25 Best Movies About Heaven & The Afterlife
Heaven and the afterlife are some of the most intriguing unknowns out there. Exactly that is what makes them so interesting to filmmakers, who try to imagine what heaven and the afterlife would look like. Well, in this article, we are bringing you the best movies about heaven and the afterlife you can find.
Some of the movies on this list will be big Hollywood hits, while others are just hidden gems. Still, whichever you choose you can be sure you will get an amazing movie about heaven and/or the afterlife.
What Dreams May Come (1998)
Soul mates Chris (Robin Williams) and Annie (Annabella Sciorra) couldn’t be happier than they are. They live in an idyllic marriage and have two beautiful children. Unfortunately, after some time, a severe tragedy befell them. Both of their children lose their lives in a car accident. Devastated by this, they somehow recover, but not long after, Chris dies in another car accident.
Chris wakes up in Paradise and realizes that Paradise is something he could never have imagined. As his personal guide, Chris gets Albert (Cuba Gooding Jr.), the first doctor he worked with. Albert helps him see his children again and thus makes Chris happy. But in everyday life, his wife Annie is desperate. Having lost her two children and her husband, Annie takes a desperate step and takes her own life.
Unfortunately, this act does not make her go to Heaven. Now Chris, who cannot find happiness without his wife, goes with Alberta to Hell, to save his wife from damnation, while she is unaware of what threatens her.
Miracles from Heaven (2016)
When Christy discovers that her 10-year-old daughter, Anna, has a rare, incurable disease, she passionately advocates for her daughter’s recovery while searching for a solution.
After Anna’s freak accident and her dramatic rescue, an extraordinary miracle occurs that completely baffles medical professionals, revives her family, and inspires the community.
Heaven Is for Real (2014)
The film stars Greg Kinnear as Todd Burpo and Kelly Reilly as Sonja Burpo, a real-life couple whose son Colton claims to have visited heaven during his clinical death.
Colton details his miraculous journey with childhood innocence and speaks soberly about things that happened before he was born… Things he could not possibly have known.
Heaven Can Wait (1978)
Joe Pendleton (W.Beatty), the top quarterback of the American football team, wakes up in heaven, where he realizes that an inexperienced sky attendant (B. Henry), who was on his first assignment, mistakenly took him to heaven thinking that Joe would ride a bicycle to be killed in a collision with a car.
The heavenly authority, Mr. Jordan (J. Mason), tries to right the wrong himself and returns to Earth with Joe. But Joe’s body has already been cremated and he has to find someone else’s body to inhabit. He rejects a whole series of proposals to finally, but only temporarily, accept the body of the rich industrialist Farnsworth, who was poisoned by his wife (D. Cannon) and her lover, and the rich man’s personal secretary, Tony Abbott (C. Grodin).
He did this by staring at Betty Logan (J. Christie), who came to Farnsworth to ask him to withdraw one of his projects that would endanger the health of the residents of her area.
The Lovely Bones (2009)
The story takes place in 1973 in a small town in Pennsylvania where 14-year-old Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) lives with her parents and younger brother and sister. Her carefree childhood is brutally interrupted when her neighbor George Harvey (Tucci) lures her into a specially built den. Soon after, Susie discovers that she is no longer alive, that is, that she has fallen victim to Harvey’s twisted urges.
After that, he refuses to cross over to the “other side” and instead wanders as a ghost through a world he no longer has any influence over. Thus, he cannot prevent her grief-stricken parents from breaking up their marriage, nor can he help police detective Fenerman (Imperioli) to solve her murder. In the meantime, her younger sister Lindsey (McIver) grew up, and thus became the object of Harvey’s interest.
Just Like Heaven (2005)
Elizabeth Masterson (Reese Witherspoon) is a doctor who works so hard that she often has no time for anything or anyone, but that won’t stop her sister from setting her up on a blind date.
On the way home, Elizabeth has a car accident, after which she falls into a three-month coma. During this time, widower David (Mark Ruffalo), who has been drinking excessively since his wife’s death, moves into her apartment.
On one occasion, Elizabeth’s ghost, which apparently only David can see and hear, objected to him, which he attributed to his drunkenness. But soon it becomes clear to him that the ghost is real and the two begin to fall in love with each other.
Hereafter (2010)
George (Matt Damon), an American from a working-class family, has had a special connection with death since childhood. On the other side of the world, French journalist Marie (Cécile De France) had a close encounter with death that shook her everyday life.
London schoolboy Marcus (Frankie and George McLaren) is desperate for answers when someone very close to him dies. Their lives will intertwine in their search for the truth and forever change their minds about what might exist after death.
Flatliners (1990)
A group of students are about to die for a truly unusual reason – to talk about it. Five ambitious students embark on a challenging and dangerous experiment that goes beyond the confines of life.
In order to look death in the face and find out what happens to the human brain when vital functions disappear, the manipulative and ambitious Nelson Wright (Kiefer Sutherland) recruited a self-taught expert on the subject of death (Julia Roberts), a former medical student (Kevin Bacon) and a charmer (William Baldwin) and a selfish documentarian (Oliver Platt).
