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Ghost Girl

Ghost Girl (2021)

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On the night before she is set to leave New Orleans to audition for a high-budget television pilot in Los Angeles, Ashley must overcome her best friend and closest collaborator's attempts to thwart her ambitions as this sudden opportunity reveals the long-festering differences between the two of them.

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2010, Drama/Romance, 32m

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Scroll through for some of the most unnerving supernatural films and thrillers on Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu and beyond. Catch up on the original Candyman before Nia DaCosta's highly anticipated remake arrives to terrify you, or bask in a slow-burn like The Others . Recent movies like Netflix's His House mix social issues with ghost stories. But, of course, the most haunting ghost movies of all are the ones supposedly based on true stories, like the classic paranormal movie Poltergeist . And, if you prefer your frights a little more PG, we have great movies for kids starring "nice" ghosts, like Casper, and some comedies for you, too.

The Changeling

Jacket, Textile, Collar, Leather, Street fashion, Leather jacket, Fashion design, Top, Acting, Zipper,

A haunted house tale from the ‘80s, The Changeling doesn’t feel like it’s from the ‘80s. Sure, there is no high definition or modern A-list cast, but the film’s suspense transcends the decades and remains one of the spookiest specter films ever made. It’s about a composer who hunkers down in a sprawling rental to grieve the sudden loss of his wife and daughter. And—you guessed it—he’s not alone.

A Tale of Two Sisters

People in nature, Grass family, Grass, Outerwear, Photography, Cool, Adaptation, Photo shoot, Sweater, Plant,

Not even a viewing in broad daylight can save you from the terror the film’s helmer, Jee-woon Kim, has in store. About a pair of siblings who are tormented by a long-haired shadow figure, A Tale of Two Sisters is a chilling Korean folk tale with tonal shifts and jumps scares so jarring you may just rethink the dark corners of your household. Should you prefer the American version, The Uninvited , starring Emily Brown and Arielle Kebbel, is based on the Korean original.

Under the Shadow

Under the Shadow is a brilliant film that came and went in 2016 with hardly a whisper. A critical and festival hit, British-Iranian filmmaker Babak Anvari’s supernatural thriller arms itself with traditional genre scares but also a social subtext that depicts war-torn Tehran in the 1980s. Narges Rashidi stars as Shideh, a mother dodging evil from all directions: missiles, enforcers, and a possibly malevolent spirit.

The Devil’s Backbone

You’ve probably seen The Shape of Water . And you may have heard of Pan’s Labyrinth . But before monster maestro Guillermo del Toro’s elevated fantasies grabbed the attention of the Academy Awards, he wrote and directed an incredible, mournful Spanish-language ghost tale set during the Spanish Civil War. At its backbone: a dead little boy named Santi who wanders a war-torn orphanage.

Candyman is a terrifying movie wrapped up in the United States's own gruesome history. Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) is researching urban legends, and there's none more potent than the serial killer Candyman, whose origin story has roots in slavery and racial injustice. Tony Todd plays an unforgettable villain who is set on repeating that which was done to him. Catch up on the original before watching Nia DaCosta's Candyman remake, out this year.

The Sixth Sense

Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment explore each other’s psyches in M. Night Shyamalan’s genre-blending film about an eight year old who sees dead people and the sullen child psychologist trying to help him understand why. A permanent fixture in pop culture, the film not only received six Oscar nominations, but it remains as one of the greatest twist-ending films of all time.

The Conjuring

Based on the actual paranormal investigations of real-life ghostbusters Ed and Lorraine Warren , The Conjuring is the first installment in The Conjuring Universe and also marks the introduction to that nefarious pigtailed doll over there. It stars Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as the famed occult inspectors, as they head to a Rhode Island farmhouse to help the Perron family rid their home of evil spirits.

Based on the Japanese horror original, Ringu , filmmaker Gore Verbinski’s psychological nightmare stars Naomi Watts as a reporter investigating a string of teen murders. On the surface, sure, it’s a movie about a videotape that kills those who watch it. In seven days. As we all know. But dig a little deeper, and you’ll find it’s a truly unsettling odyssey through all the ways a mother’s love—and hate—can affect a child.

Ouija: Origina of Evil

An origin story to the 2014 film Ouija , Mike Flanagan’s prequel is a sneaky-good movie that stands on its own. Set in late-1960s Los Angeles, Ouija: Origin of Evil spies on a widowed mother (Elizabeth Reaser) who runs a faux séance business with her young daughters, and their latest stunt—conjuring spirits with the help of an occult lettered board—proves to be a B-I-G mistake.

Nicole Kidman carries this period ghost thriller about a family who are haunted by the uninvited on her perfectly postured shoulders. She plays Grace, a manic mother of two who may or may not be going mad. Its narrative can be nicked for being unoriginal, as it definitely borrows thrills from 1961’s The Innocents . But the directors’ atmospheric touches and Kidman’s spiraling performance set this one at the top of the genre heap.

Adapted from a Stephen King short story, 1408 , is an absorbing thriller starring a fantastic John Cusack as a paranormal cynic who makes a living debunking ghost stories and hauntings. His latest gig: proving the Dolphin Hotel is merely a place to rest one’s head and not the infamous hotbed for paranormal activity its reputation says it is. We’re sure you can guess how things work out for our non-believing protagonist.

Looking for a family-friendly ghost movie? Casper was designed for watching after a long trick-or-treating session. As the daughter of a "ghost therapist," someone who communes with spirits for a living, Kathleen 'Kat' Harvey (Christina Ricci) is used to things that go bump in the night. But she'd never had a ghostly friend—before Casper, that is.

The Shining

All work and no play gives Jack Torrance a crazy case of cabin fever. A Stanley Kubrick classic that tops every critic’s best-of horror list, The Shining is the story of one man’s methodical descent into madness as he and his family care for a secluded mountain resort that’s crawling with horrific and wrathful ghosts. If you’re looking to make it a double feature, queue up Room 237 , a conspiracy theorist’s dream documentary that analyzes each dark corner and blood-soaked hallway of the Overlook.

