Heaven Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		1.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

Heaven Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 12, 2026

If one believes in the afterlife, it might be fitting to also believe that Diane Keaton may finally have conclusive answers to all the questions she raised in her sole feature film directing effort, 1987's quirky quasi-documentary Heaven. Keaton's kind of shocking death a few months ago deprived the world of one of the most distinctive stars of her era, and her very individual perspective suffuses this whimsical piece, one which combines some at times laugh out loud archival clips interspersed with frequently just as funny (or at least weird) "contemporary" interviews with a glut of both well known and every day folks, including some of Keaton's own family (whichever category they may fall into).

Heaven in its own inimitable way is reflective of Keaton's own kind of sui generis persona, and it's really a triumph of editing as much as anything else. Old style deco adjacent intertitles ask various provocative questions about heaven and a presumed divine presence, and then the actual feature ping pongs between "contemporary" talking head segments interspersed with often arch "responses" from archival video and films. It's therefore by design a kind of chaotic smörgåsbord of competing ideas, with one kind of hilarious constant being the absolute conviction various people have in their own personal beliefs as "the one and only truth", which, again due to expert editing, are contrasted with others with completely different (at times opposite) approaches. As someone who was around in Portland when the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his followers were a sudden ubiquitous presence, the funniest bits for me here were tape recordings of "Oshi" (as he was known), evidently being played by two believers.

Heaven Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Heaven is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lightyear Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.33:1. Despite the fact that this film was evidently screened post mortem as an homage to Keaton, and there's at least some information (questionable as it may be) on the internet about a restoration for those screenings, this is a highly problematic Blu-ray presentation from a number of angles. The film was evidently originally screened in 1.66:1, so the aspect ratio is at least slightly wrong, but the interlaced presentation may be a hint that this certainly looks like it was sourced off some kind of master that had a videotape component in the workflow, and in fact I feel this was probably a rather old master prepared for broadcast purposes. For anyone who picks this up, just pay attention to the lower left corner of the frame, and there are recurrent (frankly, near constant) anomalies down in that corner that certainly look like tracking issues or something very similar. As can probably be easily gleaned from the screenshots accompanying this review, color timing is frankly more hellish than heavenly in the color moments. Grain is really chunky and inorganic looking, probably also indicating a less than optimal source. Damage is observable throughout the entire presentation.

Heaven Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Heaven features an LPCM 2.0 Mono track that was a bit brash on the high end to my personal taste, but which at least does not show the same kinds of damage and/or age related issues as the video side of things. The film is as inventive in its scoring and source cue choices as it is in terms of often brilliantly edited it is, and the music, while once again a bit thin sounding on the high end, basically is intact. The spoken material is reliant on the sources, and some of the archival video and film clips can show some damage. Optional English subtitles are available.

Heaven Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (HD; 1:59)

The keepcase sleeve has an inner print featuring a black and white photograph of (cinematic) angels.

Heaven Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I found Heaven to be hugely enjoyable, even if it has an undeniably bittersweet subtext now in the (no pun intended) wake of Keaton's own passing. It's a shame that this Blu-ray has such shoddy looking video, and if there has indeed been a restoration for recent screenings, it would be great if some niche label would pick up that version and release it.