Mrs. Miniver

Winner of six Academy Awards(R) including Best Picture, this memorable spirit-lifter about an idealized England that tends its prize-winning roses while confronting the terror of war struck a patriotic chord with American audiences and became 1942's #1 box-office hit. Greer Garson gives a formidable Oscar(R)-winning performance in the title role, comforting children in a bomb shelter, capturing an enemy parachutist and delivering an inspirational portrait of stiff-upper-lip British resolve. When Hitler did his worst, Mrs. Miniver did her best. Year: 1942 Director: William Wyler Starring: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon

A movie doesn't win seven Oscars for nothing. A glowing Greer Garson (Best Actress) commands the screen as Mrs. Miniver, a middle-class British housewife whose strength holds her family together as World War II literally hits their home. Walter Pidgeon as her architect husband seems to be the prototype for future TV dads in this affecting portrait of love--familial and romantic--during war. But the relationship between Mrs. Miniver's college-age son (Richard Ney) and the upper-crust Carol (Best Supporting Actress Teresa Wright) is filled with inherent drama--as the war speeds up their young love, it also has the potential to doom it. The 1942 film, which also won for Best Picture and Best Director, is filled with colorful characters, snappy dialogue, and sensational plot twists. Although you spend much of the movie dreading that one of the Minivers will become a casualty of war, when it finally happens, it's not what you anticipated. Exactly what you'd expect from a legendary film that lives up to its billing. --Valerie J. Nelson