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1978 American romantic period drama film by Terrence Malick

Days of Heaven is a 1978 American romantic period drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick, and starring Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard and Linda Manz. Set in 1916, it tells the story of Bill and Abby, lovers who travel to the Texas Panhandle to harvest crops for a wealthy farmer. Bill persuades Abby to claim the fortune of the dying farmer by tricking him into a false marriage. Days of Heaven was Malick's second feature film, after Badlands (1973), and was produced on a budget of $3 million. Production was particularly troublesome, with a tight shooting schedule in Canada in 1976 and significant budget constraints. Film editing took Malick a lengthy two years, due to difficulty with achieving a general flow and assembly of the scenes. This was eventually solved by incorporating improvised narration from teen Linda Manz. The film was scored by Ennio Morricone and photographed by Néstor Almendros and Haskell Wexler. Days of Heaven received positive reviews on its original theatrical release. Its photography was widely praised, although a small number of critics considered only this aspect to be worthy of high praise. It was not a significant commercial success, but did win an Academy Award for Best Cinematography along with three nominations for the score, costume design and sound. Malick also won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival. Days of Heaven has since become one of the most acclaimed films of its decade, particularly for its cinematography. It continues to appear in polls of the greatest films ever made, and appeared at #49 on a BBC 2015 poll of the greatest American films. In 2007, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

In 1916, Chicago manual laborer Bill knocks down and kills a boss in the steel mill where he works, then flees to the Texas Panhandle with his girlfriend Abby and his young sister Linda. Bill and Abby pretend to be siblings to prevent gossip. The three are hired as part of a large group of seasonal workers by a wealthy, shy farmer. Bill overhears a doctor telling the farmer he has only a year to live, although the nature of the illness is not specified. When the farmer falls in love with Abby, Bill encourages her to marry him so they can inherit his money. They thus marry, and Bill stays as her "brother". The farmer's foreman suspects the scheme. The farmer's health unexpectedly remains stable, foiling Bill's plans. Eventually, the farmer discovers Bill's true relationship with Abby; meanwhile, Abby has begun to fall in love with her husband. When a locust swarm and fires destroy his wheat fields, the incensed farmer chases Bill with a gun, but Bill kills him with a screwdriver and then flees with Abby and Linda. The foreman and police pursue and eventually find them; Bill is shot and killed while running. Abby inherits the farmer's estate and leaves Linda at a boarding school. Abby leaves town on a train with soldiers departing for World War I. Linda runs away from school with a friend from the farm.

Jacob Brackman introduced fellow producer Bert Schneider to Terrence Malick in 1975. On a trip to Cuba, Schneider and Malick began conversations that would lead to the development of Days of Heaven. Malick had tried and failed to get Dustin Hoffman or Al Pacino to star in the film, and John Travolta auditioned for and won the lead role of Bill, but ABC TV wouldn't let him out of his contract for his series Welcome Back Kotter. Schneider agreed to produce the film. He and Malick cast young actors Richard Gere and Brooke Adams and actor/playwright Sam Shepard for the lead roles. Paramount Pictures CEO Barry Diller wanted Schneider to produce films for him and agreed to finance Days of Heaven. At the time, the studio was heading in a new direction. They were hiring new production heads who had worked in network television and, according to former production chief Richard Sylbert, "[manufacturing] product aimed at your knees". Almendros was impressed by Malick's knowledge of photography and willingness to use little studio lighting. The two men modeled the film's cinematography after silent films, which often used natural light. They drew inspiration from painters such as Johannes Vermeer, Edward Hopper (particularly his House by the Railroad), and Andrew Wyeth, as well as photo reporters from the start of the 20th century. Although the film was set in Texas, the Rocky Mountains are incongruously seen in the exteriors shot in southwestern Alberta in and around the ghost town of Whiskey Gap, located from the Montana border, while the denouement was shot on the grounds of Heritage Park Historical Village in Calgary. Jack Fisk designed and built the mansion from plywood in the wheat fields and the smaller houses where the workers lived. The mansion was not a facade, as was usually the custom, but authentically recreated inside and out with period colors: brown, mahogany, and dark wood for the interiors. Much of the film would be shot during magic hour, which Almendros called: "a euphemism, because it's not an hour but around 25 minutes at the most. It is the moment when the sun sets, and after the sun sets and before it is night. The sky has light, but there is no actual sun. The light is very soft, and there is something magic about it. It limited us to around twenty minutes a day, but it did pay on the screen. It gave some kind of magic look, a beauty and romanticism." Interior scenes that feature light coming in from the outside, were shot using artificial light to maintain the consistency of that intruding light. However, the "magic look" would also extend to interior scenes, which occasionally utilized natural light. For the shot in the "locusts" sequence, where the insects rise into the sky, the filmmakers dropped peanut shells from helicopters. They had the actors walk backward while running the film in reverse through the camera. When it was projected, everything moved forward except the locusts. For the close ups and insert shots, thousands of live locusts were used which had been captured and supplied by Canada's Department of Agriculture. The production ran so late that both Almendros and camera operator John Bailey had to leave due to a prior commitment on François Truffaut's The Man Who Loved Women (1977). Almendros approached cinematographer Haskell Wexler to complete the film. They worked together for a week so that Wexler could get familiar with the film's visual style. Later in life, however, he had accepted Almendros receiving credit as cinematographer:

I thought, "Well, God damn it. I should get credit with Nestor on it." And then I had talks with the producer, Bert Schneider, and he said, "Look, you've won Oscars already. What the hell, Nestor should have it." So then I said to myself, "Well, Haskell, you're being a little selfish." And the real thing that convinced me not to say anything  was that Nestor set the tone of the film. It was actually me maintaining his style to a certain extent, so if there was to be an award, which we didn't know there would be, he should get it. And I'm so happy now—particularly since he is no longer with us—that that happened.