Fans of the Netflix spine-tingler The Haunting of Hill House will understand the kind of mental workout it takes to endure a Mike Flanagan production. They will also know just how rewarding the psychological marathon can be. In Oculus , one of Flanagan’s earlier projects, a sister attempts to clear her brother of murder by proving the crime was done by a phenomenon that comes in evil mirror form. We know, but just go with it; trust us, this effective bare-bones film is one you’ll want to reflect on (sorry).

So Patrick Swayze as the ghost of Sam Wheat isn’t really all that scary. But the way he was killed is. After date night, Sam and girlfriend Molly, played by Demi Moore , brave the New York City streets on foot, only to be met with the short barrel of a mugger’s pistol. It’s a film that cleaned up during the 1991 awards season , winning two Oscars—one of which went to Whoopi Goldberg as Oda Mae Brown, the psychic Sam enlists to help solve his own murder.

The Innocents

There are some pretty creepy things going down in this black-and-white haunted house film based on the Henry James 1898 Gothic ghost novella, The Turning of the Screw . Deborah Kerr takes the lead as Miss Giddens, a governess who slowly begins to believe the country estate where the children live is haunted by a pair of evil spirits: the former valet and the woman he seduced.

Beetlejuice

Tim Burton’s stylized cult classic from 1988 mixes comedy, fantasy, and the afterlife to achieve the perfect gateway film to the horror genre: It’s not too scary, but it still brings the thrills. Michael Keaton stars as the title “bio-exorcist” who’s hired by a ghost couple to remove a family from their home. And you can bet that by the time Halloween creeps into town, we'll have watched this movie more times than it takes to summon its title character.

One disembodied groan and we’re bolting. Which is exactly what the Lambert family should be doing. Alas, Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson who play Mom and Dad stick with their new mortgage while also trying to keep their young comatose son away from the clutches of the evil spirits inhabiting another dimension called The Further. Don’t underestimate the unnerving power of super-scary makeup and a wicked wig, in this film directed by Saw creator James Wan.

What Lies Beneath

Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford play a seemingly happy couple who live in a massive lakeside dream house in Vermont that’s haunted not only by the spirit of a former college student, but also by the sins of their past. An easy watch from the start, Robert Zemeckis’s slow-burning ode to Hitchcock conjures references to several of the master of suspense’s classics including Rear Window , Psycho , and Spellbound .

Tales of grief often lend themselves to the horror genre. You have Hereditary , a contemporary take on possession, as well as The Changeling , Don’t Look Now , and others on this very list. But Lake Mungo , which indeed uses the aftermath of tragedy as its springboard into terror, is different. Executed as a pseudo-documentary, this Australian fright film plays out over interviews with a family who are mourning the death of their 16-year-old daughter while also fearing the presence that has now taken up residence in her room. Um, chills.

Headshot of DeAnna Janes

DeAnna Janes is a freelance writer and editor for a number of sites, including Harper’s BAZAAR, Tasting Table, Fast Company and Brit + Co, and is a passionate supporter of animal causes, copy savant, movie dork and reckless connoisseur of all holidays. A native Texan living in NYC since 2005, Janes has a degree in journalism from Texas A&M and  got her start in media at US Weekly before moving on to O Magazine, and eventually becoming the entertainment editor of the once-loved, now-shuttered DailyCandy. She’s based on the Upper West Side.

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The Best Movies About Ghosts, from ‘The Haunting’ and ‘Nanny’ to ‘The Others’ and ‘Beetlejuice’

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Like witches , vampires , and zombies , ghosts can be scary as hell. But there is something about the stories of lingering dead spirits that can be both awe-inspiring and spooky at once. The often invisible presence of ghosts allows filmmakers to explore the unsettling aspects of character psychology through the use of sound and space. Some of the best ghost stories aren’t scary at all; instead, they liberate directors from the restrictions of space and time to mine spiritual and existential depths. It’s a genre that has attracted some of the medium’s greatest artists to create some of their finest work.

One of the great aspects of ghost stories are their ambiguity, how their presence reflects more on the humans who see them then the spectral beings themselves. Maybe the great, definitive ghost story in the literary world is Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw,” his 1898 novella about an innocent nanny who grows convinced that the remote estate she has moved into is haunted by dead spirits. James maintained during his lifetime that the story was a straightforward gothic work, but today many critics read it as a story of an unreliable narrator descending into insanity.

“The Turn of the Screw” was faithfully adapted into 1961’s “The Innocents,” which maintained the original story’s ambiguity. Many other great ghost films — like “The Haunting” or “The Others” — are similar in how they withhold information from the audience, or focus more on the psychology of the characters than on jump-scare frights. Of course, that doesn’t mean there’s plenty of great films where the ghosts are very clearly real, whether they’re romances like “Ghost,” comedies like “Ghostbusters,” or straight horror like “Poltergeist.”

In celebration of the Halloween season, IndieWire updated our list of the greatest ghost films of all time. Read on for the 46 best.

Samantha Bergeson, Kate Erbland, Eric Kohn, Ryan Lattanzio, Tambay Obenson, Chris O’Falt, Mark Peikert, Zack Sharf, and Anne Thompson also contributed to this piece.

[Editor’s note: This list was originally published in October 2019. It has since been updated with new entries.]

46. “Field of Dreams” (Phil Alden Robinson, 1989)

FIELD OF DREAMS, Kevin Costner, Gaby Hoffman, Amy Madigan, Dwier Brown, 1989

Some might find “Field of Dreams” overly sappy, but the film has a reputation as a definitive “guy cry” classic for a reason. Adapted from W.P. Kinsella’s novel ‘Shoeless Joe,’ the movie stars Kevin Costner in one of his best known roles as Ray, a family man haunted by his broken relationship with his late baseball-obsessed father John (Dwier Brown). When he suddenly hears a strange voice telling him ‘if you build it, he will come,’ Ray impulsively builds a baseball diamond in the middle of his cornfield, which attracts legendary players like Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) and the Chicago White Sox who threw the 1919 World Series. The film’s sentimental tone fits like a (baseball) glove for a story about America’s favorite sport, and how it informs the relationships between fathers and sons. —WC 

45. “The Frighteners” (Peter Jackson, 1996)

