Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

This was forced on me during 7th grade civics class, and I remember it feeling hamfisted and idealistic. Upon rewatch, I was shocked how much I loved it. The most surprising note for me was the interiority of Stewart's performance--I remembered the big filibuster sequence, but really appreciated the quiet of his performance in the first half of the film. This is accentuated by some lovely direction by Capra, especially in the hat-dropping scene. Supporting actors are uniformly excellent: Jean Arthur continues to be such a revelation for me, Claude Rains' avuncular senior senator is also quietly wonderful, and Thomas Mitchell somehow cranking out the third classic in the same year. But what also struck me was how cynical and realistic this was. Yes, of course the system is brought to heel by an apple-pie outsider, but the movie does a wonderful job of displaying the machinery of graft present in Congress along with a shockingly modern sequence of media manipulation that was painful to watch. I've never been a big Capra fan, but was pleasantly surprised here.