It's A Wonderful Life' Available to Stream on Netflix or Amazon Prime?
It's A Wonderful Life is available in many formats, so you can catch the 1946 classic in different ways during the holiday season. It will air one more time on NBC this year, on Friday, Dec. 24 at 8 p.m. ET. The film is also still available to stream at any time for Amazon Prime Video subscribers. Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment has also released another new edition of the film on home video to mark the film's 75th anniversary. It is not available to stream on Netflix.
As noted last year, It's A Wonderful Life is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video in both the original black and white and a colorized version. Inexplicably, the colorized version is only titled "It's A Wonderful Life." If you want to see it as director Frank Capra originally intended, you should watch the "It's A Wonderful Life (Black & White Version)" listing.
Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment releases a new edition of the film on home video almost every year. This year's edition celebrates the 75th anniversary of the film's release. It includes recipe cards from It's A Wonderful Life: The Official Bailey Family Cookbook, presenting recipes inspired by the food of Bedford Falls. As with previous editions, this new set includes the original black and white version on one disc and the colorized film on a second disc. Paramount also released the film in the new 4K Ultra HD format for the first time in 2019. (The 4K disc is not included in the 75th anniversary set.) The new 75th anniversary edition is available at the TCM Shop and Amazon.
It's A Wonderful Life hit theaters in December 1946 and was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture. The film was not an instant box office success though, and only cemented its status as a holiday classic in the television era. The movie stars James Stewart as George Bailey, who considers taking his own life after a series of mishaps until the angel Clarence (Henry Travers) reminds him of all the lives he touched in Bedford Falls. The rest of the cast includes Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Gloria Grahame, Beulah Bondi, and Ward Bond. In 1990, the film was among the second batch of movies added to the Library of Congress' National Film Registry.
The Ed Asner Family Center organized a virtual table read of the script which took place on Dec. 5. You can still watch an encore stream until Jan. 1 at the Ed Asner Family Center's website. The cast included Jason Sudeikis, Rosario Dawson, Ron Funches, Mark Hamill, and Martin Sheen, and Lou Diamond Phillips.