THE FRIGHTENERS, Michael J. Fox, 1996. © Universal Pictures / courtesy Everett Collection

After losing the love of his life in a car accident, pessimist Frank (Michael J. Fox) realizes he has the ability to see ghosts and befriends a trio of dead men whom he employees to haunt houses as part of a “Ghostbusters”-esque con. Yet Frank starts seeing would-be-ghosts AKA people who are marked for death by the Grim Reaper, and tries to save people before it’s too late. And yes, “The Frighteners” is comedy. Writer-director Peter Jackson originally conceived the film as a spin-off to “Tales of the Crypt.” The wackiness of Frank’s ghost pals is well-balanced with Frank being investigated by the FBI as the possible killer, leading to Frank confronting the Grim Reaper once and for all. It’s not just that Fox is returning to his “Teen Wolf” supernatural roots: “The Frighteners” is truly a feel-good spooky film with Fox playing a jaded, sarcastic, grieving architect who lands a new lease on life after finding his purpose. — SB

44. “Coco” (Lee Unkrich, 2017)

COCO, from left: Miguel (voice: Anthony Gonzalez), Mama Coco (voice: Ana Ofelia Murguia), 2017. © Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures /Courtesy Everett Collection

Pixar’s “Coco” follows a storyline that’s been done in countless animated movies for kids: a boy with big ambitions and a disapproving family learns how to break out of the strict expectations placed upon him, and eventually changes both his and his family’s lives for the better. But the movie still sings by taking this storyline and rooting it specifically and vividly in Mexican culture, and the country’s Day of the Dead holiday. Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez) is an aspiring guitarist who comes from a family that has long banned music from their home due to past trauma. During the Day of the Dead, a mishap with a magic guitar transforms him into a spirit, and he journeys to the Land of the Dead to discover the truth of his family’s troubled history. The vibrant, beautiful character and world designs inspired by Mexican art and a lovely moral about letting go of the ghosts of the past help “Coco” feel truly one of a kind. —WC

43. “Ghost” (Jerry Zucker, 1990)

GHOST, from left: Demi Moore, Patrick Swayze, 1990. ©Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection

Is “Ghost,” the 1990 romance juggernaut, kind of cheesy? Nope, it’s very cheesy, with almost instantly dated special effects and a tone that pings wildly between intense melodrama and goofy comedy. But cheese can be delicious, and it’s hard to deny the appeal of Jerry Zucker’s film, which follows Patrick Swayze as yuppie Sam, who gets murdered but sticks around as a ghost because he never told his girlfriend Molly (Demi Moore) he loves her. Teaming up with a scammer psychic who can see him (Whoopi Goldberg, who’s great even if she probably won an Oscar for this as a make up for “The Color Purple”), he attempts to track down his killer, who’s still targeting Molly. The crime plot is fine, but feels entirely incidental to the film’s main appeal, the portrait of a love so strong it can transcend literal death. Swayze and Moore’s sizzling chemistry, most remembered in the indisputably sexy pottery scene, keeps the film afloat, making for a romance that’s hard not to get swept up in. —WC

42. “Pet Sematary” (Mary Lambert, 1989)

PET SEMATARY, Dale Midkiff, Brad Greenquist, 1989, (c)Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection

Based on what’s probably Stephen King’s most twisted and hopeless novel, this disturbing family horror film follows Rachel (Denise Crosby) and Louis (Dale Midkiff) Creed, who move to rural Maine with their three children. The only issue with the new forestry landscape: The Creed’s home resides next to a pet cemetery that has the ability to bring the dead back to life. While townsfolk, especially neighbor Jud (Fred Gwynne), warn the Creeds to stay away from the ancient burial ground, Louis is forced to bury his son Gage (Miko Hughes) to resurrect him after Gage is hit by a car. Yet Gage does not come back as himself, and starts terrorizing his own family as an undead zombie with a thirst for blood. Author King makes a brief cameo in the film as the town minister. Mary Lambert helmed the film using a script by King, who adapted his own novel after “Night of the Living Dead” director George A. Romero had to pull out of the film production.

41. “Corpse Bride” (Tim Burton and Mike Johnson, 2005)

THE CORPSE BRIDE, Corpse Bride, 2005, (c) Warner Brothers/courtesy Everett Collection

A spiritual successor to 1993’s well-loved “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” Tim Burton and Mike Johnson’s co-directed “Corpse Bride” begins with the gleefully grim introduction of an awkward arranged marriage between Victor, the timid son of a fish merchant (voice of Johnny Depp), and Victoria, the beautiful daughter of disgraced aristocrats (voice of Emily Watson). When the hapless groom accidentally stumbles into a second engagement with an undead bride named Emily (voice of Helena Bonham Carter) the night before his wedding, the treacherous love triangle puts the land of the living on a collision course that spells catastrophe. Melancholic but not tragic, “Corpse Bride” is a moonlit ghost story that touches on conspiracy and revenge but is at its most rewardingly self-possessed when conveying uncomplicated heartbreak. —AF 

40. “I Was a Simple Man” (Christopher Makoto Yogi, 2021)

movie ghost girl

A lush and spellbinding ghost story that’s haunted by the spirit(s) of an entire island, Christopher Makoto Yogi’s “I Was a Simple Man” layers the spectral hush of “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” over the elegiac domesticity of “An Autumn Afternoon” as it mourns the fading O’ahu that Masao Matsuoshi (Steve Iwamoto) knew in the 20th century. The phantoms casually start popping up soon after Masao is diagnosed with terminal cancer, beginning with his late wife (Constance Wu) who hasn’t aged a day since she died on the same 1959 night that Hawaii was claimed by the United States. They’ve come to prepare him for his own journey, and also — perhaps even more importantly — to insist that they’ve never really left.  

