Now Available - It's a Wonderful Life

[Pak-Man]

It's a Wonderful Life (Special RiffTrax Edit)

Feature film · 2020

Merry Christmas to all you wonderful old buildings and loanses!! In jail!!!

With Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

See it on RiffTrax

Everyone can agree that It's a Wonderful Life is one of the most famous Christmas movies of all time, nearly on par with Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny, Spunky the Snowman, and Feeders 2: Slay Bells.

We at RiffTrax have known and loved It's a Wonderful Life for decades: we've enjoyed the amazing, classic performances; we've wept and prayed at its beautiful message. So now it's time to make fun of it!

...But not all of it. This RiffTrax special edit features most of the original movie but not ALL of the original movie. As some of you know, It's a Wonderful Life was in the public domain for decades, then back out again — it's a complicated history. The main copyrighted stuff comes down to 1) material from the short story "The Greatest Gift" that part of the film was based on, and 2) some musical rights for background songs.

Well, since we wanted to offer this Christmas treat to you as a video on demand, we have meticulously excised all such parts. Which leaves... quite a bit, as it turns out!  One hour and forty-six minutes worth, in fact. You may not even notice any difference at all — unless you're a big fan of depressing Pottersville. And it turns out that there's more than one way for Clarence the Angel and his weird old-lady underwear to help George Bailey have a Wonderful Life.

We had a great time roasting this justly beloved movie. So enjoy! Merry Christmas to all you wonderful old buildings and loanses!! In jail!!! We will not say "hee-haw!"-- aww crap we just did!!!!

Written by: Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, Conor Lastowka, and Sean Thomason

Contributing writers: Jason Miller and Zachary Shatzer

[CJones]

I don't like this movie. There, I said it. Guess I'm not getting out of watching it this year

[CHF01]

This was a really good riff. It's a shame they couldn't get the entire film. 

[PontifexPrimus]

Yeah, that was an odd one - the riffs were okay; but the fact that basically a whole act was cut from the movie was disorienting, especially for someone from an international audience who has never seen the original before. Granted, I could read up on the plot since it's apparently a popular movie in America, but I would really have appreciated at least a brief summary of the missing parts, or an explanation what the heck happened.

It's rare that I am disappointed by Rifftrax, but I really cannot recommend this one.

[scottrzf]

This movie is almost 80 years old... we all know the part that was excised and it has been referenced dozens of times already either via MST3k or Rifftrax (or dozens of other TV shows). Confused as to why it was excised this time. There could have been many good riffs in that part as well. I'm disappointed, but in the end the product delivered was worth the price.

[losingmydignity]

I really enjoyed this one but for the record the missing part is a buzz kill. That said this works really well because it's a dark movie and it allows them to go dark. Hmmm. I remember the yule log having a quite a bit of that part. Maybe will run that one tonight.

[stansimpson]

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. Nothing in the preview really stuck out to me, but there was some excellent lines that had me and my wife laughing pretty hard. The humor was a bit darker than I expected, but I warmed up to it pretty quickly.

I knew about the missing last half hour or whatever it is but also heard it was hilarious. I had my expectations very high, and even still, it caught me so off guard and loved it. I laughed until the end of the movie when it happened.

Figured this might be a one-and-done RiffTrax for me, but I'm glad to say I would be happy to watch this one again.

[torgman]

Not everybody knows that part--there still exists those who never saw the movie. Not everybody grew up in the time when the copyright lapsed and every station showed it every Christmas.

As someone said, it's like cutting out the dream sequences in A Christmas Carol.  It's pretty crucial to the part of the movie and I'd like to see the guys do a "Just the Jokes" version.

This movie is almost 80 years old... we all know the part that was excised and it has been referenced dozens of times already either via MST3k or Rifftrax (or dozens of other TV shows). Confused as to why it was excised this time. There could have been many good riffs in that part as well. I'm disappointed, but in the end the product delivered was worth the price.