Doris Walker (Maureen O'Hara), an executive at Macy's department store, believes in taking a common-sense approach to life and is consequently raising her daughter Susan (Natalie Wood) not to believe in Santa Claus. This year however, the convictions of both mother and child are challenged when the kindly old man (Edmund Gwenn) hired as the store Santa insists that he is in fact the real thing. No one believes him, some even think he's insane, but he is willing to go to court to prove his case. Oscars were won by Edmund Gwenn (Best Supporting Actor) and George Seaton (Best Screenplay) and the film was remade in 1994 with Richard Attenborough in the lead.

Danny Kaye stars in the title role of this fictionalised musical biography of story-telling cobbler Hans Christian Andersen, which dramatises many of his famous tales including the famous 'Ugly Duckling'. In the small Danish town of Odense, Hans Christian Andersen, a cobbler by trade, has an extremely active imagination and makes up stories to tell the children who eagerly await his next tales. Although his fables all have morals and lessons of love and humility, the schoolmaster (John Brown) bans Hans from telling his stories to the children. After refusing to admit defeat, Hans is banished to Copenhagen where he and his shop-hand Peter (Joseph Walsh) must try to make a living. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Scoring of a Musical Picture, Best Song ('Thumbelina') and Best Colour Cinematography.