“I Was a Simple Man” only grows more intimately entwined with Masao’s remembrances of things past as it reaches back into the post-war period, and its lucid commentary on the commercialization of Hawaii’s beauty is borne out through a personal story of otherness and outsiders that’s reflected by Masao’s estrangement from his own family’s unyielding Japaneseness. But his imminent death won’t necessarily strain those bonds to the breaking point. “This is not the end,” Masao’s late wife insists. “Now we become everything.”  —DE 

39. “Stir of Echoes” (David Koepp, 1999)

STIR OF ECHOES, Kevin Bacon, 1999

Six years before he became known as the director of the unfortunate Johnny Depp disaster “Mortdecai,” and a year after he wrote Nicolas Cage the most manic role he’s ever played in “Snake Eyes,” David Koepp the sophisticated and deeply unsettling thriller “Stir of Echoes.” It stars Kevin Bacon as Tom Witzky, a phone lineman terrorized by prophetic (or past-facing?) visions of the tragedy of a teenage girl after he’s hypnotized at a party. That hypnotist, his sister-in-law, is played by the ever deadpan-funny Illeana Douglas, whose post-hypnotic suggestion tunes Tom into the possible killing of a 17-year-old who disappeared from their Chicago working-class neighborhood six months ago. Based on a 1958 novel by horror master Richard Matheson, “Stir of Echoes” oozes a dank and creepy sense of dread as Tom begins to close in on what actually happened to the girl — and how it’s reenacted after he breaks down a brick wall in a basement is harrowing. Tom is driven to obsession, digging an endless hole to nowhere in the backyard at the ghost girl’s behest, and Kevin Bacon makes his plunge into a nightmare feel palpably real. — RL

38. “The Devil’s Backbone” (2001)

movie ghost girl

The magic of Guillermo Del Toro’s filmmaking is an ability to mix terror and wonder in a way that heightens both emotions without ever feeling trite. Set during the Spanish Civil War, this ghost story is told from the perspective of Carlos (Fernando Tielve), a 12-year-old boy who is a new arrival at an ominous orphanage after his father was killed in the war. Carlos, haunted by visions of a mysterious apparition, tries to piece together the mystery of what happened the night a bomb hit the orphanage’s courtyard (but strangely didn’t explode) and a young boy (who now haunts the house) was killed. The film is more unsettlingly creepy than edge-of-your-seat scary, revealing the true horror is being a child during wartime. Del Toro has called “Backbone” his most personal film. –CO

37. “His House” (Remi Weekes, 2020)

HIS HOUSE, Wunmi Mosaku, 2020. ph: Aidan Monaghan / © Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection

First-time filmmaker Remi Weekes went big for his debut, a truly chilling ghost story on its face that also tucks some disturbing, incredibly real horrors within its impeccably written screenplay (also from Weekes, as adapted from Felicity Evans and Toby Venables’ clever original story). To say too much more is to chance spoiling this Sundance 2020 standout (Netflix, quite wisely, snapped it up out of the festival, ensuring a wide audience), but we can certainly try.  Bol (Sope Dirisu) and Rial (a heartbreaking Wunmi Mosaku) are Sudanese refugees searching for a new home (and a new start) in the middle of nowhere, UK. The chintzy, dirty row house they are finally given doesn’t exactly feel cozy, cold comfort against their blazing memories of escape, which included the death of their young daughter. Adjustment is hard, both in a town that doesn’t seem to want them in a world that doesn’t seem to understand them, and within their own horrific memories. Soon, these worlds and worries start to blend, as spirits (maybe?) begin to haunt their already foreboding house, beckoning them to face memories they’d rather forget. 

Purely as a horror film and more essentially a ghost story – never fear, plenty of spirits emerge from the walls at regular intervals – “His House” easily gets under its audience’s skin. But as Weekes’ and his talented cast begin to pull at the threads that bind it, it takes on even more ghostly cast, bending itself into a different kind of story about what haunts us, long after the dead shuffle off this mortal coil. There are plenty of spirits in “His House,” familiar and not quite, but all of them leave their mark, unable to move on to whatever comes next.  –KE 

36. “Casper” (Brad Silberling, 1995)

CASPER, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Christina Ricci, 1995, (c) Universal/courtesy Everett Collection

Go digging into the tragic backstory of Casper the Friendly Ghost, and you’re bound to be traumatized – he is, after all, a child ghost, so just chew on that for awhile – but first-time feature filmmaker Brad Silberling pulled off one heck of magic trick with his 1995 supernatural comedy: stuck to Casper’s classic background and made it palatable to the entire family. While some critics balked at the film’s darker aspects – again, a child ghost – the film was a smash hit, making nearly $290 million at the box office and ensuring that even the most staid of classic comics could be translated to new mediums with style. And we’re really talking new mediums here, as the eponymous ghost is the first fully CGI character to appear in a film’s lead role, a wild step forward at the time that seems totally natural now. (And, yes, yes, late in the film, Casper comes briefly back to life in the form of tween heartbreaker Devon Sawa, a cute capper that doesn’t detract from the tech at all.) 

Bolstered by another winning performance by young Christina Ricci, absolutely the kind of canny kid a sweet ghost would want to become best pals with, Silberling’s film blends humor and scares and fear-based titters with some darker ruminations about life, death, loss, and everything in between. Both wonderfully entertaining and unexpectedly instructive, it’s the kind of film that works just for fun and to inevitably help explain away some big questions. Fans of the classic comic have much to enjoy, too, from the Ghostly Trio’s high jinks to plenty of silly twists on ghostly tropes. Even ghosts can be cute, after all.  —KE 

35. “ParaNorman” (2012)

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No animated movie says Halloween quite like “ParaNorman,” the ghostly modern stop-motion classic that confirmed studio Laika as a major force in American animation. Sam Fell and Chris Butler’s stop-motion fantasy horror film centers around a young boy who can communicate with ghosts as he tries to save his Massachusetts town from being destroyed by a 300-year-old witch. For all the wacky supernatural hijinks that unfold over the film’s runtime, “ParaNorman” is most concerned with a reconciliation between the past and present. That an animated family movie even attempts to make sense of America’s lingering guilt for the murder of those charged with witchcraft makes “ParaNorman” a rare gift. “ParaNorman” rightfully earned an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature and proved that Laika could rival Pixar in terms of narrative and emotional originality. —ZS

34. “The Living Skeleton” (Hiroshi Matsuno, 1968)

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The pleasure of watching Hiroshi Matsuno’s 1968 low-budget “The Living Skeleton” is in how it inelegantly shapeshifts from high-seas pirate heist movie to psychosexual religious parable to doppelganger thriller and, finally, to something akin to a less schlocky “Ghost Ship.” Human remains haunt the ocean floor surrounding a Catholic church, where a seemingly benevolent priest (Masumi Okada) offers shelter to Saeko (Kikko Matsuoka), who’s rattled by visions of her missing twin sister.   

