--- title: "Heaven Can Wait" year: 1978 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/heaven-can-wait" fi1m_score: 74 critics_score: 69 critics_reviews: 7 published: "2026-09-20T06:02:25.841531+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T06:02:26.410846+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Heaven Can Wait (1978) Directed by Buck Henry, Warren Beatty · 1h 41m · MPA PG · Fantasy, Comedy, Romance, Drama **Fi1m score: 74** · Critics 69 from 7 reviews *In a sentence:* Dead, rich, and still fretting about the season; the afterlife has met its match in a quarterback > Warren Beatty and Buck Henry remake a 1941 fantasy as a soft, sunlit comedy about a quarterback who dies too early and comes back as a millionaire. It is gentle to a fault, but Charles Grodin and Dyan Cannon steal every room they whisper in. ## Synopsis Los Angeles. Joe Pendleton (Warren Beatty), a quarterback with a season ahead of him, cycles off to celebrate some good news. In a road tunnel a nervous celestial Escort (Buck Henry) lifts him out of his body a second before a collision, to spare him the pain. At the fog-bound way station where the dead queue for their flight, Mr. Jordan (James Mason) discovers Joe was not due for decades, but the body has already been cremated. Joe is offered a replacement: a rich man called Farnsworth, whose wife Julia (Dyan Cannon) and secretary Tony Abbott (Charles Grodin) have just seen to it that he will not be needing it. Joe wants his season back and calls his old trainer Max Corkle (Jack Warden). Betty Logan (Julie Christie), an Englishwoman with a complaint against Farnsworth’s company, gives him a reason to stay. ## Review Joe Pendleton (Warren Beatty) is a quarterback with a season ahead of him and good news to celebrate. He celebrates by cycling into a road tunnel, where a celestial Escort (Buck Henry), new to the job and anxious to spare him pain, lifts him out of his body a second before a lorry arrives. The trouble is that Joe was not due to die for decades. By the time Mr. Jordan (James Mason), who runs the fog-bound way station where the newly dead queue for their flight, spots the error, the body has been cremated. The replacement on offer belongs to a rich man called Farnsworth, whose wife Julia (Dyan Cannon) and secretary Tony Abbott (Charles Grodin) have just seen to it that he will not be needing it. Beatty and Henry, co-directing, are remaking [*Here Comes Mr. Jordan*](https://film.one/film/here-comes-mr-jordan) (1941), and the screenplay Beatty wrote with Elaine May keeps that film’s gentleness and adds a thin coat of malice about money. Betty Logan (Julie Christie) arrives at the house with a complaint against Farnsworth’s company, and Joe takes the body largely because he would like to see her again. It is a soft, sunny 101 minutes that sets out to be liked and mostly is. We liked it. We also spent stretches of it waiting for it to get on. The film belongs to its criminals. Grodin plays Abbott as a man who has done one bold thing in his life and is now discovering he has no idea how to follow it; every time the dead man strolls in, cheerful and hungry, Grodin has to rearrange his face, and he finds a new arrangement each time. Cannon’s Julia is silk and panic, given to sudden screams and sudden sweetness, and she is funniest when trying to be calm. Their whispered conferences in doorways are the best-written scenes in the picture. Mason plays Mr. Jordan with the patience of a good headmaster and lends the daft cosmology a dignity it would not have on its own. William A. Fraker shoots Los Angeles in a warm late-afternoon light, so that even the mansion’s marble looks lived in, and gives the way station a white haze that hides its edges. Paul Sylbert designs the Farnsworth house as long corridors and oversized rooms, which is the joke: Joe jogs through them in a tracksuit as if the house were a stadium, and Jack Warden, as his old trainer Max Corkle, follows with a stopwatch. Dave Grusin’s score is a light, wandering thing, mostly piano, that suits the mood and now and then sinks into it. Don Zimmerman and Robert C. Jones cut the training scenes briskly and let the romance amble, so the love story never gathers pace. That love story is the weakness. Christie has almost nothing to play: Betty arrives angry, is won over, and thereafter looks worried in nice coats, and the film never gives her a scene of her own. Beatty, directing himself, is kind to everyone else and lenient with his own performance, which consists mostly of looking bewildered and decent. He is good at that, but a hero who is bewildered for an hour and a half becomes a passenger in his own film. The football that fills the last act runs long, and we found it hard to care who won. Here is what got us. We laughed most at Grodin, and at Cannon’s face when she opens a door and finds the husband she thought she had disposed of standing in the hall. And the final minutes, which we will not describe, moved us more than the preceding ninety had prepared us for. They are done with two people, a corridor and Grusin’s theme, and they are the one time Beatty the director trusts silence. Against Beatty’s own run as a director this sits in the middle. It has none of the ambition of *Reds* (1981) or the nerve of *Bulworth* (1998); it is the film in which he found out he could do the job. Watch it on a Sunday afternoon with someone who will not mind if you doze through the training montage. Stay awake for Grodin. *Fi1m score 74, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics like it, and the praise clusters on the cast and the writing. Variety and Roger Ebert are the warmest, admiring the confident direction and a script that keeps the sweetness of the 1941 original while adding sharper digs at greed and corporate life. The New York Times finds considerable charm and a marvellous cast even where it sees no great style, and several reviews single out the supporting players, Charles