Beautiful, moving film.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

I love this film. My father flew bombers in the RAF during WWII and told me the sequence at the beginning was the most realistic representation of a damaged aeroplane in flight he had seen in film. Having said that this is not a war film, it is a charming tale of love, friendship, life and, of course, death. David Niven is his usual convincing self but he doesn't dominate the film in which he stars. (Though it must have been his influence that caused one character to be named Trubshaw.) Roger Livesey, Kim Hunter, and the excellent Raymond Massey make this a rounded film with their portrayals of developed characters. It is beautifully filmed, Kim Hunter's bicycle ride along the beach somehow enchants me. It is a good tale well told and acted. I highly recommend it.

While the script itself has been sort of done in "Heaven Can Wait" and "Here Comes Mr. Jordan", this one is done better than either of those films. David Niven became a star with this film. It is easy to see why. This is a very good film.The film starts with Niven alone on a Lancaster Bomber on it's way down. With the exception of one dead person, everyone else has bailed out. Niven has not because he does not have a parachute. For some reason he gets a radio call from a woman who he tells his situation too and then he bails out rather than burning with the plane.Here this plot becomes more complicated as he meets the girl he fell in love with on the radio as he is still alive after jumping out. It seems he was supposed to die but because of the fog, he did not.This film uses black and white and technicolor to major advantages. It has some special effects that are amazing considering when the film was made. The supporting cast is great. It started filming on V-Jay day, and because of that the war sequences seem more real than many films.The script while not perfect, does a good job of balancing the story between Heaven and Earth. It doe it better than the other films I mentioned and gets rid of the hokey desire of the dead person to want to step into another persons shoes. It is stronger because it goes to the mode of airman Niven getting a trial to decide if he should come to heaven now (after their foggy mistake to end his live missed) or if he should stay on earth with his new found love.It works better, and that is simply why this is a great film.

Fantasy, especially in British hands, can easily go twee, and though Powell and Pressburger had surer hands than most, A Matter of Life and Death (released in the United States as Stairway to Heaven, long before Led Zeppelin) still manages occasionally to tip over toward whimsy. There is, for example, the naked boy playing a flute while herding goats, the doctor's rooftop camera obscura from which he spies on the villagers, and the production of A Midsummer Night's Dream being rehearsed by recovering British airmen, all of which are freighted with symbolism. And there's Marius Goring's simpering Frenchman, carrying on as no French aristocrat, even one guillotined during the Reign of Terror, ever did. Many find this hodgepodge delicious, and A Matter of Life and Death is still one of the most beloved of British movies, at least in Britain. I happen to be among those who find it a bit too much, but I can readily appreciate many things about it, including Jack Cardiff's Technicolor cinematography. On the whole, it seems to me too heavily freighted with message -- Love Conquers Even Death -- to be successful, but it must have been a soothing message to a world recovering from a war. (charlesmatthews.blogspot.com)

One always wonders what the worst picture was that they ever saw. I must say that this shall rank at practically the very top.The concept is absolutely asinine when a pilot survives a jump from a burning plane and due to the English fog, he is able to land safely and coincidentally meet the girl who had taken his distress signal and immediate love between the two resulting.He begins to have hallucinations and a neurologist recommends immediate surgery. The forces above realizing that he was "supposed" to die send a French messenger to persuade him to give in. The messenger is a dandy or complete fop no matter what you can say. He almost brings a comic relief to this misery.Then, there is the trial above where Raymond Massey is the prosecution attorney, a hater of the British for having died at Lexington in 1775. Famous people from the past don't get to be Niven's defense and he chooses his faithful doctor, who conveniently dies in a motorcycle accident.This is absolute pure hog wash.