We don’t know anything for sure about what awaits us after death. Everyone’s own belief system gives them reassurance when they think about it, but we can’t ask anyone who knows for sure. The imagination of filmmakers has long been driven by the unknown, and some exciting films about the afterlife were born as a result.
1. Ghost
Of course, the classics are also on the list, such as the 1993 Ghost, featuring the unforgettable performance of Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg. According to the story, Sam and Molly (Swayze and Moore) are a happy couple who have just moved into their new home together in New York.
One night, however, they are attacked in the open street and Sam is shot. When he regains consciousness, all he sees is that Molly is sobbing over his body, and he is now watching the events as a ghost. In the end, Sam tries to warn his lover through a failed medium (Goldberg) that her life is also in danger, because the attack was not accidental… In the category of romantic films, this one is at least as fundamental as Dirty Dancing, making us cry and laugh at the same time.
2. Always
Pete (Richard Dreyfuss) is a dashing pilot who knows no fear and sometimes gets into more dangerous situations than he would bargain for, especially when it comes to his friends. His love is constantly afraid that one day he will not return from an action, during which he helps control the raging forest fires from his plane.
One day, tragedy really happens: Pete crashes and wakes up in a heavenly forest, where an angel is waiting for him.
The angel tells him that before he can move on, he must return to earth and pass on his knowledge to someone as a spirit. Steven Spielberg’s 1989 movie is the last film role of the wonderful Audrey Hepburn.
3. The Sixth Sense
Who is not familiar with the phrase: “I see dead people”? M. Night Shyamalan’s 1999 American psychothriller is typically the kind of film that really strikes a chord with the huge twist at the end, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth watching again and again.
Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) is a child psychologist who tries to help a little boy. Cole (Haley Joel Osment) claims to be able to see and talk to the dead. Malcolm is in disbelief at what happened, but it turns out that the boy is really telling the truth and can help solve a murder case.
4. Just Like Heaven
The 2005 romantic comedy stars David (Mark Ruffalo), who finds the perfect apartment in New York. However, after moving in, he notices that he is not alone. Suddenly, a woman with a coat of arms, Elizabeth (Reese Witherspoon), appears everywhere, who claims that this is her apartment, and that the man is staying in it without permission.
Little by little, it turns out that Elizabeth is somehow stuck between life and death and is currently lying in a coma in a hospital. As they desperately struggle to resolve the situation, their bickering relationship slowly turns into love…
5. The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson directed the 2009 film Comfort Heaven, an adaptation of Alice Sebold’s best-selling 2002 novel. The protagonist Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) is a 14-year-old girl with all the usual problems and dreams of teenagers. One day, on her way home, she meets a strange neighbor (Stanley Tucci) who wants to show her a secret cellar in the middle of a field.
And the girl – although she doesn’t trust the man very much – gives in to her curiosity and descends the ladder into the cellar, from where she never comes back up. Caught between two worlds, Susie struggles with the knowledge that she must be separated from her family. At the same time, she longs for the new place where she now belongs and where she will always be safe.
6. Coco
There are several excellent animated films that playfully show the issue of the spirit world and the afterlife. One of these is the 2017 movie Coco, which presents the Mexican belief system with wonderful graphics and music, exciting for both adults and children.
The protagonist Miguel, whose main passion in life is music, a taboo in his family since his grandfather left the family to become a world-famous musician. The boy wants to enter a talent contest on the Day of the Dead, but when he secretly tries to borrow his grandfather’s old guitar, the realm of the dead opens up to him…