List of works published posthumously

The following is a list of works that were published, performed or distributed posthumously (after the parties involved in its creation died).

Drama

• Bertolt Brecht — Saint Joan of the Stockyards, Downfall of the Egotist Johann Fatzer, The Horatians and the Curiatians, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, The Visions of Simone Machard, Schweik in the Second World War, The Days of the Commune, Coriolanus, Turandot
• Georg Büchner — Woyzeck
• Federico García Lorca — The Billy-Club Puppets, The Public, When Five Years Pass, Play Without a Title, The House of Bernarda Alba
• Jean Genet — Her and Splendid's
• Jonathan Larson — Rent
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — Faust Part Two
• Joe Orton — Funeral Games and What the Butler Saw
• Sarah Kane — 4:48 Psychosis

Films

Films whose director died before the release

• Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (1976), following Pier Paolo Pasolini's murder.
• Eyes Wide Shut (1999), premiering July 13, 1999 after filmmaker Stanley Kubrick's death on March 7, 1999 of a heart attack.
• California Dreamin' (2007), following Cristian Nemescu's death in a car crash.
• Waitress (2007), following Adrienne Shelly's murder.
• The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (2008), TV film pilot, aired five days after Anthony Minghella's death.
• Dham Dhoom (2008), Director Jeeva...Tamil (Indian language) movie.

Films whose actor/actress died before the release

In several cases, actors or actresses have died prior to the release of a film: either during filming or after it has been completed, but is yet to be released. In the case that the actor dies during filming, their scenes are often completed by stunt doubles, or through special effects. Only people who actually appear in some capacity in a posthumously released film are listed here. Those who were scheduled to start a project, but died before filming began, are not included.

