# What is the best Frank Capra movie?

> Best Picture winners share the bill with a silent-era debut, pre-Code melodramas and a late color remake, so the holiday staple has serious competition. Which one would you put on first?

*By YPB Team · Published November 8, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-frank-capra-movie*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **It's a Wonderful Life** — score 1000/1000
   A 1946 Christmas fantasy drama starring James Stewart as George Bailey, nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture.
2. **Meet John Doe** — score 550/1000
   A 1941 comedy-drama with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck about a homeless man hired to front a newspaper's invented grassroots campaign.
3. **The Strong Man** — score 507/1000
   Capra's 1926 silent feature debut starring comedian Harry Langdon, selected for the National Film Registry in 2007.
4. **It Happened One Night** — score 498/1000
   A 1934 screwball comedy with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert that became the first film to win all five major Academy Awards.
5. **Arsenic and Old Lace** — score 440/1000
   A 1944 black comedy starring Cary Grant, based on Joseph Kesselring's play and held back until its Broadway run ended.
6. **American Madness** — score 440/1000
   A 1932 pre-Code drama starring Walter Huston as a New York bank president caught up in a scandal and a run on his bank.
7. **The Bitter Tea of General Yen** — score 440/1000
   A 1933 pre-Code drama with Barbara Stanwyck as an American missionary in civil-war Shanghai who is rescued by, and drawn to, a Chinese warlord.
8. **Mr. Smith Goes to Washington** — score 372/1000
   A 1939 political comedy-drama starring James Stewart as a naive new senator who fights corruption, earning 11 Academy Award nominations.
9. **Lost Horizon** — score 372/1000
   A 1937 fantasy adventure based on James Hilton's novel, with Ronald Colman in Shangri-La, that won Oscars for art direction and film editing.
10. **Mr. Deeds Goes to Town** — score 293/1000
   A 1936 comedy-drama with Gary Cooper as a small-town man who inherits a fortune, which won Capra the Academy Award for Best Director.
11. **Lady for a Day** — score 293/1000
   A 1933 comedy-drama from a Damon Runyon story that earned Capra his first Academy Award nomination for Best Director.
12. **A Hole in the Head** — score 293/1000
   A 1959 comedy starring Frank Sinatra and Edward G. Robinson whose song "High Hopes" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
13. **You Can't Take It with You** — score 200/1000
   A 1938 screwball comedy adapted from the Kaufman and Hart play that won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director.
14. **Pocketful of Miracles** — score 200/1000
   Capra's 1961 color remake of Lady for a Day starring Glenn Ford and Bette Davis, which earned Peter Falk an Oscar nomination.
15. **State of the Union** — score 0/1000
   A 1948 political drama with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, adapted from a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

Tags: movies, comedy, classics, hollywood, frank capra