Following the completion of principal photography, the editing process took over two years to complete. Malick had a difficult time shaping the film and getting the pieces to go together. Schneider reportedly showed some footage to director Richard Brooks, who was considering Gere for a role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar. According to Schneider, the editing for Days of Heaven took so long that "Brooks cast Gere, shot, edited and released Looking for Mr. Goodbar while Malick was still editing". in his soundtrack composing career for his work on the film. Morricone recalled the process as being "demanding" and said of Malick: "He didn't know me very well, so he made suggestions, and in some cases, gave musical solutions. This kind of annoyed me because he'd say: 'This thing  try it with three flutes.' Something impossible! So, to humor him, I would do it with three flutes and then he'd decide to use my version after all. His was impossible or I would have written it myself. And more nitpicking like that which means he was very attentive and careful about music." Morricone's score includes four recurring pieces: "Harvest", "Happiness", "The Honeymoon", and "The Return". "Harvest" is the film's main theme and opens with a melody that references "Aquarium", the seventh movement from Camille Saint Saëns's Carnival of the Animals. The soundtrack was remastered and re released in July 2011 on the Film Score Monthly label, in a two disc edition and featuring excerpts of Manz's narration. The country music heard during the harvest party is the Cajun tune "Swamp Dance", played and sung by Doug Kershaw.

Days of Heaven opened theatrically on September 13, 1978, at Cinema I on 3rd Avenue in New York City. It had screened the night before for sponsors and benefactors of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. was only slightly more than it cost to make the film ($3 million), but Charles Bluhdorn who ran Paramount's parent company Gulf + Western, loved it so much he offered Malick $1 million for his next project, whatever it was.

Days of Heaven was re evaluated years after its original theatrical release and is considered a pioneering achievement in cinema. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 94% based on reviews from 62 critics, with an average rating of 8.40/10. The website's consensus reads, "Illuminated by magic hour glow and wistful performances, Days of Heaven is a visual masterpiece that finds eloquent poetry in its spare scenario." On Metacritic it has a weighted average score of 94 out of 100 based on reviews from 20 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". It is frequently cited by critics and scholars, including Roger Ebert, as one of the most visually arresting films ever made; in 1997, Ebert added Days of Heaven to his Great Movies list. In 2007, the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In 2012, Time included the film among the 20 new entries added to the magazine's "All Time 100 Movies" list. The same year, Days of Heaven ranked #112 in the British Film Institute's decennial Sight & Sound critics' poll of the greatest films ever made, and #132 in the directors' poll of the same magazine. The New York Times placed the film on its Best 1000 Movies Ever list.

Per Academy custom, the award was given solely to principal photographer Néstor Almendros. Award Category Recipient Result Ref. Academy Awards Best Cinematography Néstor Almendros Best Costume Design Patricia Norris Best Original Score Ennio Morricone Best Sound John Wilkinson, Robert W. Glass Jr.,John T. Reitz and Barry Thomas BAFTA Awards Best Original Music Ennio Morricone Golden Globe Awards Best Motion Picture Drama Best Director Terrence Malick Cannes Film Festival Best Director Palme d'Or National Society of Film Critics Best Film 4th place Best Director Terrence Malick Best Cinematography Néstor Almendros

Days of Heaven has been released on home video on different formats over the years. Its first notable release was on home video in the early 1980s, followed by various reissues in the 1980s and 1990s. In particular, the film was released on a special widescreen edition format on home video to preserve the film's original theatrical aspect ratio, which was uncommon for videotapes at the time, with majority of them being pan and scan, a technique that crops a portion of the image to focus on the more important composition. This often results in the side being cut out and the middle center being the only remaining part. Days of Heaven premiered on DVD on March 30, 1999, with no special features. The feature itself was presented in widescreen and released by Paramount Pictures, the copyright owner of the film itself. It was re released on DVD in 2004, again without special supplements. In 2007, the Criterion Collection released an exclusive special edition of the film, with digitally remastered sound and picture, supervised by Malick, editor Billy Weber and camera operator John Bailey. Bonus features include an audio commentary by art director Jack Fisk, editor Billy Weber, costume designer Patricia Norris, and casting director Dianne Crittenden; an audio interview with Richard Gere; video interviews with Sam Shepard, Haskell Wexler, and John Bailey; and a booklet featuring an essay on the film by Adrian Martin and an extract from Néstor Almendros' autobiography. The Criterion Collection also released a Blu ray format of the film on March 7, 2010, with the same special features. The design art created by Criterion for the film's packaging marks a departure from the early video releases, featuring a still of Gere's character in the wheat fields, with the mansion on the horizon. The Criterion Collection release is now out of print, but a new release has been scheduled by Criterion for November 14, 2023.