Sightlines · reception
How A Matter of Life and Death was received
1946 · Michael Powell · A Matter of Life and Death on Sightlines
The arc
Commissioned to soothe fraying Anglo-American relations after the war, it got a mixed reception from sniffy British critics who found it fanciful — yet in 2017 a Time Out poll of film industry figures voted it the greatest British film ever made.
What’s debated
The perennial cinephile dispute: is this Powell & Pressburger's masterpiece, or does that crown belong to The Red Shoes or Black Narcissus?
Its footprint
The vast escalator to the afterlife is one of British cinema's most referenced images (the US retitling, Stairway to Heaven, came from it), and the Conductor's quip that 'one is starved for Technicolor up there' is endlessly quoted as the cheekiest meta-joke in 1940s film.
Where it stands
A canon climber supreme — championed by Scorsese and restored in 4K, it's gone from wartime curio to fixture of 'greatest British film' conversations and a Letterboxd darling.
Did you know? It was chosen as the very first Royal Film Performance, screening for King George VI and the royal family in November 1946.