| Director | Nora Ephron |
|---|---|
| Budget | $20 million |
| Box office | $119.7 million |
The National Mirror is a tabloid publication that reports primarily on unexplainable phenomena. The editor, Vartan Malt, receives a story tip about a woman living with an angel in her house in a small town in Iowa, and decides to send three staff members to investigate. He chooses Frank Quinlan; Huey Driscoll, a photographer and owner of the Mirror star Sparky the Wonder Dog; and Dorothy Winters, hired by Malt to eventually replace Driscoll.
At the boarding house of Pansy Milbank, they meet her tenant Michael, the commander-in-chief of Heaven's armies. While Michael has wings and a pleasant cookie-like smell, he also has an unexpected taste for cigarettes and sugar, seems rather boorish at first, and does not appear clean. When pressed for the type of angel he is, he replies he is an archangel, with Pansy boasting he triumphed over Lucifer in the War in Heaven. Michael explains that archangels, while sent on missions from God to do good deeds, are not forbidden from enjoying the pleasures of physical incarnation.
After Pansy unexpectedly dies, Frank and Huey decide to take Michael to Chicago, during which he gets into several fights using improvised weapons that resemble traditional spears and shields. Michael reveals that this was his plan from the beginning. During the trip, Michael's mission on Earth is slowly revealed to be to get Frank and Dorothy together despite both having had bad experiences with love.
After Sparky is hit by a truck and killed, Michael brings him back to life. In the process, he uses up his allotment of miracles and begins to weaken. The group reaches Chicago just in time for Michael to see the Sears Tower (which he has always wanted to see) before disappearing. After Frank and Dorothy go their separate ways, Michael returns one more time (this time with Pansy in tow) and gets Frank and Dorothy back together for good.