After one of the students stops his heart and a straight line on the monitor shows the condition of clinical death, a selected team is involved and, at the last moment, using medical methods, brings the person who was on the verge of death back to life. However, playing with death, they soon discover changes in themselves that manifest when they return from the “dead”…
Ghost (1990)
Sam (Patrick Swayze) and Molly (Demi Moore) are a happy and loving couple who enjoy every moment together. At work, Sam discovers irregularities in the bank accounts of his friend and colleague Carl (Tony Goldwyn) and reports it to him, offering to look into the case. But Carl takes the investigation upon himself.
One evening in a dark alley, after returning from the theater, Sam and Molly are intercepted by a thief (Rick Aviles) who kills Sam. But Sam’s spirit does not leave this world, but stays with Molly. He soon learns that his murder was planned by Carl and that Molly is in mortal danger. He tries to warn his girlfriend, but she does not see or hear him. The only person who can sense his presence is the spiritual medium Oda Mae (Whoopi Goldberg).
The Shack (2017)
The Cabin is the story of a father whose daughter Missy is kidnapped and murdered during a family outing. The only thing left, a bloody dress, was found by the police in an abandoned cabin in the wilds of Oregon. Four years later, a grieving Mack receives a strange message, an invitation to visit that same cabin.
He hesitates, but still goes and experiences an encounter with God himself or, more precisely, with the Holy Trinity depicted in the image of a large cheerful black woman Elousia (Father), a physically not particularly attractive shorter man with Arab facial features (Son) and a gentle Asian woman Sarayu (Holy Spirit).
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Dr. Malcolm Crowe (B. Willis) is a respected expert on children’s mental problems, disorders and diseases. When he meets little Cole Sear (H.J. Osment), a boy who other people consider a freak, Cole reminds him of one of his patients, Vincent (D. Wahlberg), the only one he failed to help. Vincent grew up to be a completely distracted and disturbed young man, and once he crept into Dr. Crowe’s house and shot him.
Cautiously approaching Cole, Dr. Crowe gradually learns the boy’s terrible secret: he sees dead people and they speak to him. He lives in constant fear of everything he sees and what the dead ask of him. “Maybe you should listen to them,” Malcolm advises him. At the first opportunity, Cole listens to him: the recently deceased girl Kyra (M. Barton) hands him a box that her father should receive.
All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)
An animated adventure about Charlie the dog who returns from paradise among the living to take revenge on his enemy Carface. His friend Itchy and a girl from the orphanage who can talk to animals help him in his plan.
Wings of Desire (1987)
Two angels (B. Ganz and O. Sander), invisible to people, walk through West Berlin before the wall was demolished and listened to the thoughts of Berliners.
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One of them (B. Ganz) is particularly interested in a French circus performer (S. Dommartin) and an American actor (P. Falk) who is starring in a movie that is currently being filmed, but he suddenly notices that the actor is addressing him directly as if he sees him…
Field of Dreams (1989)
Ray Kinsella (K. Costner) met his wife Annie (A. Madigan) while studying at Berkeley in 1968. They got married and a daughter was born to them in a happy marriage. They live on a large corn farm in Iowa. In addition to his wife and daughter, Roy always loved baseball. But not the commercialized, modern one, but the one that was played in his father’s time, after the First World War.
For him, the best baseball player of all time is “Shoeless” Joe Jackson (R. Liotta) from the “Chicago White Sox” club. But due to suspicions that in 1919 he received money before the championship, Joe Jackson, as well as the whole team, had to leave his sports career. As he was walking through his cornfield, Ray heard a voice say to him, “If you build it, it will come.” At first, Ray thought he was dreaming, but after hearing a voice several times that he couldn’t explain where it was coming from, he listened to the message to the end. If he builds a baseball field on his field, then the ghost of Joe Jackson and his clubmates will appear on it. The woman supports Roy in this unusual plan.
The neighbors are surprised, but Roy builds a playground and one evening Joe actually appears on it, and Ray plays baseball with him. Soon the whole team will appear as it looked in 1919. In order to better understand what is happening in his life, Roy will seek the advice of the writer Terence Mann (J.E. Jones) and the old doctor Archibald Graham (B. Lancaster)…
Defending Your Life (1991)
Successful American entrepreneur Daniel Miller (A. Brooks) accidentally dies in a car accident on his way back from work. Not knowing that he is dead, he suddenly finds himself in an unknown city, which turns out to be the place of the “last judgment”, that is, a kind of “purgatory” for the dead, where they, observing their life actions in front of a commission, evaluate whether they deserve to receive a place in paradise.
During the day, in the breaks between board exams, Daniel gets to know the dead who spend time here, and he gets closer to Julia (M. Streep), a relatively young woman who tragically passed away. Can something more develop from their afterlife acquaintance?
Constantine (2005)
John Constantine (K. Reeves) is a hero with supernatural abilities, able to see what other people cannot – angels and demons disguised as ordinary people. As a young man, Constantine tried to take his own life and now, looking for demons, he tries to redeem himself so that he doesn’t end up in hell…
Always (1989)
Pete is a Canadian jet pilot. His girlfriend Dorinda is also a pilot and works as an operator at the fire protection center.
