Diane Keaton's Film About the Afterlife Reemerges After Hollywood Icon's Death at Age 79 

Diane Keaton's long-forgotten documentary about life after death has resurfaced following the beloved actor's passing – a haunting postscript to a career that often wrestled with mortality, faith and what might lie beyond.

The 1987 film, Heaven, directed by Keaton, is now being revisited by studios and streaming platforms after the Oscar-winning star's death at 79.

Keaton's surreal, collage-like documentary – blending interviews, archive clips and eerie sequences of clowns, angels and floating faces – explored humanity's eternal question: what happens when we die?

Sources close to Keaton said the actress had been "fixated" on the afterlife for decades, and repeatedly turned to questions of faith and transcendence in her personal journals and interviews. One longtime friend said: "Diane always had this quiet obsession with what comes next. She talked about death with curiosity, not fear. Making Heaven was her way of trying to understand something that terrified most people but fascinated her."

Another source recalled how personally involved Keaton was in every aspect of production.

"She was meticulous, even about the smallest details," they said. "She wanted it to feel like a dream you weren't sure you wanted to wake up from. The film wasn't meant to answer questions – it was meant to make people think."

In Heaven, Keaton interviews a range of people – from priests and philosophers to comedians and children – asking them to describe their vision of the afterlife.

The results were alternately funny, profound and unsettling. "It turns out that the people who like Heaven most are from two groups: women and 'experiential' types," Keaton once said about the project. "I asked, 'What's an experiential type?' and it turns out that they're your weirdos, oddballs – your downtown set."

The film was initially considered too strange for mainstream audiences and quickly disappeared after a limited release. But following Keaton's recent passing, clips from Heaven have begun circulating widely online, with fans praising it as "years ahead of its time."

Industry insiders confirmed studios have started discussions about a re-release, with one executive calling it "the purest expression of who Diane was – curious, funny, spiritual, and unafraid of the unknown."

Keaton's fascination with death and the afterlife ran through much of her creative work. Beyond her acclaimed performances in Annie Hall, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and Something's Gotta Give, she produced independent films about grief and wrote candidly about mental illness and family trauma. Friends said Keaton often spoke about Heaven as the most personal work of her career. "She used to joke that if she ever made another movie about death, she'd have to test it out herself first," a close collaborator said. "She wasn't scared of dying – she just wanted to know what came next."

Born in Los Angeles in 1946, Keaton began her career on Broadway before breaking through in The Godfather (1972) and achieving global fame with Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977), which earned her an Academy Award.

Her later roles in Baby Boom, The First Wives Club and Something's Gotta Give cemented her reputation as both funny and deeply human.

Off-screen, Keaton was a director, producer, photographer and writer, celebrated for her singular style and fierce individuality. Tributes poured in from across Hollywood after her death, honoring the actress as an artist who was always unapologetically herself.

She died from pneumonia on October 11.