It Happened One Night is a 1934 American pre-Code romantic comedy film with elements of screwball comedy directed and co-produced by Frank Capra, in collaboration with Harry Cohn, in which a pampered socialite (Claudette Colbert) tries to get out from under her father's thumb and falls in love with a roguish reporter (Clark Gable).

The screenplay by Robert Riskin is based on the August 1933 short story "Night Bus" by Samuel Hopkins Adams, which provided the shooting title.

It Happened One Night is the first of only three films (along with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Silence of the Lambs) to win all five major Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

In 1993, it was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Jumping ship in Florida, Ellie runs away and boards a Greyhound bus to New York City to reunite with her husband.

Westley arrives via an autogyro, but at the ceremony, Andrews reveals to his daughter Peter's refusal of the reward money and tells her that her car is waiting by the back gate in case she changes her mind.

A few days later, Andrews is working at his desk when Westley calls to tell him that he will take the financial settlement and not contest the annulment.

That is a reference to a makeshift wall made of a blanket hung over a rope that was tied across the rooms separating the beds they had slept in, in order to give them each privacy while traveling together.

The mom-and-pop owners talk and wonder why, on such a warm night, the newlyweds (he had seen the marriage license) wanted a clothesline, an extra blanket, and a little tin trumpet.

[13] Carole Lombard was unable to accept because Columbia's proposed filming schedule would conflict with her work on Bolero at Paramount.

[27] Film Daily praised it as "a lively yarn, fast-moving, plenty humorous, racy enough to be tantalizing, and yet perfectly decorous".

[29] John Mosher of The New Yorker panned it as "pretty much nonsense and quite dreary" which was probably the review Capra had in mind when he recalled in his autobiography that "sophisticated" critics had dismissed the film.

After it was released to secondary movie houses, ticket sales became brisk, especially in smaller towns where the film's characters and simple romance struck a chord with moviegoers who were not surrounded by luxury.

The consensus reads, "Capturing its stars and director at their finest, It Happened One Night remains unsurpassed by the countless romantic comedies it has inspired".

[35] Colbert was nominated for an Academy Award, but decided not to attend the ceremony since she felt she would not win and planned to take a cross-country railroad trip.

Colbert arrived wearing a two-piece traveling suit which she had had the Paramount Pictures costume designer, Travis Banton, make for her trip.

It Happened One Night has a few parallels with, and may have even inspired certain characteristics of, the cartoon character Bugs Bunny, who made his first appearance six years later, and who Freleng helped develop.

[57] A Life Less Ordinary (1997) by Danny Boyle has a plot that shares similarities with It Happened One Night and clearly references the movie in its own hitchhiking scene.

In Bandits (2001), Joe Blake (Bruce Willis) erects a blanket partition between motel room beds out of respect for Kate Wheeler's (Cate Blanchett's) privacy.

In "The Bogman of Letchmoor Heath", the second episode of the horror/comedy television series She-Wolf of London (1990–1991), lead characters Randi Wallace (Kate Hodge) and Ian Matheson (Neil Dickson) rent a motel room, and, uncomfortable with the lack of privacy afforded, Ian stretches a bed sheet like a curtain between the two beds.

Ian makes reference to It Happened One Night but Randi is unfamiliar with the film, remarking that she would rather "read a book".

Beginning in January 2014, the comic 9 Chickweed Lane tied a story arc to It Happened One Night when one of the characters, Lt. William O'Malley, is injured during World War II and believes himself to be Peter Warne.

As he sneaks through German-occupied France, several plot points run parallel to that of It Happened One Night and he believes his French contact to be Ellen Andrews.