Kay Miniver doesn't fly a Spitfire in dogfights over London or ply the North Sea in a battleship, but she's doing her all for wartime England. And she does is so well that Winston Churchill would say Mrs. Miniver was more vital to the nation than a fleet of destroyers. Winner of six Academy Awards 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 audiences and became 1942's #1 box-office hit. Greer Garson gives a formidable Oscar-winning title-role performance 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.

A moving drama about a middle-class English family learning to cope with war, told in a series of dramatic vignettes. The family, headed by the lovely and gracious matriarch, endures the departure of the father for the beaches at Dunkirk, the discovery of a wounded Nazi pilot, the death of the daughter-in-law in an air raid, and the entry of the son into the Royal Air Force. The scenes culminate in a morale-boosting final speech that President Franklin Roosevelt ordered printed and air-dropped over war-torn Europe. Condensed from the novel by Jan Struther. Academy Award Nominations: 12, including Best Actor--Walter Pidgeon. Academy Awards: 6, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress--Greer Garson, Best (Adapted) Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress--Teresa Wright.