Wild out-of-the-void twists careen this film from one genre to the next, as the pirate ghosts rise from the dead, the ghastly true identity of the priest is revealed, and Saeko’s apparitions take on a harrowing corporeal form. Cinematographer Masayuki Katō knows how to stage a moody, spectral set piece, as the lost souls of the past rise from the water’s surface to wreak hell on those above it. ­ —RL  

33. “La Llorona” (Jayro Bustamante, 2020)

LA LLORONA, Margarita Kenefic, 2019. © Shudder / Courtesy Everett Collection

This film festival hit, an allegorical folk horror tale, marks the first Guatemalan entry to make the Oscar shortlist. The genre elements of this well-mounted family drama are used to good effect to reveal dark secrets and horrors enacted by the country’s entitled elite. Thus Bustamante uses the familiar Latin American folk tale about a wailing woman with supernatural powers to explore Guatemala’s genocidal past. It’s atmospheric, scary, and sobering. —RL 

32. “What Lies Beneath” (Robert Zemeckis, 2000)

WHAT LIES BENEATH, Michelle Pfeiffer, 2000. TM and Copyright ©20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved./Courtesy Everett Collection

“I think she’s starting’ to suspect something,” Michelle Pfeiffer whispers breathily to Harrison Ford in “What Lies Beneath.” Who? “Your wife.” The moment is chilling (not least of all because Pfeiffer is playing Ford’s wife) because Pfeiffer’s performance is so carefully calibrated Something is very wrong with Claire: She’s just dropped her only daughter off at college, but there’s something else, some panic behind her eyes. “Aha!” we think early on. “It’s a ghost in the house!” Yes, but not quite.

Famously filmed during the break needed for Tom Hanks to lose weight for the second half of “Cast Away,” Robert Zemeckis’ spooky thriller has all the ingredients of a scary movie (including “Mommie Dearest” star Diana Scarwid) and succeeds almost entirely on the strengths of his technical virtuosity and Pfeiffer’s performance. She takes Claire from listless empty nester to hysterical wife to possessed to terrified survivor without allowing Claire to ever seem like a wilted flower. As the plot hurtles forward — some of it hinging on a hilariously dated game of computer solitaire — we are always in Claire’s corner, which makes the ultimate reveal so shocking. Pfeiffer’s always been cruelly underrated; “What Lies Beneath” should have done for her what “The Others” did for Nicole Kidman a year later. — MP

31. “Nanny” (Nikyatu Jusu, 2022)

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The watery misery of Nikyatu Jusu’s soul-stirring feature debut comes in literal waves. A trickle of water felt in a dream soon spills into sinking tragedy as Senegalese immigrant Aisha (Anna Diop, purposeful and ferocious) gets sucked down an understated spiral of suspense, dread, and dark magic in New York City. “Nanny” quickly lets us know something is wrong in Aisha’s new world, where she babysits for a toxic family helmed by the manipulative Amy (a razor-sharp Michelle Monaghan) and her lecherous husband Adam (Morgan Spector).But the subsequent steady creep proves the ideal pace for Jusu to build up to her final-act heartbreaker. Aisha’s romance with the handsome Mailk (Sinqua Walls) and her longing for her son Lamine (Jahleel Kamara) back in Senegal, are the weights that submerge us in the pain of this singular final girl a woman ultimately drowned in the devastation of a terror she can’t see coming.  —AF

30. “Heart of a Dog” (Laurie Anderson, 2015)

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At a critical juncture in Laurie Anderson’s profound cinematic essay “Heart of a Dog,” she quotes David Foster Wallace: “Every love story is a ghost story.” That’s certainly true of this lush, haunting meditation on life and death, in which the artist meditates on the loss of people who meant the world to her, from her husband Lou Reed and close friend Gordon Matta-Clark to her rate terrier Lolabelle. With the latter figure, however, Anderson explores the possibility that Lolabelle’s existence lives on in the Bardo, and turns to the Tibetan Book of the Dead to grapple with that journey. In the process, she realizes that her mourning process is a fundamentally selfish act, and in this case has less to do with the loss of her canine that the emotional impact on its owner. As Anderson careens through her life and considers a chaotic world indifferent to her needs, the specter of 9/11 and its impact on her New York community hits hard, but “Heart of a Dog” ultimately is a filmic seance for the dead designed to resurrect and celebrate them by using the medium at hand to immortalize their memory. It’s at once eerie and filled with hope.  —EK 

29. “Even the Wind Is Afraid” (Carlos Enrique Taboada, 1967)

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An early hit from Mexican horror master Carlos Enrique Taboada, whose giallo-inflected stories of things going bump in the night have been a major influence on modern auteurs like Guillermo del Toro, “Even the Wind Is Afraid” (or “Hasta el Viento Tiene Miedo”) bends the director’s Eurocentric style towards an atmospheric chiller about some very repressed boarding school girls on the verge of a nervous breakdown — imagine a happy medium between Almodóvar and Dario Argento and you’ll be on the right track. Aside from the catty and excitable cast of characters who gossip and shriek and say things like “I wouldn’t even go outside for a Tony Curtis picture” when they get scared, the most enjoyable thing about this very low-key film is its insistence that ghosts are seldom as scary as the reason why they’re still around. Claudia (Alicia Bonet) is plenty creeped out by her dreams of a girl hanging from the college belltower, and even more so once she and her friends start seeing a nightgowned apparition floating around campus, but nothing in their lives is more sinister than ultra-strict principal Bernarda (Marga López), who keeps her students on such a tight leash that she won’t even allow them to have photographs of men in their dorms. “Even the Wind Is Afraid” isn’t the least bit scary by modern standards, and Taboada couldn’t be gentler with its small handful of jolts. Nevertheless, there’s something timelessly eerie to the shrill howl that convinces the movie’s characters to be terrified of the very thing that’s trying to set them free. —DE 

