After Life (1998)
The Afterlife
Entirely charming film from Hirokazu Kore-eda about a group of people who find themselves in the afterlife and their often comical attempts to deal with the situation
The Afterlife
The afterlife refers to filmic depictions of the place that souls are assumed to travel to after death. In that most fantastic cinema is made in the USA, the predominant depictions of the afterlife on screen draw on an implied Christian dualism where souls either go to Heaven or Hell. That said, there have also been a number of visions from alternate religions and mythologies, plus many others that come from a non-religious viewpoint.
Cinematic depictions of the afterlife range from the cliche of a nebulous realm of clouds tended by angels to more sober attempts, including a number films about attempts to scientifically explore the afterlife. There are various other comedic and blackly comedic treatments, showing the afterlife to be very different to what people expect.
After.Life (2009)
Girl Caught Between Dead and Alive
A film that creates a unusual atmosphere where Christina Ricci lies on a morgue slab and a puzzle over whether is dead or alive. Certainly different if not fully satisfactory
Afterlife of the Party (2021)
Party Girl Returns from the Afterlife
From the director of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, a light fantasy film in which a party girl dies but is sent back from Heaven to find closure with people in her life
All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 (1996)
Animation/Dogs Return from the Afterlife
This is a video-released sequel to the Don Bluth animated film with dogs again returning from the afterlife. This is churned out with passable effort
All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)
Animation/Dog Conman in the Afterlife
One of the better animated films from Don Bluth that sets up a likeable arc in the relationship between a redeemable mobster dog who returns from Heaven and a young girl
Along With the Gods: The Last 49 Days (2018)
The Trials of the Afterlife
Sequel to the hit Korean film Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds about a journey of redemption through the afterlife. This is a much better polished effort than its predecessor
Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds (2017)
The Trials of the Afterlife
A massive hit in South Korea about a firefighter’s journey through the afterlife and the trials he must undergo. On the other hand, the director seems to be trying to turn a moral redemption story into a superhero film
Always (1989)
Man Becomes a Guardian Angel
One of Steven Spielberg’s more overlooked and quieter films, a remake of the 1940s guardian angel fantasy A Guy Named Joe. Spielberg never much ignites the love story but the film has some magical moments and a scene-stealing John Goodman
Archive (2020)
Mind Upload Into an Android Body
One of the better in the fad for Artificial Intelligence films we have had since the 2010s with Theo James trying to place his late wife’s consciousness into an android body
Beetlejuice (1988)
Gonzo Afterlife Comedy
This was where the world took notice of Tim Burton in his second film. This throws the standard ghost story on its head with the dead trying to exorcise the living. The show is dominated by Burton’s wild set-pieces and Michael Keaton’s OTT title performance
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
Gonzo Afterlife Comedy
After 36 years and several abortive attempts, Tim Burton, Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder reunite to make a sequel to Beetlejuice, but the essentials that fired up the young Burton now feel as they come by the numbers
Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)
Slackers in the Afterlife
The sequel to Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure where the first film’s humour gets lost amid repetition and blown up by a big-budget. William Sadler’s Death however proves a scene-stealer
Black Orpheus (1959)
Modernised Greek Myth
An extraordinary film that offers a modern retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, relocating it amid the Rio Carnival with striking and colourful results
The Blue Bird (1976)
Fairy-Tale
A ghastly fairytale adaptation. Classic Hollywood director George Cukor took several stars to shoot in the Soviet Union and the results look like a badly choreographed amateur pantomime, lacking in any essential whimsy
Book of Blood (2009)
Haunted House/Clive Barker Adaptation
A Clive Barker adaptation taken from the name of his story collection. While not uninteresting, it emerges as a haunted house story that eschews genre cliches for an everyday approach and never quite delivers its punches
The Book of Life (2014)
Animation/Mexican Day of the Dead
An animated film produced by Guillermo Del Toro that draws on his Mexican heritage and Day of the Dead mythology. An amazingly colourful and happy film with one of the most unique design schemes ever
The Bothersome Man (2006)
Afterlife Black Comedy
A very black Norwegian comedy in which a man who committed suicide wakes up in an afterlife very much like this world but where everyone suffers from a maddening blandness
The Boy and the Heron (2023)
Anime/Boy Enters Otherworld
The twelfth film from Hayao Miyzaki at age 82, a quasi-autobiographical if a slightly less classic work. A renaissance of many Miyazaki themes as a boy follows a heron though into a strange fantasy otherworld
Brainstorm (1983)
Memory Recording Device
Highly ambitious film for its day, this concerns a memory-recording device that manages to accidentally record the experience of someone dying. Well worth seeing today, including being one of the first films to depict the internet
The Breakthrough (1994)
Scientifically Exploring the Afterlife
A film about the scientific efforts to explore the afterlife, this suffers from too many good ideas and not enough of the effects needed to convey its journey
Brother Bear (2003)
Disney Animation/Inuit Warrior Transformed into a Bear
One of the flop Disney animated films of the 2000s, set among the Inuit with the head-scratching premise of a warrior who is transformed into a bear
Cabin in the Sky (1942)
Afterlife Comedy/All Black Musical
This was Hollywood’s first film featuring an all-Black cast, a musical in which enjoys from both Heaven and Hell come down to engage in a war over a man’s soul
Carousel (1956)
Musical/Man's Redemption in the Afterlife
A Rodgers and Hammerstein musical that has gained a classic status. On the other hand, it doesn’t resonate so well today in its story about the redemption of a wife-beater.
