What comes after death? From Orphée to Beetlejuice, these 10 films imagine the unknowable.
It’s the one thing we all have coming, the one thing no one has ever returned from to report upon, and therefore the single greatest mystery – speculated, philosophised, prayed and written about since life began: what happens to us after we die?
“Nothing” might be a reasonable, rational guess for scientists and atheists alike, but it’s a fairly unsatisfying stance for artists to take. Long before cinema’s birth, painters, poets and composers attempted, largely inspired by religion, to get to grips with the afterlife. Accordingly, heaven and hell, angels and devils, featured prominently. Ghosts crept into the mix too, spiritual or secular, but always with unfinished business here on Earth. It made shuffling off our mortal coil seem more like an ongoing journey than final destination. Whether something to fear, or eternal salvation, the afterlife was very much a living, breathing presence, not an absence.
Movies have long taken advantage of this, taking great pleasure in visualising just what lies beyond. Whatever their vision – grand celestial pearly gates or drab office-like work space – it’s fascinating that the human need to restore meaning and reason to our conception of the afterlife usually wins through.
Even a genuinely grea
