Don't miss this great Christmas classic, tonight on television

It is already available for streaming, for a week.

80 years after its release, it is still one of the most watched films by Americans during the end-of-year holidays. A great Christmas classic broadcast this Monday evening on Arte at 8:55 p.m., and can also be seen for free on the channel's website until December 30.

Life is beautiful (It's a Wonderful Life in original version) tells the story of George Bailey, played by James Stewart, a man who abandoned his personal dreams to help other members of his community. On Christmas Eve, he had suicidal thoughts. His guardian angel (played by Henry Travers) then comes to show him all the lives he has touched and what the world would be like if he didn't exist.

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Directed by the immense Franck Capra, the first filmmaker to win three Oscars in the 1930s, Life is beautiful is a model of feel good film, which Americans watch religiously every Christmas to comfort themselves (except Tony Soprano). The film is based on a short story by Philip Van Soren Stern, itself inspired by Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, founding work of the celebration of Christmas in Anglo-Saxon culture.

Despite his five Oscar nominations, Life is beautiful was, however, a failure when it was released in theaters, a harbinger of the decline of Capra's career. And it took a happy coincidence for it to be rehabilitated, 30 years later, when the company holding the film rights failed to renew them, allowing the film to fall into the public domain for 20 years.

American television channels took advantage of this opportunity to broadcast and rebroadcast Life is beautifultransforming the film into an essential and timeless holiday classic. “It's the most incredible thing I've ever seen“, Capra later told the Wall Street Journal. “The movie has a life of its own now, and I can watch it as if I wasn't a part of it“.

This rehabilitation then went far beyond the framework of the small screen. In 1990, Life is beautiful was included in the list of films to be preserved by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. It is also one of the 100 best American films of all time according to the American Film Institute.