Casino Royale (1967)
James Bond Spoof
During the James Bond craze of the 1960s, the only Ian Fleming novel not owned by Albert R. Broccoli was turned into a giant farce. The film has five directors, a host of stars (including three playing Bond) and is an incoherent mess
Casper: A Spirited Beginning (1997)
Friendly Ghost
The first of the video-released sequels to the Casper the Friendly Ghost film, this is played down to children and comes with much in the way of slapstick
The Cellar (2022)
Mysterious House
An Irish horror film that generates undeniably mysterious atmosphere after a family move into a new house and the teenage daughter disappears after going down into the cellar
Chances Are (1989)
Reincarnation Romantic Comedy
From the director of the hit Dirty Dancing, an inane romantic comedy in which Cybill Shepard thinks her daughter’s boyfriend Robert Downey Jr is her reincarnated husband
A Chinese Ghost Story: A Tsui Hark Animation (1997)
Hong Kong Supernatural Fantasy/Animation
A Chinese Ghost Story was a classic in Hong Kong cinema, followed by two sequels and then animated spinoff sold in the West under the name of series producer and cult director Tsui Hark
Coco (2017)
Pixar Animaton/Mexican Afterlife
Pixar’s 19th film. Set on the Mexican Day of the Dead and then venturing into the afterlife, this is a celebration of all things Mexican, which Pixar conduct without any wrong steps. A film made in vibrant colours
Convergence (2015)
Hospital That Exists in an Afterlife Limbo
This has an interesting set-up concerning mysterious happenings in a hospital where it is gradually revealed the characters exist in a limbo caught between Heaven and Hell even if it never does the idea justice
Corpse Bride (2005)
Stop-Motion Animated Gothic
Tim Burton’s successor to The Nightmare Before Christmas where Burton co-directs another venture into stop-motion animation that takes place in a similar dark and beautifully stylised world
The Crow (2024)
Resurrected Avenger
The original The Crow is a cult classic. This long-planned remake from the perpetually terrible Rupert Sanders was an ill-advised move from every angle that gets just about everything from the mood to the conception of its character wrong
Cruel & Unusual (2014)
Afterlife Encounter Group
Canadian-made film about an afterlife encounter group where people are condemned to continually relive the circumstances that led to them being there
The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb (2006)
Egyptian Archaeology Adventure
TV mini-series that turns the discovery of Tutankamun’s tomb into an Indiana Jones adventure. But everything is played with a constant barrage of one-liners and action sequences so silly you can’t take any of the show seriously
Dante’s Inferno (1911)
Vision of Hell
An extraordinary find, the first ever feature film, a depiction of Dante’s Inferno and a descent down to visit the damned in Hell conducted with an incredible ambition for the time the film was made
Dante’s Inferno (2007)
Vision of Hell/Puppet Show
Modernised version of the classic journey though Hell conducted with cardboard puppets – a uniquely appealing experiment peppered with a number of biting contemporary jibes
Deadpool 2 (2018)
Marvel Comics Superhero
Deadpool was an hilarious breath of fresh air amid the Marvel Comics adaptations. This sequel is even better, with the self-deflating, fourth-wall breaking humour even funnier and more slickly polished action
Defending Your Life (1991)
Afterlife Comedy
Albert Brooks directed/starring comedy in which he plays a man in the afterlife on trial, required to defend the dull and ordinary life he led, at the same time as he begins a romance with Meryl Streep
The Devil in Miss Jones (1973)
Porn Film/Woman Returns from Hell to Experience Lust
Classic 1970s porn film about a spinster condemned to Hell who is sent back to the world to experience the lusts of the flesh. Made back at a time when the people involved seemed to care about making a good film as well
The Discovery (2017)
Scientific Proof of the Afterlife
Robert Redford plays a scientist who finds proof of the existence of the afterlife only to then face a worldwide rash of suicides. From the director of the fascinatingly weird The One I Love
Disquiet (2023)
Hospital Nightmare and Hallucinations