In extinguishing operations, Pete often takes risks, having full confidence in his skill. One day she betrays him and he dies on the job.
He returns to this world as a ghost to give advice to his successor who falls in love with Dorinda.
Dogma (1999)
Bethany Sloane (Linda Fiorentino) is very disappointed and her faith is questioned when her husband leaves her after learning that she cannot have children. She will be completely confused when she is approached by Metatron (Alan Rickman), a chubby angel.
He wants Bethany to help him stop Bartleby (Ben Affleck) and Loki (Matt Damon), fallen angels cast out of Paradise, who are on their way to New Jersey. If the two of them manage to get under the vault of a certain church, they will prove that God is sinful and cause a quick end of the world.
Bethany doesn’t understand why she’s been assigned this task, but she sets off on the journey anyway with sidekicks – Jay, an extremely awkward ex-drug dealer and womanizer, and Quiet Bob. Along the way, they will be joined by several other helpers, including the divine muse Serendipity (Salma Hayek) and Rufus (Chris Rock), who claims to be the thirteenth apostle and that Jesus owes him $12…
City of Angels (1998)
The meeting with the dedicated surgeon Maggie (Meg Ryan) awakens in him the fire of curiosity and the eternal question: what does it feel like to be a human being? One of the angels warns Seth of the many dangers of getting close to people, but his curiosity and strong feelings for the doctor lead him to an uncertain procedure. .
We might think that “City of Angels” is a typical American remake of a European film, in translation, the destruction of everything good for the sake of commercial success. Brad Silberling’s film foregoes the meditative moments of Wenders’ epochal drama in order to develop a romantic story, but the quality of the dialogue and the unpredictable ending make this film significantly different from many other, mostly inappropriate, adaptations.
Made in Heaven (1987)
When Mike Shea (Hutton) dies heroically saving a mother and child, he goes to heaven and meets Annie Packert (McGillis), the love of his life – and life after death.
But she is a new soul and still has to live as a mortal. Mike breaks all the rules and manages to convince the “head” to allow him to return to earth.
But there’s a catch: the lovers won’t remember anything when they’re reborn and must find each other before they turn 30 – otherwise they’ll never meet again…
Beetlejuice (1988)
When Barbara and Adam Maitland, a young and loving couple, are killed in a car accident, they find themselves in the form of ghosts in their beautiful New England farmhouse.
It took them a long time to realize that they are no longer alive and that they are just ghosts, but in the end they were happy that they were together and that they would continue to live peacefully in their house. But the peace is short-lived: an unpleasant New York yuppie family, the Deets, buy a house and intend to completely remodel it.
The Maitlands use all the means available to them as ghosts, they carefully study the manual for ghosts, but they are too subtle and too harmless to drive away the tempting family. That’s why they turn to the spirit Betelgeuse (Beetlejuice) for help. He is a specialist in exorcism – an exorcist of living people. But Beetlejuice is an even bigger temptation than the Deetzes.
The Discovery of Heaven (2001)
Humankind has disappointed God who decides he wants back his commandment tablets. Angel is given this assignment and with Gabriël’s help, he tries to manipulate several people on Earth to do his job. But people have their own will…
Meet Joe Black (1998)
William Parish (A. Hopkins) is a rich and powerful businessman, the owner of a media empire, who after the death of his beloved wife, devotes his life to his work and his adored daughters Allison (M. G. Harden) and Susan (C. Forlani). On the eve of his 65th birthday celebration, he suffers a heart attack during which he hears an unknown voice announcing his imminent departure from this world.
He is soon visited by a mysterious stranger with an apparently made-up name, Joe Black (B. Pitt). It is actually about the angel of death who came to get another soul. But the angel begins to feel something that no angel should ever feel, and that is love for Parish’s beautiful daughter, Susan. As this feeling is mutual and extremely strong, the routine task of a harbinger of death turns into a real adventure.
Coco (2017)
It will be the biggest celebration of his life! In Mexico, in Santa Cecilia, Miguel dreams of becoming a musician one day, but this is forbidden in his family. Namely, Miguel’s great-great-grandmother Imelda and her daughter Coco were left by her husband so that he could dedicate himself to his music career. He never returned to his family, so Imelda banned music from their lives and started a shoemaking business.
Miguel now lives with Coco and family, who are all mostly shoemakers. Today, Coco is in her late years, suffers from memory loss and is very quiet. However, even though music is not allowed in the family, Miguel idolizes the famous musician Ernesto de la Cruz and practices the guitar in secret. On the Day of the Dead, Miguel sees a photo of Coco and her parents on the altar.
Grandfather’s face is torn from the photo, but Miguel also finds a hidden section on the altar where he sees a picture of great-great-grandfather holding Ernesto’s famous guitar. Miguel concludes that he is Ernesto’s great-great-grandson, and decides to enter the talent show, even though his family is against it.
A Ghost Story (2017)
In this singular exploration of legacy, love, loss, and the enormity of existence, a recently deceased, white-sheeted ghost returns to his suburban home to try to reconnect with his bereft wife.
