Getting ghosted can really hurt. But what happens when they’ve really left this world?
Movie romances with racing pulses and a rising temperature might get the most airtime on Valentine’s Day. But sometimes love is so fiery and ardent it can even extend to the spiritual realm. Cinema has shown us time and again how romance can endure between these two worlds, from Old Hollywood classics like The Ghost and Mrs. Muir to 2000s rom-coms like Just Like Heaven. Each shows us a passion and devotion that transcend our mere scientific limitations on life and the afterlife.
With V-Day and the release of Lisa Frankenstein (February 9) — a wicked new Diablo Cody (Juno) comedy following a teenager entangled with a cute boy corpse — we’re retracing some of moviemaking’s greatest romances between the living and the dead.
But be warned: It’s not all sickly-sweet, supernatural passions. Yes, sometimes these movies show us that loving beyond spatial planes can be a joyous and enchanting experience. But other times, they capture stories of love struggling between realms and wilting away — all for the sake of the living. Romantic, no? And then there are the devastating tales of the dead never reconnecting with their living partner, films that stress we can only ever hold on to love through our own memories.
Each might have a different ending or reanimated lover, but the message often remains the same: Don’t ever give up the ghost when in love.
Now, let’s find those matches made in heaven.
[Ed. note: Spoilers follow for each of the listed films.]
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
Old Hollywood delivered some memorable takes on ghostly romances — many in the late 1940s, sadly after WWII — but none as timeless as The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. We follow the young eponymous widow, Lucy (Gene Tierney), who abandons London for life at a seaside cottage, where a gruff ghost is already residing. After some bumps in the night, Captain Daniel (Rex Harrison), finally appears — and a romance begins to blossom between the two despite the laws of physics. There is an organic chemistry onscreen between Lucy and Daniel as their courtship is tested by the appearance of the philandering but charming womanizer Miles (George Sanders). Daniel might be an apparition, but he isn’t letting Lucy go without a fight and soon starts meddling in her romantic business: “If you insist on haunting me, you might at least be more agreeable about it!” Lucy tells him. Tierney is radiant as the titular widow who finally finds some self-confidence after her husband’s death, while Harrison is endearing as the brusque and coarse sea captain. The smart script blends comedy with flirtation and portrays the supernatural romance as so lifelike and possible. (Plus there’s the deft direction by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who adds palpable physicality to the fantastical story.) It all eventuates in a heartwarming tale chronicling the circuitous search some have when finding their forever partner.
Rouge (1987)
Rouge is a sumptuous allegory about bygone romance and a yearning for the return of what once was. The Hong Kong–made film begins in the 1930s as an aristocratic man, Chen-Pang (Cantonese pop star Leslie Cheung), meets a beguiling courtesan, Fleur (Anita Mui, another real-life pop star), in a traditional teahouse, marking the beginning of a death-defying lovers’ tragedy. With the relationship quickly condemned by Chen’s family, the two decide to commit suicide in an act to ensure their romance endures. Decades on, Fleur suddenly reemerges — all white-faced and disoriented but not a day older — to enter a newspaper office and ask to place an ad looking for Chen-Pang. Days are spent wandering the modern metropolis of Hong Kong in search of her lost lover, who we eventually learn never drank the opioid poison (and is now slumming it as an elderly film extra). When Fleur finally encounters her soul mate, it’s a crushing — but completely clarifying — experience: “I didn’t think it would end like this. It may be fate. But I cannot accept it.” Much like the news that her favorite cinema has been replaced by a 7-Eleven, time has replaced the past for the future, and her former idealized lover is now a shadow (more ghost than human) of what he once was. Mui offers up a haunting performance as the alienated and mute apparition, all set against the lush and intense cinematography that seeks to evoke the jarring tenor of modernity. The specter of loss physicalized by the ghostly Fleur is one palpable and moving cinematic experience.
Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990)
The ’90s were a decade of paranormal romance — starting with this and Ghost and ending with What Dreams May Come. Truly, Madly, Deeply is a rawer and more ruminative take on reconnecting with a departed lover. It follows Nina (Juliet Stevenson), a young interpreter who is inconsolable when her cellist boyfriend, Jamie (Alan Rickman, in a very debonair role), dies without warning. In her grief, Nina longs for Jamie’s return to help shade in the missing and unrealized parts of their future together. The wish is granted with Jamie returning one day as a ghost. Unfortunately, the renewed romance begins to soon wither under the quotidian strain relationships can suffer. Jamie begins to slowly wear down Nina, who finds his quirks (like running the heat high in their flat) far more taxing than when they were together. “I don’t want you to go … I don’t know what I want,” Nina says. With a searing score soundtracking their (enduring) romance, the film avoids playing with the astral plane and instead stresses daily mundane minutiae and the hurdles for overcoming grief. It’s all a process, ironically enough, enabled by Jamie’s return to Nina’s life. Although the pair don’t end up together — Nina is bewitched by a charming shrink — the unsaid things now said and undone deeds now done, a bittersweet reality is realized: Not every romance is perfect, nor every partner. It’s an emancipating epiphany for Nina, who is finally freed of Jamie by his spiritual return. Truly, Madly, Deeply is a powerful reminder that loving someone sometimes means letting them go.
Ghost (1990)
You in danger, girl. Ghost is perhaps the most celebrated dearly-departed love story — thanks mainly to one pottery wheel and the phrase ditto. It sees Sam (Patrick Swayze) stuck in limbo land after his nefarious Wall Street colleague puts a hit out on him while embezzlement is afoot at the company. What soon follows is a desperate quest for Sam to reconnect with his very alive and grieving girlfriend, Molly (Demi Moore), to reveal the truth of the workmate’s ruse and confess his enduring love for her. After a chance encounter with a budget-psychic storefront, Sam harasses the scamming clairvoyant, Oda Mae (Whoopi Goldberg, in an Oscar-winning turn), to help him talk beyond earthly boundaries and connect with Molly again. Ghost is a rare film breed that blends romance and grief with action and comedy, delivering a comforting tale of giving people closure when the end finally comes. “It’s amazing, Molly. The love inside … you take it with you,” Sam famously imparts before skating off to the pearly gates. While scenes from the film have become supersized and parodied — like the “Unchained Melody” pottery-wheel scene — it still largely holds up as an emotional, and often funny, depiction of what many of us fear: leaving our loved ones too early on this earth.
City of Angels (1998)
Sometimes Heaven is a place on earth. In City of Angels, fallen angel Seth (a post–Con Air coiffed Nicolas Cage) soon finds his divine duties on earth a challenge. It’s his job to help guide the deceased up safely to the pearly gates, but fate has other plans for him. One day, the elusive Seth meets the equally alluring but totally living doctor Maggie (Meg Ryan), who is suspicious and unbelieving of the mystical wonders of this world. Sidestepping his celestial responsibilities, Seth tries to enchant Maggie into falling in love with him — but he must be a mortal man to do it. So Seth climbs atop a towering Los Angeles building and leaps off to accept the pains and pleasures of being human again. Humor helps lighten this dramatic transition in the courtship: “I’m a messenger … from God,” he tells Maggie, who decides to flirt back: “Did you use my pager? I usually don’t get messages unless you beep me.” There’s a soft solemnity to the story, which doesn’t shy away from wrestling with heavy emotional issues many face in the course of loving: longing, rejection, death, grief, and loneliness. When Seth decides to become human, so comes the tumultuous and fraught territory of feeling and knowing what it is to be one. Perhaps a little more sentimental than other angelic romance films, City of Angels is nevertheless one heartfelt and earnest examination of connection with the Hereafter. With a tragic final coda, the film underscores that earthly reunions are always possible in the beyond.
Corpse Bride (2005)
Sometimes it’s the dead that can best show us our true love. Or so the story goes in Mike Johnson and Tim Burton’s stop-motion musical animation, Corpse Bride. The film follows Victor (Johnny Depp) — soon to be married to Victoria (Emily Watson) — who is pulled into the Land of the Dead after he fumbles his way out of his own ceremony and unintentionally marries a corpse. That dead body is Emily, the Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter), who entraps Victor into a marriage in the underworld while Victoria is forced into her own unwanted matrimony. With macabre dances in the moonlight, popped and scattered eyeballs, and displaced skeletal ligaments, Emily is an enchanting, if desperate, paramour to Victor and refuses to give him up. “Don’t you understand?! You’re the other woman,” Victor pleads with her. Macabre musical numbers like the pun-ish “Remains of the Day” provide an apt and ironic soundtrack to a story about one very complicated love triangle. While Victor doesn’t end up with the titular bride, the dance with death he experiences in eternal damnation provides the certainty he hadn’t yet achieved: knowing who his soul mate is. Corpse Bride’s necro-comedy (“Does he have a dead brother?”) and spirited story about romance finding itself again is one poignant and fun tale of deathly love.