Jonathan Rhys Meyers wakes up in a hospital as strange hallucinatory and nightmarish things start to happen. The fact that this is a deathdream film becomes very obvious
Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1965)
Horror Anthology
The first of Amicus’s horror anthologies. The stories are rehashes of five popular horror tropes, all united by Peter Cushing as the title doctor telling the fortunes of five passengers on a train carriage
Down to Earth (2001)
Afterlife Mixup/Race Reversal Comedy
Remake of Heaven Can Wait/Here Comes Mr Jordan as a vehicle for comedian Chris Rock where the heavenly body mix-up now becomes about a black man ending up in a white man’s body
Einstein’s God Model (2016)
Scientific Experiment in Contacting the Dead
A conceptually wild film about the use of a device that can contact the dead that winds in the use of Thomas Edison’s spirit phone, modern physics and multiverse theory in something uniquely different
Embodiment of Evil (2008)
Black Sorcerer
Cult Brazilian figure of Jose Mojica Marina returns to his signature role of the demoniac sorcerer Ze do Caixão/Coffin Joe after 40 years. Marins’ nihilist philosophising and catalogue of torture scenes proves madly entertaining
Emperor Visits the Hell (2012)
Modernised Journey to the West
The idea of (some chapters of) the classic Chinese legend Journey to the West retold in contemporary terms. This makes for some amusing interpolations, while also acting as a social critique of modern-day Chinese society
Enter the Void (2009)
Soul's Journey Into the Afterlife
Gaspar Noe’s hallucinatory Day-Glo vision of a soul’s departure into the afterlife all shot in first-person perspective. This could be a 2001: A Space Odyssey for the trance culture generation
Erotic Ghost Story III (1992)
Hong Kong Erotica in the Afterlife
The third and least interesting of the Hong Kong series that blends erotica and the supernatural. Unlike the other films, this takes itself mostly seriously
The Exorcist III (1990)
Demonic Possession
One will go out on a limb and argue that William Peter Blatty’s sequel is actually a far superior work to the original The Exorcist, one that substitutes a literate theological detective story for barf bag theatrics and contains at least one real out there jump
The Eye 10 (2005)
Thai Ghost Story
The third and weakest of the Pang Brothers’ The Eye films, this has occasional moments of spookiness but mostly feels made up of leftover ideas that didn’t make it to the other films
The Fades (2011)
Teen Can See the Dead/Apocalytic Resurrection
An underrated mini-series – sort of the anti-Supernatural. This creates a highly original afterlife mythology and some great characters arcs, while overspilling with wry nerdish in-humour
Field of Dreams (1989)
Mystical Baseball Field with Ghost Players
Beautiful fantasy where Kevin Costner hears a voice that directs him to build a baseball diamond in his cornfield where dead players to return to life. A genteel fantasy filled with nostalgia for lost Americana and the 1960s
Flatliners (1990)
Exploring the Afterlife/Haunting
A film about med students stopping their hearts so as to explore the afterlife. This aims for big ideas but befalls director Joel Schumacher who delivers pretty visuals but finds nothing any more profound than a figurative group hug
Flatliners (2017)
Exploring the Afterlife/Haunting
Another remake we never asked for. Considering that this had the entire CGI revolution to conceive of the afterlife journey and merely has to top Joel Schumacher, it is amazing how dull and uninteresting this emerges as
The Fountain (2006)
Mystical Quest for Immortality
Darren Aronofsky’s version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. A cryptic and baffling story that takes place in three different eras, all featuring the same actors. Aronofsky engages in much symbolic interplay but what is happening is a scratch of the head
From the Dead of Night (1989)
Haunted by the Resurrected Dead
A tv mini-series where Lindsay Wagner has a near-death experience and is then haunted by people come back from the dead to kill her. From the author of The Howling
Ghost (1990)
Man Returns as a Ghost
A popular hit in which Patrick Swayze is killed and becomes a ghost. Bruce Joel Rubin’s script has enormous fun in interpreting aspects of the ghost story from the ghost’s point-of-view.