• Foolish Wives (1922), Rudolph Christians (father of Mady Christians) was playing the central part of the ambassador in this film directed by Erich Von Stroheim. Christians dropped dead in the middle of production and Stroheim brought in actor Robert Edeson (back to camera) to finish Christian's scenes.
• The Good Soldier Švejk (1923), Jaroslav Hašek. Intended as six volume work, Hašek has only finished four at the time of his death by tuberculosis.
• The Son of the Sheik (1926), was publicly released a month following the death of Rudolph Valentino, although the premiere was a month prior to Valentino's death.
• The Miracle Man (1932), Tyrone Power, Sr. was playing the part of a preacher in a remake of the 1919 film. Power Sr collapsed and died of a heart attack in the arms of his son Tyrone Power while on the set. Power's part was taken up by Hobart Bosworth.
• Saratoga (1937), following the death of Jean Harlow with 90% of filming completed. A body-double and two voice-doubles completed the filming in Harlow's role.
• Captain America (serial) (1944) Dick Purcell died a few weeks after filming was completed.
• Lost City of the Jungle (1946) Lionel Atwill died of pneumonia while filming this serial. Atwill was playing the mastermind villain, Sir Eric Hazarias, a foreign spy chief. Universal could not afford to throw out the footage already filmed so they were forced to adapt the serial. First, another villain (Malborn, played by John Mylong, who was originally just a servant of Sir Eric) was introduced as the boss of Atwill's character to take over most of the villain requirements of the film. Secondly, a double of Atwill was used to complete his remaining scenes. The double was filmed from behind and remained silent. The villain's henchmen were filmed repeating their orders back to the silent double and stock footage of Atwill was edited in to show a response.
• Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956), following the death in an automobile accident of actor James Dean in September 1955, just days after filming on the latter was completed. He received a posthumous Best Actor Oscar nomination for Giant.
• Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), following Bela Lugosi's death. He died having filmed two minutes of footage. Stock footage filmed for an unrealized Ed Wood project was inter-cut with new footage featuring a double Tom Mason who looked nothing like Lugosi.
• The Misfits (1961), released on what would have been actor Clark Gable's 60th birthday. He had died three months earlier of a heart attack, brought on in part, according to later reports, by the stress of difficulties working with co-star Marilyn Monroe.
• Advise and Consent (1962) Appearing in two scenes as Senator McCafferty, who whenever awakened from a deep sleep automatically responds "Opposed, sir! Opposed!", was 87-year-old Henry F. Ashurst, who was one of the first senators elected by the state of Arizona and served five terms. Ashurst died on May 31, 1962, a week before the film's premiere.
• The Gnome-Mobile (1967) following the death of old-school funnyman Ed Wynn.
• The Jungle Book (1967) following Verna Felton's death. She voiced Colonel Hathi's wife, Winifred.
• Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) was released after the death of veteran actor Spencer Tracy, who also posthumously received his ninth Oscar nomination.[1]
• Isle of the Snake People (1971) following the death of Boris Karloff
• Enter the Dragon (1973) and Game of Death (1978), following Bruce Lee's death.
• The Strongest Man in the World (1975) and The Rescuers (1977), following the death of Joe Flynn
• Watership Down (1978), following the death of Zero Mostel
• The Deer Hunter (1978), following the death of actor John Cazale.
• Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), wherein Peter Sellers had died before production began, and his performance was constructed from a mixture of flashbacks to previous films in the series, and unused footage from The Pink Panther Strikes Again.
• Brainstorm (1983), nearly two years after the drowning death of actress Natalie Wood, who was acting in the film at the time. A body-double and obscuring camera techniques were used to complete Wood's scenes.
• Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), following the death of Vic Morrow, in a helicopter accident on the set, which also claimed the lives of two child co-stars.
• Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes and Give My Regards to Broad Street (1984), following the death of Ralph Richardson.
• The Transformers: The Movie (1986), as Orson Welles died shortly after voicing Unicron.
• Poltergeist III (1988), following the death of Heather O'Rourke.
• She's Having a Baby (1988), following Cathryn Damon's death.
• The Chair (1988) and That's Adequate (1989), following James Coco's death in 1987.
• The Land Before Time (1988) and All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989), both following the murder of Judith Barsi.
• The Return of the Musketeers (1989) and The Princess and the Goblin (1992), following the death of Roy Kinnear.
• UHF (1989), following the death of Trinidad Silva.
• Jetsons: The Movie (1990), following the deaths of George O'Hanlon and Mel Blanc, the respective voices of George Jetson and Mr. Spacely.
• Gettysburg (1993) following the death of actor Richard Jordan, who portrayed Confederate Brig. Gen. Lewis "Lo" Armistead
• The Crow (1994), following Brandon Lee's death from an accident while filming on the set.
• Corrina, Corrina (1994), following the death of Don Ameche
• Wagons East! (1994) and Canadian Bacon (1995), both following the death of John Candy. This was the first time CGI had been used to complete an actor's scene after their death.
• Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), following Donald Pleasance's death
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), following the death of Mary Wickes, who voiced Laverne the gargoyle.
• Bullet (1996), Gridlock'd (1997) and Gang Related (1997), all released following the death of Tupac Shakur.
• Almost Heroes (1998) and Dirty Work (1998), both following the death of Chris Farley.
• Pleasantville (1998), following the death of J. T. Walsh.
• Small Soldiers (1998) and Kiki's Delivery Service (1998), both following the murder of Phil Hartman.
• Gladiator (2000), following the death of Oliver Reed. CGI was used to complete Reed's scenes.
• Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), following the death of Jim Varney, who voiced Cookie Farnsworth.
• Queen of the Damned (2002), following Aaliyah's death.
• Anger Management (2003), following Lynne Thigpen's death, who made a cameo appearance as, "Judge Brenda Daniels."
• The Matrix Reloaded (2003), following Gloria Foster's death.
• Bad Santa (2003) and Clifford's Really Big Movie (2004), both following John Ritter's death.
• Bad Girls From Valley High (2005), two years following Jonathan Brandis' death.
• Lords of Dogtown (2005), following Mitch Hedberg's death.
• Happy Feet (2006), following the death of Steve Irwin.
• Cars (2006), following Joe Ranft's death.
• Illegal Aliens (2007), following Anna Nicole Smith's death.
• Waitress (2007), released after the murder of actress Adrienne Shelly.[2]
• All Roads Lead Home (2008), following Peter Boyle's death.
• Delgo (2008), following the death of Anne Bancroft.
• The Dark Knight (2008) and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009), both following Heath Ledger's death. Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell completed filming for Ledger's role in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, while filming for The Dark Knight had already been completed.
• The Informers (2008), following Brad Renfro's death.
• Stargate: Continuum (2008) following Don S. Davis' death.
• Soul Men (2008), following the deaths of Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes.
• Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008) and Old Dogs (2009), both following Bernie Mac's death.
• Royal Kill (2009) This is the final film by Pat Morita, who died in 2005 shortly after completion of the film.
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), following Rob Knox's murder.
• Michael Jackson's This Is It (2009), following Michael Jackson's death.
• Deadline (2010) and Abandoned (scheduled 2010), following Brittany Murphy's death.