28. “Sleepy Hollow” (Tim Burton, 1999)

SLEEPY HOLLOW, from left: Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, 1999. © Paramount / Courtesy Everett Collection

Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is one of history’s definitive ghost stories, introducing the literary world to the iconic Headless Horseman. 1999’s “Sleepy Hollow” takes that 1820 atmospheric short story and turns it into, of all things, a police procedural mixed with a slasher. Directed by Tim Burton, the film reimagines the original story’s lead Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) as a police constable, rather than a school teacher, investigating murders in the titular New York village at the hands of the Horseman. The set-up is sillier than it is frightening, and the film suffers from having a lackluster Depp in the lead and stranding Christina Ricci in a thankless love interest role. But like a lot of Burton films, it succeeds in part by providing the viewers with a great vibe, with excellent artistic direction, and a Danny Elfman score creating an irresistible atmosphere. The movie won’t ever be mistaken for one of Burton’s best, but it still has a thrill and chill of its own. —WC

27. “Crimson Peak” (Guillermo del Toro, 2015)

CRIMSON PEAK, 2015. ph: Kerry Hayes/©Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Guillermo del Toro returned to his horror roots with this twisty, exhilarating, swirling amalgam of fantasy, hard-R horror, and gothic romance, inspired by Hitchcock’s “Rebecca,” Kubrick’s “Barry Lyndon” and Visconti’s “The Leopard.” For the first time, Del Toro was able to merge the creative artistry of his low-budget Mexican films “Devil’s Backbone” and Oscar-winning “Pan’s Labyrinth” with a $55-million studio production made without the commercial genre restrictions. (Reviews were mixed.) The filmmaker provided the drama’s wickedly entwined brother and sister (Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain) and innocent bride (Mia Wasikowska) with dense character biographies, which they shared with set decorators but not other cast members. The film is about the secrets we carry, none more than the lofty, deconstructing gothic mansion, with its destroyed roof open to the elements, that bore witness to decades of horrors. (Don’t go in the basement!) The movie is scary, gorgeous, and beautiful, and capped by a 45-minute thrill ride with an action set-piece shot in glistening white snow, splotched with clay, red as blood. —AT 

26. “Beetlejuice” (Tim Burton, 1988)

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Long before the be-striped one shows up (why would anyone attempt to conjure Beetlejuice besides, of course, anyone with a wicked sense of humor and a delight for the macabre?), Tim Burton’s 1988 classic is unnerving enough. Something of a reverse ghost story – what if you died and then the people who took over your home made it just horrible for you? – Burton’s comedic creeper is enough to haunt anyone who really relishes the ability to control their surroundings and then, fast as a truly just awful car accident, it’s all gone.   Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara (Geena Davis) are living an idyllic Vermont life, complete with a lovingly restored Victorian-era mansion, when everything goes down the toilet (or, more precisely, straight into their local river). Discovering that they’re now spirits doomed to haunt their own home is bad enough (hell, even a handy guidebook can’t ease that pain), but things get only worse when the gauche Deetz family (not including, of course, their charming Goth daughter Lydia, played to perfection by a young Winona Ryder) arrive on the scene and promptly turn the house into a faux-arty yuppie hellscape. Adam and Barbara, still adorably human at their core, aren’t really the spooky type, and their amusing attempts to put on a good, old-fashioned scarefest fall hilariously flat. 

That’s when they bring in the big guns: the absolutely bonkers and mostly gross Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton in a role only he could play), who resorts to the usual tricks, treats, scares, and shocks to drive away the Deetz clan. It’s all very funny and very weird, and it basically ruined the Harry Belafonte jam “Day-O” for an entire generation of impressionable young audience members, but it also doesn’t totally detract from the wonky little ghost story at its heart. Adam and Barbara are nice people, thrust into a splintered reality they cannot possibly fathom, and the only way to save them (to save the ghosts! What a twist!) is through the affection of a curiously disaffected (but goodhearted) teenager, the only person who can still see them. Betelgeuse might get all the showy stuff, but “Beetlejuice” finds its heart – and still very real soul – in a pair of spectral beings who really just want to go home.  –KE 

25. “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1947)

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The great thing about having a ghost for a friend — other than Casper, who I guess is tragically a dead child — is that presumably they’d have a whole lifetime of experiences to share with you, without vanity or ego. You can learn a lot! And Gene Tierney’s turn-of-the-last century heroine Lucy Muir certainly does from the ghostly Captain Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison). Widowed, Lucy and her young daughter (Natalie Wood) move into a stormswept seaside cottage in Dorset, vacated due to its previous occupant’s suicide. That poor soul was of course the captain. Even in spectral form, he’s not leaving his beloved Gull Cottage. But wanting to chase out Lucy soon gives way to him falling for her. As Daphne Moon on “Frasier” once said, “There’s no greater love than that between a woman and a ghost.” Well, Lucy isn’t quite as eager as that. And the captain isn’t quite capable of expressing what he really does feel for her. So instead, he becomes a kind of life coach for the still very sheltered Lucy. He tells her his rousing life story, which she then turns into a book — a briney tale of adventure so thrilling it becomes a bestseller. Which unfortunately places her in the path of a successful children’s book author named Uncle Neddy (George Sanders), and Lucy finds she still has some lessons to learn about men and life. Romantic but unsentimental, “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” is unique in Mankiewicz’s body of work for its sincerity and emotional commitment. It’s one of the few times in his career that the “All About Eve” filmmaker cared about more than one-liners, and Charles Lang’s sumptuous photography creates a relentlessly romantic atmosphere. Here’s a ghost story that’s about finding connection and fulfillment in death that its characters can’t find in life.  —CB  

24. “Kuroneko” (Kaneto Shindo, 1968)

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Kaneto Shindo’s supernatural folktale “Kuroneko” is not unlike the master Japanese filmmaker’s “Onibaba” from four years earlier. This one again centers on two women luring soldiers to their doom, but here they’re a mother and daughter-in-law pair who, after being brutally pillaged, raped, and killed by a legion of savage samurais, return undead to seduce the soldiers and then literally suck their souls to avenge the god of the evil underworld.   