Ghost Lab (2021)
Scientifically Exploring Ghost Phenomena
Fine spooky Thai film about two doctors who set out to scientifically prove the existence of ghosts in a series of experiments that venture waaay over ethical boundaries
Ghosts Can’t Do It (1989)
Widow Guided on an Erotic Journey by Her Late Husband’s Ghost
An erotic film starring Donald Trump – I kid you not! A legendarily awful Bo Derek film where she is a widow who searches the world for the perfect body for her late husband’s ghost to reincarnate in
Gods of Egypt (2016)
Ancient Egyptian Mythology
This could be considered the Michael Bay version of Ancient Egyptian mythology, a film buried under numbing CGI overkill. For all that, Alex Proyas gives it a loopy grandeur that you can’t entirely dislike
Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)
Living Puppet Boy/Stop-Motion Animation
Guillermo Del Toro offers up his dark, more adult take on the classic children’s story in this beautifully made stop-motion animated film. Winner of that year’s Academy Award for Best Animated Film.
A Guy Named Joe (1943)
Man Becomes Guardian Angel
Classic 1940s afterlife fantasy with Spencer Tracy as a pilot killed in action who is sent back as a guardian angel. This works fantastically well due to a great character arc and a sharp Dalton Trumbo script
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011)
Young Wizard
I’ve never been a huge fan of the Harry Potter series but the final chapter rounds out the boy wizard saga in rousing style, mounting an epic-sized battle and finding characters depths that hold some of the best writing of the series
Haunter (2013)
Ghost Story
Vincenzo Natali tackles the ghost story, turning everything on its head in a series of mind-boggling twists. One of the few post-Sixth Sense films to take the film’s big twist as its starting point and build from there
Heart and Souls (1993)
Disembodied Souls Comedy
Likeable light fantasy comedy where Robert Downey Jr is possessed by four disembodies souls and sets out to help them achieve their purpose. Filled with some great performances.
Heaven Can Wait (1943)
Womaniser Tells His Life Story to The Devil
An entry in the 1940s light fantasy films in which compulsive womaniser Don Ameche arrives in the afterlife where he tells his life story to The Devil
Heaven Can Wait (1978)
Afterlife Mixup
Warren Beatty co-directs/stars in a remake of the afterlife film Here Comes Mr Jordan. Amiably lightweight but this was over-praised at the time, inexplicably receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture
Heaven Only Knows (1947)
Angel Visits Out West
A 1940s light fantasy with Robert Cummings as an angel comes down in a Western town to help bad guy outlaw Brian Donlevy redeem his ways
The Heavenly Kid (1985)
Teen Angel
Lightweight fantasy film with Lewis Smith as a 1950s rocker who is sent back from the afterlife to act as a guardian angel to help a nerdy Jason Gedrick stand up for himself
Hercules (1997)
Disney Animation/Greek Mythology
Disney animated film from the same duo behind Aladdin. As with that film, the Greek myths are subjected to an annoying barrage of hip modern jokes and pop culture references
Here Comes Mr Jordan (1941)
Afterlife Mixup
One of the original Hollywood afterlife films of the 1940s light fantasy boom, twice remade, most notedly as Warren Beatty’s Heaven Can Wait. Amiable and likeable while avoiding any deeper issues
Hereafter (2010)
Perspectives on the Afterlife
Clint Eastwood tackles the afterlife in a drama following multiple storylines. A film made with earnest serious ambition but one where Eastwood finds surprisingly little to say about the issue
Hideaway (1995)
Psychic Link with a Serial Killer
A Dean R. Koontz adaptation from the director of The Lawnmower Man, this is a numbingly predictable film in which Jeff Goldblum returns from the dead to find he has a psychic link with a serial killer
Highway to Hell (1991)
Afterlife Parody
A witty afterlife comedy, a modernised retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice where Chad Lowe drives down the highway to hell to rescue his girlfriend
Immortals (2011)
Greek Myth
A venture into Greek myth retelling the story of Theseus and the labyrinth. Tarsem Singh, a director with a visually extraordinary eye, lavishes everything on the sets and costumes. One film of the 3D overkill fad that needs to be seen in 3D
Insidious (2010)
Haunting/Astral Projection
On a pure plot level, this is largely a generic haunted house story but director James Wan creates an eerie atmosphere and manages to undeniably jangle the audience’s nerves on a number of occasions
Insidious Chapter 2 (2013)
Haunting/Possession
James Wan proves himself one of the finest directors in the horror genre with this sequel to his 2010 film. The plot is trimmed to deliver an effective scare show and Wan again produces a series of eerie and unworldly jumps
The Invisible (2007)
Disembodied Teenager
David S. Goyer directed remake of a Swedish film about a teenager stuck in a disembodied state between life and death. Despite Goyer’s sterling resume as a screenwriter, this fails to work