Literature

• Virgil — The Aeneid
• William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac — And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
• Douglas Adams — The Salmon of Doubt
• Shmuel Yosef Agnon — Shira
• Isaac Asimov — Forward the Foundation
• Jane Austen — Northanger Abbey and Persuasion
• Richard Brautigan — An Unfortunate Woman: A Journey
• Mikhail Bulgakov — The Master and Margarita
• Charles Bukowski — over twenty books of poetry and short stories after his 1994 death.
• Samuel Butler — The Way of All Flesh
• Albert Camus — The First Man
• Cao Xueqin (trad.) — Dream of the Red Chamber
• Angela Carter — American Ghosts and Old World Wonders, The Curious Room
• Agatha Christie — Sleeping Murder
• Michael Crichton — Pirate Latitudes
• D.J. Davies "Towards Welsh Freedom"
• Roald Dahl — Roald Dahl's Guide to Railway Safety
• Rene Daumal — Mount Analogue
• Philip K. Dick — Gather Yourselves Together, Radio Free Albemuth, Humpty Dumpty in Oakland, Voices from the Street
• Charles Dickens — The Mystery of Edwin Drood
• Emily Dickinson — Virtually all of her poems, as well as her letters.
• Ralph Ellison — Juneteenth
• F. Scott Fitzgerald — The Last Tycoon
• Gustave Flaubert — Bouvard et Pécuchet
• Ian Fleming — The Man With The Golden Gun and Octopussy and the Living Daylights
• E.M. Forster — Maurice
• Anne Frank — The Diary of a Young Girl
• Julius Fučík — Notes from the Gallows
• Alex Hailey — Queen: The Story of an American Family
• E. Lynn Harris — Mama Dearest
• Robert A. Heinlein — For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs, written in 1939, but not published until 2003, 15 years after his death.
• Joseph Heller — Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man
• Ernest Hemingway — Islands in the Stream, True at First Light and A Moveable Feast
• C.L.R. James — American Civilization
• W.E. Johns — Biggles Does Some Homewrok, Biggles: Air Ace
• Robert Jordan — The Gathering Storm, Towers of Midnight, and A Memory of Light
• Franz Kafka — The Trial, The Castle and Amerika as well as many short stories.
• Sergei Kourdakov — The Persecutor, autobiography
• Stieg Larsson — The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest
• Robert Ludlum — The Janson Directive
• Niccolò Machiavelli — The Prince
• Bruce Marshall — An Account of Capers
• Walter M. Miller, Jr. — Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman
• Jessica Mitford — The American Way of Death Revisited
• Vladimir Nabokov — The Original of Laura
• Irène Némirovsky — Suite française
• Flann O'Brien — The Third Policeman
• Wilfred Owen — almost all of his poems, the first edition being 24 Poems (1920)
• Karel Poláček — There Were Five of Us (Czech Bylo nás pět)
• Carl Sagan — Billions and Billions
• Dr. Seuss — Daisy - Head Mayzie
• Yaakov Shabtai — Past Perfect ("Sof Davar")
• J.R.R. Tolkien — The Silmarillion (published 5 years after his death), The Children of Húrin (based on a tale in The Silmarillion, published 35 years after his death)
• Leo Tolstoy — The Living Corpse, Hadji Murat
• Mark Twain — The Mysterious Stranger
• John Kennedy Toole — A Confederacy of Dunces, The Neon Bible
• Jules Verne — Le Phare du bout du monde, Paris in the 20th Century
• Kurt Vonnegut — Armageddon in Retrospect, Look at the Birdie
• Virginia Woolf — Between the Acts
• John Wyndham — Web, Sleepers of Mars, The Best of John Wyndham, Wanderers of Time, Exiles on Asperus, No Place like Earth

Philosophy

• David Hume, his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion
• Edmund Husserl, his work Experience and Judgment, edited by Ludwig Landgrebe
• Martin Heidegger, his Contributions to Philosophy and Insight Into What Is
• G.W. Leibniz, his major work the Monadology
• Friedrich Nietzsche, his The Will to Power, put together and edited by Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and Heinrich Köselitz
• Baruch Spinoza, his major work the Ethics
• Ludwig Wittgenstein, his Philosophical Investigations, edited and translated by G. E. M. Anscombe

