Defending Your Life

Defending Your Life (1991) is a fantasy romantic comedy you can watch online on iFILM, written, directed by and starring Albert Brooks opposite Meryl Streep. Running 111 minutes, it takes the afterlife seriously enough to build a courtroom around it — then plays the whole thing for laughs.

Ad exec Daniel Miller dies in a freak bus accident and wakes up in Judgment City, a gleaming transit stop for the newly dead. The trial isn't about sins. It's about fear. Lawyers review scenes from Daniel's past life to determine whether he spent too much of it playing it safe; the judges decide whether he moves forward in the universe or gets sent back. Between sessions, he meets Julia — warm, funny, clearly braver than he ever managed to be.

Brooks made the film as a meditation on self-doubt wearing comedy clothes, and Streep, relaxed and luminous, matches him beat for beat. It asks a genuinely uncomfortable question — how often do you choose the smaller, safer thing — and wraps it in enough jokes that you barely notice the sting. Stream Defending Your Life (1991) online on iFILM.