On the anniversary of its 1946 release, ReelAbilities’ Lawrence Carter-Long revisits the landmark film and what it continues to teach audiences about disability, adaptation, and acceptance.

William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives opened on this day, November 21 in 1946, and the anniversary of that moment feels, in some ways, as urgent as ever. It is not nostalgia that keeps pulling us back. It is the film’s refusal to look away from the realities of disability, trauma and reintegration. It is the honesty that still resonates. When we revisit the film today, in conversations with colleagues at Turner Classic Movies or in the broader work we do at ReelAbilities, we find a film that understands something Hollywood still struggles with. A clarity that transcends stereotypes are all clues about why the film still matters.

Harold Russell’s casting is essential to that clarity. A real disabled veteran who lost both hands in a 1944 explosives accident, Russell was discovered by director William Wyler after appearing in a military training documentary. Wyler recognized that Russell brought something the industry could not manufacture. Lived experience that needed no embellishment. That recognition shaped the film’s entire approach.

The character of Homer Parrish evolved to fit that simple, but essential truth. Early drafts imagined a different condition, but once Wyler saw Russell on film, the role was rewritten to reflect Russell’s actual condition. Bilateral amputation. Prosthetics replacing hands. The daily labor of learning to adapt with them. Russell later said the original conception bordered on caricature. Centering Homer in his real experience grounded the character in depth and dignity rather than distortion.

In addition to Russell’s performance, the film also makes essential distinctions between the invisible injuries carried by Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) and those worn by Al Stephenson (Fredric March). Andrews plays Fred with a raw intensity. His trauma emerges as sleeplessness, panic and intrusive memories that trap him inside the war long after his time on the battlefield ended. 

March’s portrayal of Al is quieter but no less compelling. By contrast, Al Stephenson is not haunted by flashbacks. He is hollowed out by what he experienced. Numbs himself with alcohol, withdraws emotionally and struggles to reconnect with his family. March plays Al as someone who is physically present but spiritually remote, a man who no longer recognizes the life he returned to. His alcoholism is not a plot device. It is a coping mechanism for a world that no longer fits. Trauma does not speak in one voice. Fred cannot sleep. Al cannot feel. One is overwhelmed by memory. The other is numbed by dislocation. Both men are trapped by the gap between who they were and who they feel they are expected to be.

Wyler’s own history shaped the film’s sensitivity. While filming the Army Air Forces documentary Thunderbolt! he experienced severe and permanent hearing loss. He returned to Hollywood as a disabled veteran himself. He understood what it meant to reenter a world that did not account for what he had lost. That depth of understanding shows in the film’s small moments.

At its core the film rests on a principle that remains essential. You cannot tell the truth about disability unless you treat disabled people as full human beings with all the messiness that comes with it. Not as metaphors. Not plot devices. Full people with desires, and contradictions. People who laugh, cry, feel fear, and have work left to do.

That belief guided Wyler’s decisions. He removed Russell from acting classes so the performance would remain natural and unforced. The studio did not feature Russell in the film’s promotional materials. Contemporary accounts confirm that Wyler urged them not to exploit Russell’s disability as a marketing hook. He wanted audiences to meet Homer inside the film. He was not interested in spectacle. Wyler refused to let disability be reduced to that.

The production added scenes not in the original screenplay, including Homer’s wedding, which offers a hopeful future of life continuing after injury. Not perfection. Possibility. A future built on equal parts partnership and adjustment.

Harold Russell’s influence extended beyond the film. Disability has never been a partisan issue. It cuts across red states and blue states, conservatives and liberals. Russell’s public service reflects that reality as well. He served three terms as National Commander of AMVETS and twice chaired what was then called the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped, first under Lyndon Johnson and later under Ronald Reagan. He helped shape early national conversations about work, access and the obligations a nation owes its disabled citizens.

Yet admiration does not always guarantee support. In 1992 Russell sold his Best Supporting Actor Oscar to help pay for his wife’s medical care. Long before crowdfunding existed and long after Hollywood stopped offering him meaningful work, he faced the same systemic failures other disabled Americans know well. It is impossible not to wonder what his later years might have looked like if the industry that applauded him in 1946 had supported him in the decades that followed. What roles he might have played. What security he might have built. What stories we lost because the system could not imagine how to sustain a career for a disabled actor.

That being so, the question remains: If a major studio film in 1946 could treat disability with this much care and imagination, what is stopping the industry from doing the same in 2026? The talent is here. Audiences are eager for both authenticity and imagination. That’s why at ReelAbilites we work to present a 360 view of the films we show. Whether it is in partnership with colleagues at TCM to help put the past in perspective, our flagship festival each Spring where we celebrate disabled creatives and the films they make today, and the work we do year round to create a more inclusive, accessible future both in the entertainment industry and for the audiences who enjoy the movies that are made. 

On the anniversary of its release, The Best Years of Our Lives reminds us why the questions it raised in 1946 still meet us where we live. We are still talking about it seventy nine years later because, to a large degree, the challenge it revealed remains unfinished. Honesty ages well. Inclusion ages even better.  Disability representation is not something we wait for. It is something we build one frame, one film at a time. Still. 

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ReelAbilities’ Director of Engagement, Lawrence Carter-Long, has programmed and presented four different showcases on the history and evolution of disability in film in partnership with Turner Classic Movies since 2012 with the most recent being in July 2025 on behalf of ReelAbilities.