I was just watching the Irish movie Dead Man’s Shoes in which a major character in the movie turns out to have been dead the whole time, and what we saw as his character was in fact a manifestation of his spirit or soul or something.
Other examples of this are The Brown Bunny and The Sixth Sense.
I know there have got to be more instances where a character who we see living, breathing, and interacting, is actually shown to be a ghost or some other sort of spiritual presence, and that the character has been dead for some time. What are some other movies that you can think of?
Nicole Kidman thinks her house is haunted. Turns out, she and her kids (and the help) are the ones who are dead. The ‘ghosts’ she’s afraid of are actually the new owners of the house[/spoiler]
This was a very big theme in the original Twilight Zone series. I think there’s at least one episode where the protagonist doesn’t realize he’s dead from the start. There are quite a few where the protagonist(s) dies during the episode without realizing it until the end. And there’s the related class where the protagonist doesn’t realize they’re not human (i.e. – they’re a mannequin!) until the end.
Revolutionary Girl Utena has a character from Utena’s past show up quite often, but about 2/3rds of the way through you find out he’s dead. Although the movie is such a mind-trip that’s probably one of the saner parts of the movie.