Their vow to kill every samurai in their path gets a complicated kink when one of their prey turns out to be their long-lost son and son-in-law, conscripted three years earlier to the army. This Toho-distributed chiller, rife with throats being ripped out and plenty of sex happening in plain view, unfolds in spellbinding black-and-white courtesy of DP Kiyomi Kuroda. The ghosts’ nimble cat-like choreography (as there very much is a real black cat machinating their bidding), in pin-drop-silent slow motion through undulating bamboo forests, brings to mind the martial arts epics of today, even as much of the movie unfolds on a chiaroscuro-drenched, Noh-like soundstage. —RL   

23. “Pulse” (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001)

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So why is it that we find the idea of ghosts so compelling? Is it just the possibility of life after death? Or is it the inherent sadness in the idea of lingering as a spirit in some eternal limbo, unable to participate in life but witnessing it all? The really sad thing is that a lot of us among the living probably feel like the latter anyway. We can relate to ghosts. And the digital revolutions of the past 30 years have undoubtedly contributed to that feeling of deathly loneliness. No movie has captured the alienation of the internet era better than Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Pulse,” which is too enigmatic to have all its mysteries explained away, but goes something like this: in the realm wherever souls come from, there are now simply too many souls. So these ghosts are basically trying to prevent any more human lives from crossing over by instead trapping them inside the computers and modems that have become such a huge part of our lives (even by the time this film was released 20 years ago). At least that seems like what’s happening? An arthouse J-Horror triumph, Kurosawa’s film spawned two sequels and an American remake, and it’s easy to see why: shot in a monochromatic techno pallor that makes it a cousin of “The Matrix,” it’s as full of heady ideas and cryptic visuals as anything the Wachowskis ever dreamed up, down to its incessant use of glitches as the new jump cuts. Two separate storylines — one about an employee at a greenhouse (Kumiko Aso) whose colleagues keep disappearing, the other about an economics student (Haruhiko Kato) whose computer keeps getting taken over by grim videos of people who seem like the walking dead — eventually converge, as Kurosawa subtly asks questions even more relevant in 2021: why has technology, more capable of connecting us than any before in history, left us so isolated? Why, with more knowledge at our finger tips than ever, are we more confused and uncertain? Maybe we’re all ghosts already. — CB  

22. “Hausu” (1977)

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The story goes that Japanese movie studio Toho was tired of losing money on movies that made sense, and so they green-lit Obayashi Nobuhiko’s “Hausu” — a potentially career-ending script that no in-house director would touch — thinking that it was time to lose money on a movie that didn’t. They only got half of what they bargained for: An utterly delirious (and strangely cheerful) ghost story about a teen girl named Gorgeous (Ikegami Kimiko) who takes a group of friends to her aunt’s haunted house, Obayashi’s magnum opus is a demented funeral parade of phantasmagoric delights. A killer mattress, a carnivorous piano, and a demonic cat are just the tip of the iceberg of a wild, super fun, and disarmingly playful movie in which even the smallest moments are touched with madness. A forgotten gem until the Criterion Collection rescued the film from obscurity and turned it into a cult phenomenon, “Hausu” may not make a lick of sense, but it was a hit in its own time, and an even bigger one in ours. —DE

21. “House on Haunted Hill” (1959)

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Genial schlockmeister Castle had toiled in a smorgasbord of genres throughout the 1950s, until his proclivity for campy frights snapped into focus with this ghost story. Well, a ghost story that really turns out to be the tale of a homicidal married couple. In one of the roles that established him as a horror icon, Vincent Price invites a handful of strangers to participate in a dare: spend a night in bizarre, brutalist California manor house. If you can keep your wits and emerge the next morning despite the ghosts that haunt the place, you’ll win $10,000.

Of course, it turns out things are not what they seem, and there may be a very rational explanation for all the seemingly supernatural happenings that abound. Or is there? Regardless of Castle’s desire to show the man behind the curtain here, there are a number of frights that seem to have no logical grounding in reality.

This is not a movie meant to tax your brain cells. It’s meant for a few jump scares followed by nervous laughter about how silly the whole proceedings were. Like so much of the Castle horror oeuvre, “House on Haunted Hill” played up “the theatrical experience” to maximalist extremes: The director instructed theater owners that a prop skeleton should actually emerge at one point into the space of the theater itself, a low-tech gag he called “Emergo.” It didn’t have the desired effect — audiences were reported to have thrown their popcorn at the skeleton — but it’s a special footnote in the history of horror movies all the same. —CB 

20. “Rebecca” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940)

REBECCA, from left: Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, Judith Anderson, 1940

For a filmmaker whose characters were as haunted as any the movies have ever know, Alfred Hitchcock wasn’t much interested in ghosts; the Master of Suspense enjoyed writing about the supernatural, but was loath to explore it onscreen beyond the occasional flirtation with crude psychiatry (which “Spellbound” renders closer to magic than science) and whatever rationale one might bring to “The Birds.” And yet “Rebecca,” which Hitchcock adapted from Daphne du Maurier’s novel of the same name, so ornately lavishes its flesh-and-blood psychodrama in the language of gothic horror stories that it ultimately has less in common with “Vertigo” than it does the likes of Jack Clayton’s “The Innocents.” Maxim de Winter and his second wife may have very different takes on what’s happening at Manderley, but each of them can feel the spirit of the late Rebecca de Winter clinging to the mansion she once dreamed of making her own. Phantom or not her spirit possesses that house with the inextinguishable flame of a painful memory, as Hitchcock lays into a fiendishly grounded tale about being haunted from beyond the grave. Even the camera is convinced: As Maxim recounts his final conversation with Rebecca, Hitchcock cuts to a POV shot that pans across the empty boathouse as if it can actually see her standing there, and everywhere else as well.  —DE 

19. “The Sixth Sense” (1999)

Editorial use only. No book cover usage.
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Moviestore/Shutterstock (1635849b)
The Sixth Sense (1999)
 Haley Joel Osment
The Sixth Sense - 1999

“Dead people only see what they want to see.” In other words, ghosts: They’re just like us!

