The Awful Truth is a 1937 American screwball comedy film starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant. The plot concerns the machinations of a soon-to-be-divorced couple, played by Dunne and Grant, who go to great lengths to try to ruin each other's romantic escapades. The film was directed by Leo McCarey (who won the Academy Award for Best Director) and was written by Viña Delmar, with uncredited assistance from Sidney Buchman and McCarey, from the 1922 play by Arthur Richman. This was the first of two films that Cary Grant and Ralph Bellamy appeared in together, the second being His Girl Friday (1940) and the first of three wherein Irene Dunne starred with Grant, the others being My Favorite Wife (1940) and Penny Serenade (1941).
In 1996, The Awful Truth was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, having been deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
