AWARDS & HONORS

Woman of the Year placed ninth on the New York Times's yearly ten best list.

Woman of the Year received two Oscar® nominations, Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay. Hepburn lost to Greer Garson in Mrs. Miniver (1942), but Michael Kanin and Ring Lardner, Jr. won.

Woman of the Year was voted a place on the National Film Registry in 1999.

THE CRITICS' CORNER - WOMAN OF THE YEAR (1942)

"Woman of the Year is particularly fortunate in having Miss Hepburn and Mr. Tracy teamed for the first time in a film. For they are both so competent in the field of screen performing that they rarely miss in realizing all the potentialities of a script or in realizing all the conception of an able director."
- Howard Barnes, New York Herald Tribune

"The Philadelphia Story, it is now clear, marked a turning point in Miss Hepburn's career; gone for good are the mannerisms, the tricks, the superficiality which marred much of her previous work. Her performance in Woman of the Year shows even more subtlety and depth, despite the light nature of the story. Her performance is a constant pleasure to watch. Mr. Tracy is an excellent foil for her in this particular instance. His quiet, masculine stubbornness and prosaic outlook on life is in striking contrast with her sparkle and brilliance. They make a fine team, and each complements the other."
- Donald Kirley, Baltimore Sun

"Actors Hepburn and Tracy have a fine old time in Woman of the Year. They take turns playing straight for each other, act one superbly directed love scene, succeed in turning several batches of cinematic corn into passable moonshine. As a lady columnist, she is just right; as a working reporter, he is practically perfect. For once, strident Katharine Hepburn is properly subdued."
- James Agee, Time

"Woman of the Year is an entertaining film with superb work by Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy...Lardner and Kanin had an amusing starting point....but wend it tortuously through every hackneyed and expected plot device without a surprise at every turn. Director Stevens lets it get out of hand completely with minutes on end devoted to a few tired situation gags."
- Variety

"The comic byplay between opposites....is a consistent pleasure, even if its sexual politics are ambiguous: Spence scores more points than Kate, and the whole film is geared toward the climax when she cooks him breakfast like a good little housewife."
- Adrian Turner, The TimeOut Film Guide

"Woman of the Year...is an excellent emotional comedy that introduced Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn and never lost the charge of feeling between them, even if it settles for a male chauvinist attitude."
- David Thomson, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film

"...a polished and astringent comedy.."
- The Oxford Companion to Film

"The chemistry is great, but the plot and the tone are wobbly...The comedy goes sour whenever the movie scores points against her [Hepburn], and the slapstick resolution has an air of desperation."
- Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies

"Film is hurt by silly and overly sentimental plot contrivances...but Tracy and Hepburn ride out the rocky road. What's most fascinating about the film is Hepburn's uninhibitedly sexual performance - you won't forget her aggressive behavior toward Tracy in a cab and then in her dark apartment (it's obvious that she is ready to go all the way, although they aren't married yet); her sexiness comes from how she uses her eyes, voice, body, and, more significantly, her mind prior to lovemaking."
- Danny Peary, Guide For the Film Fanatic

"...here is the jolliest screen comedy that's come along since The Lady Eve [1941]-a cheering, delightful combination of tongue-tip wit and smooth romance, a picture of surface brilliance designed unreservedly "pour le sport" but with enough of a homely little moral to make it quite comforting in these times. It's as warming as a Manhattan cocktail and as juicy as a porterhouse steak."
- Bosley Crowther, The New York Times

"First teaming of Tracy and Hepburn is a joy...Unforgettable scene of Hepburn trying to understand her first baseball game."
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide

Compiled by Frank Miller