Grodin and Dyan Cannon in particular, as the reliable pleasures. The reservations are about the script and the tone. Time Out is the lone outright dissenter, calling it a soggy, uncertain remake with a thin script, and faulting the pacing and Julie Christie’s comic timing. Collider is mixed, finding it mostly entertaining on charisma alone but awkward in its swing between broad comedy and sentiment. The spread is wide, from warm to hostile, and the later reviews are cooler than those written on release. ### Reviews we read (7) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (90/100, inferred): The review declares it an outstanding film that returns the fantasy comedy-drama in an updated, slightly more macabre treatment. It singles out the strong script and direction for providing a rich mix of controlled visual and verbal humor. [Read](https://variety.com/1977/film/reviews/heaven-can-wait-2-1200424243/) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (85/100, inferred): The critic finds the premise of the 1941 film holds up well in this remake, combining the original's sweetness with its own satirical bite. He singles out the confident co-direction and the screenplay's mean digs at greed and corporate politics for praise. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/heaven-can-wait-1978) - **The AV Club**, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (75/100, inferred): The critic notes the film's commercial success despite production challenges and highlights its winning charm and strong supporting cast as standout elements. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/warren-beatty-scored-an-unlikely-hit-with-a-comedy-abou-1844069357) - **The New York Times**, Vincent Canby (75/100, inferred): The review calls the film a hybrid of no great style but of considerable charm, with a marvelous cast. It singles out the screenplay's witty moments and the easy gravity brought by Beatty and Christie for praise while noting it struggles to escape its source material. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1978/06/28/archives/a-film-by-beattya-remake-of-1941.html) - **The New Yorker**, Penelope Gilliatt (70/100, inferred): The critic notes the writing is sometimes loopy and brainy and praises the fine leitmotiv about hats along with the splendid casting of Dyan Cannon. The overall verdict is positive on the film's execution of its reincarnation premise. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1978/07/10/life-2) - **Time Out**, GB (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a soggy and uncertain remake of Here Comes Mr Jordan, with a thin script that fails to deliver on its whimsical premise despite contributions from Elaine May and Buck Henry. Praise goes to Charles Grodin’s performance, while the overall pacing and Julie Christie’s comic timing are faulted. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/heaven-can-wait-1) - **Collider**, Liam Gaughan (50/100, inferred): The review places Heaven Can Wait fourth among Warren Beatty's directorial efforts. It calls the film mostly entertaining due to the cast's charisma, particularly Charles Grodin, while noting an awkward blend of tones between broad comedy and sentimentality. [Read](https://collider.com/warren-beatty-directed-movies-ranked/) ## Details - **Director:** Buck Henry, Warren Beatty - **Director:** Buck Henry, Warren Beatty - **Screenplay:** Elaine May, Warren Beatty - **Cinematography:** William A. Fraker - **Editor:** Robert C. Jones, Don Zimmerman - **Music:** Dave Grusin - **Production design:** Paul Sylbert - **Costume design:** Richard Bruno, Theadora Van Runkle - **Producer:** Warren Beatty - **Cast:** Warren Beatty as Joe Pendleton; Julie Christie as Betty Logan; James Mason as Mr. Jordan; Jack Warden as Max Corkle; Charles Grodin as Tony Abbott; Dyan Cannon as Julia Farnsworth; Buck Henry as The Escort; Vincent Gardenia as Krim - **Runtime:** 1h 41m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG - **Release (the US):** 28 June 1978 - **Genres:** Fantasy, Comedy, Romance, Drama - **Budget:** $15 million - **Box office:** $99 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDLbLbsxRKQ ## Where to watch in the US - Pluto TV: free - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd, leaving 2026-10-01 - Amazon Prime Video: add-on, uhd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $4.99, uhd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $9.99, uhd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AT, AU, BE, BG, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FI, GB, HR, HU, IE, IN, IT, JP, LT, MX, NO, NZ, RO, RS, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1979: Best Actor (nominated); Best Cinematography (nominated); Best Director (nominated); Best Original Score (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Supporting Actor (nominated); Best Supporting Actress (nominated); Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (nominated); Best Production Design (won) ## If you liked this - *Here Comes Mr. Jordan* (1941), Fi1m 77: The original, brisker and stranger, with a boxer where Beatty put a quarterback — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/here-comes-mr-jordan.md) - *A Matter of Life and Death* (1946), Fi1m 92: Powell and Pressburger’s celestial bureaucracy, done in colour and monochrome and with far more nerve — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/a-matter-of-life-and-death.md) - *Defending Your Life* (1991): Albert Brooks dies, faces a tribunal and worries about the food; the funnier afterlife - *After Life* (1998): Kore-eda’s way station, where the dead pick one memory to keep; quiet and devastating - *Truly, Madly, Deeply* (1990), Fi1m 80: A dead man comes back to a London flat and brings his friends; grief as comedy — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/truly-madly-deeply.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/heaven-can-wait