History YMMV / TheBestYearsOfOurLives

** Viewers love Peggy for being significantly more than an {{Ingenue}} or GirlNextDoor. Her WiseBeyondHerYears behaviour still clashing occasionally with her {{Adorkable}} youthful ignorance just endears her even more.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: While the film still has lots of artistic merit these days, it can be lost on modern audiences just how groundbreaking the subject matter was. Throughout the war, the general public had been bombarded by Frank Capra's ''Why We Fight'' films -- glamorizing the war as a heroic and patriotic endeavor. This film was made with the intent to tell the public about how the soldiers had to readjust to mundane life after coming home. Fred, for example, was a decorated Captain, but since he came from poverty, he can only manage a minimum-wage job at a department store. Likewise, Al can no longer relate to his children after they grew up while he was away. While seen as a good source of drama today, the topics the film tackles were something a 1940s audience had never seen before. ''Film/{{All Quiet on the Western Front|1930}}'' was really the only other notable American project to really emphasise that WarIsHell up to that point -- which is why it is still relevant today.

** Fred Derry got broke in the war, and can no longer apply to his job he had before the war. And he barely spends any time with his wife anymore. Then there's his constant nightmares he gets from [[SarcasmMode pleasant war memories.]]

** Dana Andrews and Teresa Wright, despite playing characters whose romance provides one of the central storylines in the film, were ignored at the Oscars.

* ValuesDissonance:
** To modern viewers, it can seem pretty odd how little attention Al's obvious alcoholism gets.
** Subverted with Fred and Marie's marriage. Fred insists she stop working even when they become too broke to go out any more. For all that it makes Fred look like an old-fashioned idiot now, it's clearly not supposed be a choice the audience agrees with, and it's a hint that there are cracks in the marriage already.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: Our heroes come home to find the economy in recession, which might seem odd, since everyone tends to imagine the post-war years as being a time of great economic prosperity (the "baby boom" generation was a reference to both the giant uptick in births and the economic miracle that occurred at the same time). However, this is exactly what happened: the U.S. economy was in recession at the end of 1945, and in fact between the war's end and 1960 there were a total of ''six'' recessions. The post-war U.S. economy was not as stable as people tend to think.