Jigoku (1960)
Journey to Hell
A fascinating Japanese film where a man has to descend into Hell, designed along the lines of Dante’s Inferno, to save the soul of his loved one. The depiction of Hell is filled with luridly surreal scenes
Lady in White (1988)
Ghost Story
This is a beautifully made Coming of Age ghost story from the greatly underrated Frank LaLoggia wherein a bullied Lukas Haas is led by a ghost to uncover a murderer
Limbo (2019)
Afterlife Interrogation Room
Film set in a police interrogation room in the afterlife where two attorneys argue over whether a dead man should be saved or damned
Lost and Beautiful (2015)
Mythical Figures Wandering the Italian Countryside
A film that started as a documentary about a man engaged in the restoration of an Italian villa before its subject died and it morphed into a peculiar fantasy film
The Lovely Bones (2009)
Murdered Girl Looks on From the Afterlife
A film about a dead girl trying to stop her paedophile murderer from the afterlife. A grim story becomes a visual effects vehicle wrecked by Peter Jackson’s overblown amateur hour symbolism
Made in Heaven (1987)
Afterlife Romance
A quite magical film in which Timothy Hutton and Kelly McGillis fall in love in the afterlife and then try to find the each other after they are reborn into the world of the living
Martyrs (2008)
Imprisonment and Torture
Pascal Laugier makes one of the most horrific films to emerge from France in the 00s. Scenes of grim torture sit alongside a plot that twists like a pretzel and messes with almost everything we take for granted
Martyrs (2015)
Imprisonment and Torture
Martyrs was one of the most grimly disturbing films of the 2000s; this English-language remake, which waters everything down and rewrites the ending to have one of the girls bursting in to save the other with a shotgun counts as surely one of the great all-time cinematic bad ideas
A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
The Afterlife
British director Michael Powell creates the most visually stunning of all 1940s afterlife fantasies in lush Technicolor, depicting a heaven of dazzling architectural marvels
Mindgame (2004)
Surrealist Anime
Anime based on an autobiographical manga that leaps off into a variety of styles and comes filled with madcap surrealistic visuals
Miracle in the Rain (1956)
Love After Death/Catholicism
One of a spate of miracle films during this period, Catholic nonsense with Jane Wyman and Van Johnson finding love that transcends death
Monkeybone (2001)
Cartoonist in the Afterlife
Henry Selick’s first venture into live-action in which Brendan Fraser becomes trapped in a bizarre afterlife while a mischievous monkey steals his body
The Mummy Returns (2001)
Revived Mummy/Adventure
Sequel to the 1999 The Mummy. Here Stephen Sommers amplifies everything in that film by a factor of ten where the constant bombardment by the spectacular reaches an point of absurd overkill
Mythica: The Godslayer (2016)
Epic Fantasy Adventure
The fifth of the surprisingly good Mythica fan-produced series that has consistently made a strong, rousing variant on the Epic Fantasy tropes on a low budget
Nightworld (2017)
Security Guard Takes a Mysterious Job
This is a horror film that comes with one of the most captivating and original build-ups of any film seen of recent. A man is hired to simply watch a locked doorway – only to then finding things moving
The Northman (2022)
Viking Film
Robert Eggers, the director who made The Witch and The Lighthouse, makes a violent, primal Viking film steeped in Norse mythology
Orgy of the Dead (1965)
Undead Strippers in a Graveyard
Thought to be a long-lost Edward D. Wood, Jr film for many years. Although only written by Wood, this has all the bad acting and hilarious purple prose of a Wood film. The film consists of strippers doing routines in a graveyard
Orphee (1950)
Modernised Greek Myth
Jean Cocteau’s beautiful modernisation of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice updated to post-War France
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)
Greek Myth in the Present Day
Chris Columbus seeks to emulate the success of the Harry Potter films with this adaptation of a Young Adult series about the children of Greek gods. The film falls apart due to Columbus’s typical banal cues and effects overkill
Photographing Fairies (1997)
Fairies and Altered Perception
One of two films that came out in 1997 about the Cottingley Fairies Hoax. In comparison to the other, FairyTale: A true Story, this expands the premise out into a remarkable study of altered perception
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007)
Pirate Fantasy Swashbuckler
Third of the Pirates of the Caribbean films and purportedly made without a completed script, this becomes bloated and sprawling
Poltergeist (1982)
Haunting
Debate will always rage as to whether this was directed by Tobe Hooper or executive producer Steven Spielberg. It doesn’t alter the fact that it is a superlative rollercoaster of a ghost story that doesn’t always make sense but pulls its effects off flawlessly