Music

• Don't Worry About Me, the only solo album by Joey Ramone, was released a year after Joey's death in 2001.
• Streetcore, the third and final album by Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros, was released a little less than a year after Strummer's death.
• Tose Proeski(1981–2007)'s "The Hardest Thing" was released after his death on his birthday on January 25, 2009.
• Aaliyah's music video for her song "Rock the Boat", was completed the morning of her death.
• Several of Jim Croce's singles and albums were released after his 1973 death in a plane crash.
• The single "(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay" was released a month after the plane crash that killed singer Otis Redding.
• John Lennon's hit singles "Woman" and "Watching the Wheels" were released shortly after his murder. The album Milk and Honey, which includes the song "Nobody Told Me," came out two years later.
• Marvin Gaye died in 1984; within a year, Columbia Records released the posthumous albums, Dream of a Lifetime and Romantically Yours, the single "Sanctified Lady" became a modest international hit when it was released in 1985 reaching number two on the American R&B charts and number fifty-seven in the UK.
• MTV Unplugged in New York, on November 1, 1994 after singer/songwriter/guitarist Kurt Cobain's death on April 5 of the same year; also From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah, With the Lights Out and Sliver: The Best of the Box. There was also a single, "You Know You're Right", recorded on January 30, 1994 at Bob Lang Studios during Nirvana's final studio session. Released on the band's compilation album, Nirvana, eight years after Cobain's death.
• Several of Patsy Cline's singles and albums were released after her death in a 1963 plane crash, most importantly the singles "Leavin' On Your Mind," "Sweet Dreams (Of You)," and "Faded Love" became hits, as well as the albums, The Patsy Cline Story, A Portrait of Patsy Cline, That's How a Heartache Begins, and Patsy Cline's Greatest Hits, were released.
• Chopin's opuses 66-74 contain 20+ posthumous works.
• Queen album Made in Heaven was released three years after the death of frontman Freddie Mercury
• The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, R U Still Down? (Remember Me), Still I Rise, Until the End of Time, Better Dayz, Tupac: Resurrection, Loyal to the Game, and Pac's Life were all released after Tupac Shakur's death on September 13, 1996.
• The Notorious B.I.G. albums, Life after Death and Born Again, and Duets: The Final Chapter released after his assassination in 1997.
• Eazy-E album "Str8 off tha Streetz of Muthaphukkin Compton"Was Released Months After His Death.
• Rapper Big L released The Big Picture
• Rebel Meets Rebel, a compilation of material from a Pantera side-project with David Allen Coe, was released over a year after guitarist Dimebag Darrell was murdered.
• Closer, in August 1980, after the suicide of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis on May 17 of that year. The remaining members of Joy Division later went on to form New Order.
• Most of the extensive catalog of American guitarist Jimi Hendrix. In his lifetime, Hendrix only saw the release of three albums by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, a compilation by the same group, and a live album by the Band of Gypsys.
• The self titled album from California ska group Sublime was released after singer/songwriter/guitarist Bradley Nowell's 1996 heroin overdose death.
• Michael Hutchence a self titled album by INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, which was released after his 1997 death of autoerotic asphyxiation.
• De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas was released following the murder of Mayhem's guitarist, Euronymous.
• The live album Ballot Result by the punk band The Minutemen was released two years after the death of lead singer/guitarist D. Boon in a van accident.
• Dreaming of You, the first English album by Selena.
• Apple, the sole album by grunge band Mother Love Bone was released days after lead singer Andrew Wood's death
• Mystery White Boy and Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk were released after the death of Jeff Buckley.
• Various live recordings and studio outtakes by Tim Buckley have been released following his death by accidental overdose.
• Various home recordings by Nick Drake have been released since his death to satisfy growing interest in his work.
• My Place a solo album by Australian guitarist Guy McDonough (Australian Crawl) in 1985 after his death.
• American V: A Hundred Highways and American VI: Ain't No Grave were both released after Johnny Cash's death.
• From a Basement on the Hill and New Moon, released after Elliott Smith's death.
• The Beatles' songs "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love", wherein the three surviving Beatles overdubbed onto home recordings by John Lennon.
• Brainwashed by George Harrison, completed by producer Jeff Lynne and son Dhani Harrison.
• Coda by Led Zeppelin, released two years after the death of John Bonham.
• Donuts and The Shining, by J Dilla.
• Mystery Girl by Roy Orbison. Spawned a hit single in "You Got It".
• California session singer Warren Wiebe has been featured on various compilation albums following his tragic suicide in 1998 as well as several demo recordings.
• Divine died in 1988; following this was, The Best Of and the Rest Of (1989) (compilation), 12 Inch Collection (1993) (compilation), Born To Be Cheap (1995) (live), Shoot Your Shot (1995), The Originals and the Remixes (1996) (2-CD compilation), and The Best of Divine (1997) (compilation).
• Gerald Levert's In My Songs was released his last album after his death.
• Lisa Lopes's Eye Legacy was also released her last album after her death
• "I'm Sorry" and "Seabreeze" by Frankie Lymon were released in 1969, a year after Frankie's untimely death due to accidental heroin overdose.
• Four albums by Carpenters have been released following the death of Karen Carpenter - Voice of the Heart, An Old-Fashioned Christmas, Lovelines and As Time Goes By. Additionally, her aborted solo album has also been released, simply titled Karen Carpenter.

Note: Records released after split of a band are also sometimes referred as "posthumous" even if all members are still alive.

See also

• Unfinished work