DVD
Upcoming Release Calendar
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Recent DVD/Video Releases
65
Adoration
42
Aliens in the Attic
56
American Violet
44
Answer Man, The
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil![]()
54
Bruno
55
Casi Divas
63
Cheri
83
Drag Me to Hell![]()
24
Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
76
Every Little Step
70
Fados
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
74
Humpday
32
I Love You, Beth Cooper
50
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
81
Il Divo![]()
54
Is Anybody There?
32
Land of the Lost
74
Lemon Tree
40
Limits of Control, The
43
Love 'N Dancing
63
Medicine for Melancholy
34
My Life in Ruins
51
My Sister's Keeper
48
Not Forgotten
76
Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!
50
Nothing Like the Holidays
26
Objective, The
42
Orphan
78
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
48
Proposal, The
39
Spread
83
Star Trek![]()
55
Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
72
Thirst
35
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
28
Ugly Truth, The
66
Unmistaken Child
88
Up![]()
45
Whatever Works
34
Year One
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
What Dreams May Come
EMAILPRINTPolyGram Filmed Entertainment

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 25 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 13 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Fantasy | Romance
Written by:
Ronald Bass
Richard Matheson (novel)
Directed by: Vincent Ward
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 2, 1998
DVD: March 4, 2003
Running Time: 113 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for thematic elements involving death, some disturbing images and language
Starring Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding Jr., Annabella Sciorra, Max von Sydow, Jessica Brooks Grant, Josh Paddock, Rosalind Chao, and Lucinda Jenney
A metaphysical tale of life after death.
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
So breathtaking, so beautiful, so bold in its imagination, that it's a surprise at the end to find it doesn't finally deliver.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
What Dreams May Come has the sensibilities of an art film placed into a big-budget feature with an A-list cast.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
Despite its numerous missteps and miscalculations, What Dreams May Come is often a powerful, affecting piece of filmmaking.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Too bad. What dreams may come, indeed, when such enticing foreplay ends with a consummation devoutly to be missed.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
What Dreams May Come, based on a novel by Richard Matheson and directed by Vincent Ward, the New Zealand filmmaker noted for his skill at creating lavish cinematic dreamscapes, represents the uncomfortable collision of two ideas about filmmaking, one commercial, the other eccentrically, ambitiously dreamy.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
A heaping serving of metaphysical gobbledygook wrapped in a physically striking package.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
There are a number of surprises in the idiosyncratic film, and one of its pleasures is the oblique and unchronological way in which Ward peels away the layers of the story, flashing backward and forward in time and jumping between Earth and the Beyond, separating his scenes with blindingly blank, white-out screens.
Read Full Review >Empire Kim Newman
This is one of those failures that has so many near-great things that it almost gets by on guts.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
So diaphanous it practically dissolves as you watch it.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Like most dreams revisited with eyes wide open, this one's content dissolves into a transparent puddle of inchoate thoughts and predictable iconography.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham
Astonishing visualizations of the afterlife are coupled with a drawn-out allegory about communication between the living and the dead that becomes something of a trial to sit through.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
Weds an epic, sometimes visionary, depiction of the afterlife to a script and story with fewer psychological layers than the average Hallmark card.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector
An effects vehicle disguised as a metaphysical meditation (or a metaphysical meditation disguised as an effects vehicle?), this strikingly unimaginative 1998 movie contains visuals that can barely assert their niftiness amid the vacuous themes.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
This visually inventive fantasy paints the wide screen with colorful effects, but its psychological and spiritual ideas rarely rise above "new age" fuzziness.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Watching it is like being in a room with a couple locked in a torrid embrace. It might be fun for them, but what's in it for everyone else?
Read Full Review >Film Threat Chris Gore
What's so disappointing is that the film had so much potential as a concept. The story slowly degenerates into a plodding, sappy bore.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The insidious influence of too much therapy permeates this misguided and very long picture.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Dennis Lim
A bottomless trough of mystic swill, is too confused to even fulfill the paradigm's most basic requirements.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Bruce Diones
Though director Vincent Ward used his special-effects budget well -- there are some stunning impressionistic moments -- the film is as gooey and sticky as an overcooked marshmallow.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
What a letdown that Vincent Ward, who gave us a fabulous gift with Map of the Hu-man Heart, has made this big old tub of schmaltz.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
Directed by Vincent ("A Map of the Human Heart") Ward, who is either a genius or a crackpot, and derived from a long-ago novel by Richard Matheson, the film is overproduced and underpopulated, with either characters or ideas.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Laura Miller
By the movie's numbingly predictable end, the notion of a visually unleashed cinema seems like a monstrous mistake -- we've handed over the atom bomb to the Teletubbies!
Read Full Review >San Francisco Examiner David Armstrong
A scary example of bad movies happening to good people.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.4 (out of 10) based on 13 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Colin D. gave it a9:
I'm utterly confused as to how critics could review this so poorly. What Dreams May Come is a vivid and captivating movie that will both mystify and spiritually gratify nearly anyone that views it. Though it distances itself somewhat from the actual Matheson novel, this film won't disappoint.
Cassandra T gave it a10:
This movie had some mistakes, much like all movies, but the overall meaning and purpose behind the film is absolutely fabulous. The way the purple flowers fall from the tree to represent the beauty of death, yet the sincere loss of a loved one, the way water plays an extremely important role with the cleansing of both mental and spiritual aspects of "the self." It shows pain, and power through love and free will. Never give up, is the motto throughout the movie. Family is the most valuable thing on earth and it does not just stop there, it follows into the after life. With heaven represented as Annie's paintings it shows that heaven is whatever you want it to be. It is not laced with big pearly gates and cloud walking with angel wings. Heaven is your own manifestation. However it incorporated sin, so that it is not all rainbows and butterflies. Hell is not represented by fire and dragon's breath but is depicted by Dante's "Inferno." Each level representing a different sin. "I'd rather die trying, then never try at all," is a saying common in today's language and through this movie, it gives hope and strength, with lots of symbolic meaning to the questions what is life after death and what is the meaning of life as it is now?
Josh T. gave it a10:
i think this movie is amazing in every way. it is a beautiful love story that endures all obstacles. superb acting. amazing effects. a story that you couldnt find anywhere else.
[Anonymous] gave it a10:
This is a phenomenal movie. This movie shows how friends and family survive past death and find each other again. Also this is a wonderful movie of a man who loves his wife and tries everything to make her happy. No one was better for the lead role except for Robin Williams. It's a must see in my book!
Michelle D. gave it a10:
Love love LOVE this movie. I think it is original and just totally interesting and beautiful. It is a little dark at times- but death and hell are that way. Who knows - it could all be true!
Los D. gave it a 0:
Robin William's worst, and perhaps the worst film of all time. Cuba Gooding Jr is the worst actor ever (everyone already knew that). Vincent Ward doesn't deserve such bad material.
