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Heart and Souls

1993 film by Ron Underwood

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ238296 ↗
Source-derived summary

Heart and Souls is a 1993 American fantasy comedy-drama film directed by Ron Underwood. The film stars Robert Downey Jr. as Thomas Reilly, a businessman recruited by the souls of four deceased people, his guardian angels from childhood, to help them rectify their unfinished lives, as he is the only one who can communicate with them.

Heart and Souls was released by Universal Pictures on August 13, 1993. The film received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $16.5 million against a $25 million budget.

Plot

In San Francisco, 1959, four despondent strangers embark on the same night trolleybus: Penny, a single mother, regrets working the night shift and leaving her three children at home; Harrison, a would-be singer, has backed out of an important audition due to stage fright; Julia leaves her waitressing job to seek out her boyfriend John, whose marriage proposal she rejected; and small-time thief Milo has just failed to retrieve a book of valuable stamps that he had conned out of a young boy. Their driver is Hal, who becomes distracted by an attractive passenger in another car and accidentally swerves the trolleybus off of an overpass, killing everyone aboard.

At the same time, Frank Reilly is driving his pregnant wife Eva to the hospital. Frank avoids the trolleybus just before it crashes. The Reillys are safe, but Eva delivers their baby in the car.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Heart and Souls” as 1993 film by Ron Underwood. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Heart, Souls and film.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1993, 1959—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1993-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Heart, Souls and film providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Heart and Souls”, the useful work is to connect “1993 film by Ron Underwood” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q238296. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1993 and 1959.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Heart and Souls”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Heart and Souls primary sources, Heart and Souls archive and Heart research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Heart and Souls”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Heart and Souls” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.