10 Films You Didn't Realise Secretly Bombed

It's A Wonderful Life is a perfect Christmas movie, despite the fact that the majority of the film has little to do with Christmas. Rather, it takes us through the entire life of George Bailey, a man too kind for his own good.

After years of putting other people's needs before his own, George finds himself in financial ruin and almost ends his own life. After a rookie angel helps George discover the meaning of life (which, we suppose, also includes the meaning of Christmas), he discovers that life can be pretty wonderful after all. It's all topped off with a beautiful tearjerker of a scene, when everyone who George has ever helped shows up to his house on Christmas Eve to help bail him out of his debt. Everyone sings Auld Lang Syne, and everyone lives happily ever after.

It's almost fitting then that, when it was initially released, the film made a huge loss of $525,000 (just over $6 million in today's money) for RKO Pictures. It was only by giving away the television syndication rights for cheaper than usual that the studio ensured it would be constantly rerun on TV, soon cementing itself as a household favourite and a Christmas classic.

This feels apt - like George Bailey, the movie itself started out as a failure, but over time it slowly gained the love and support of legions of fans.