Just Like Heaven (2005)
Few rom-coms about the afterlife are as sweet and satiating as Just Like Heaven. It follows David (Mark Ruffalo), an architect who is recently widowed, meeting ER doctor Elizabeth (Reese Witherspoon) in his new San Francisco sublet apartment. Problem is, only David can see her. Elizabeth, a major workaholic (described by one neighbor as a “cat lady … without any cats”), has actually been in a car crash, and now her spirit lingers dormant in the apartment. David, who initially is irritated by the ever-present ghost, soon warms to Elizabeth and forms an unlikely bond. But Elizabeth isn’t quite dead — she’s actually deep in a coma and living on life support. With light and dark comedy aplenty — from awkward run-ins with Elizabeth’s sister and a meat cleaver to black jokes about end-of-life decisions — Just Like Heaven is a whimsical celebration of finding love anew and fighting for it. The metaphysical might be a challenge for the couple (like trying to convince friends that Elizabeth is real), but no more than the physical (like when David must cart Elizabeth’s literal body out of the ICU to save her). Witherspoon is divine as the steely and smart apparition, resisting romance to make clinical assessments; Ruffalo is the gallant but gauche lead whose own past grief and earnestness make him an ideal lover. Just Like Heaven is one fun reminder that seventh heaven is finding a kindred spirit.
Warm Bodies (2013)
Even if someone’s dead behind the eyes, don’t think they’re missing a heart — or a pulse. Warm Bodies is a romantic comedy about a (zombie) boy meeting a (human) girl and the (human) girl falling in love with the (zombie) boy. After a zombie apocalypse ravages planet Earth, R (Nicholas Hoult) roams around an empty airport dead-eyed until he encounters the ravishing and very human Julie (Teresa Palmer). (The fateful encounter happens after her gun fails to fire on him.) A whirlwind courtship soon ensues in a discarded airplane, where Bruce Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart” blares and cute seat games begin to fortify the unlikely bond between the two lovers. Society, however, is firmly against the idea of letting R cavort with humankind lest he get peckish — even friend Nora (Lio Tipton) and her vain attempts at a human makeover fail to convince everybody. A bullet to the torso doesn’t do the trick despite Julie’s father Grigio’s (John Malkovich) good aim. Love proves completely transformational against the human-zombie divide as the romance finds R enlivened as human again: “He’s alive! Corpses don’t bleed!” Julie cries. Warm Bodies is a camp and unpretentious take on the classic Romeo and Juliet tale, all spiritedly (!) recut within the zombie-horror world. Come for the lifeless fun; stay to have your own pulse raised.
A Ghost Story (2017)
If Ghost romanticized the power of love to transcend the physical realm, A Ghost Story is a meditation on what happens when contact can’t be made — and on life moving on. After C (Casey Affleck) dies suddenly in a car crash, he awakens as an apparition invisible to everyone else. His partner, M (Rooney Mara), grieves in his absence and eventually begins a new relationship, all the while C watches on from the sidelines in a white hooded sheet. (M’s grief is so great she desperately gorges on a pie until she pukes it all up.) Vain attempts at making contact — including trying to extract a long-hidden note tucked away in a doorframe crevice — fail. M later leaves, while the house is eventually bulldozed. While not a romance story by any ordinary definition, A Ghost Story is still a deeply affecting and melancholic meditation on how love can’t extend beyond the spiritual realm, as much as past moviemaking efforts have told us it can. Loneliness and grief set in, but there is a strange comfort knowing that C once had a fulfilling and deep bond — indeed, it’s all that can nourish him, as his former world is finally destroyed. The haunting score, the jumps in time, and the blankness of the unmoored titular ghost evoke a deep, spiritual dislocation, serving as a powerful reminder of the limitless ability of love to persist. Even in the astral plane.
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