A breakthrough film big enough to rattle pop culture and the rest of this mortal coil along with it (only “The Phantom Menace” grossed more in 1999), “The Sixth Sense” not only made M. Night Shyamalan a household name, it minted him into a sub-genre all his own. Inevitably, this monolithic chiller is now seen through the lens of the — shall we say — uneven body of work that followed, but it still holds up and then some. If Shyamalan’s later films were soured by their gimmicky sleight of hand, “The Sixth Sense” endures as a quiet, mysterious drama that entrances on the strength of those merits alone before arriving at the explosive final reveal that elevated it into the firmaments of film history — a moment that, like all good twists, is shocking and logical in equal measure, as the carefully laid pieces fall right into place. —CO

18. “Kwaidan” (1964)

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The title of Kobayashi Masaki’s four-part anthology translates to “ghost story,” but don’t go in expecting typical genre thrills. More Stanley Kubrick than Stephen King, this formative mid-century masterpiece is “existentially frightening” (to borrow the verbiage the Criterion Collection used while canonizing it) in a way that excuses it from relying on more conventional scares.

One of the most expensive Japanese films ever made at the time, “Kwaidan” is a visually stunning movie, and painter-turned-filmmaker Kobayashi’s jaw-dropping imagery — in concert with Takemitsu Toru’s haunting sound and music design — elicit an atmosphere that feels ancient, exotic, cosmic, and empty all at once. The film’s form gives the simple, often tragic stories (a samurai marries for money, a blind musician performs for ghosts, a snow maiden saves a woodcutter from a blizzard),  an emotional dreamlike resonance. Like all anthologies, some segments are stronger than others, but the collective power of what Kobayashi delivers here is enough to keep you tense for the entirety of the film’s three-hour runtime. Just be sure to seek out the aforementioned restoration that Criterion helped bring to these shores, as one of the four stories was chopped off the original U.S. release. —CO

17. “Candyman” (1992)

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A boogieman terrorizing a public housing project? The film’s setting alone separates it from many of its slasher movie brethren. Based on Clive Barker’s short story “The Forbidden,” director Bernard Rose relocates the story from Barker’s native Liverpool to the dilapidated, “scary” buildings of the Cabrini-Green projects in Chicago. It was an inspired decision that amended the original story’s classist undertones into explicitly racial ones, turning this into more of a subversive meditation on race. The unsettling legend about the hook-handed terror focuses on a skeptical white doctoral candidate working on a thesis on urban legends, who learns of the Cabrini-Green Candyman legend and goes to investigate.

Starring Virginia Madsen as an atypical slasher movie heroine, the film boasts one of the more intriguing horror-movie villains, with a complexity rooted in a tragic backstory that makes him sympathetic: a famous black artist and son of slaves who pays a steep price, amputation and a grisly death, for falling in love with a white man’s daughter who hires him to paint her portrait. Digging a little deeper than your average horror film, the film stars the physically imposing Tony Todd as Candyman, whose sonorous, chilly voice haunts long after the movie ends. —TO

16. “A Tale of Two Sisters” (2003)

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Generally speaking, it’s less than ideal to bring your sister home from a stint at a mental institution to find your stepmom engaged in an unusual relationship with the ghosts haunting your house. Kim Jee-woon’s “A Tale of Two Sisters” is a psychological horror-thriller that mines the buried secrets of a family’s past to leave the viewer as unsettled as the two sisters who try to piece together the mystery of what happened in the secluded estate where they were raised. It‘s a smartly assembled non-linear film which might require a second viewing to fully comprehend, but it’s disturbing as hell right from the start. The level of its craft and the intricacies of its storytelling are remarkable as Kim brings a meticulousness to his images that also mirrors his careful plotting of how to completely screw with your head. “Sisters” became the highest-grossing Korean horror film and the first to screen in the U.S., where it was remade in 2009 as “The Uninvited” starring Emily Browning and Elizabeth Banks. —CO

15. “Spirited Away” (2001)

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Arguably Miyazaki Hayao’s greatest film, the story of a change-averse 10-year-old girl moving into a new neighborhood is the stuff of vintage Studio Ghibli. But nothing will prepare you for the delirious journey that Chihiro embarks upon after a quick rest stop at an abandoned village results in her parents being turned into pigs and taken hostage by the spirit world. In order to rescue them and restore her family, our anxious heroine will have to venture into a realm beyond her reality and conquer the demons she brought with her, in addition to some of the new ones she meets along the way.

The surrealism of “Spirited Away” is dialed way up from Miyazaki’s other works, but there’s something remarkable about how the film never even remotely approaches artifice. Here is the rare film that recognizes the beauty and terror of getting exactly what you wish for — a film that never loses its focus on the raw humanity of what young people sometimes wish for before they learn enough about themselves to know what they really want. The stunning jewel in Hayao Miyazaki’s pocketful of masterpieces follows young Chihiro on a fantastical sojourn through a land of cursed animals, malicious witches, and amorphous blobs that devour humans with minimal effort. It’s the textbook Miyazaki blend of wonder and danger that makes this a modern fairy tale on par with the time-tested stories of Grimm and Aesop and the countless oral traditions that spin yarns of all that the wide world has in store, and it’s absolutely bursting at the seams with some of the most imaginative spirits ever projected onto a movie screen. —CO

14. “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010)

movie ghost girl

Ghost monkeys. Reincarnation. Catfish cunnilingus. The inspired weirdness is so off the charts with “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” it almost sounds like a lark. Instead, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s mesmerizing Palme d’Or winner redefines the notion of “movie magic,” by conjuring images and experiences that transcend the boundaries of the screen. More than 10 years later, it remains a haunting, wondrous incantation — a movie that gives new meaning to fantasy filmmaking by refusing to escape the world, and instead attempting to see it in a whole new way.     But about those ghost monkeys: They’re not the only ones hovering in some fragile, surreal boundary between life and death. The centerpiece of “Uncle Boonmee” is the title character (Thanapat Saisaymar) struggling with his role in torturing Communist sympathizers during a notorious 1965 military event. At the end of his life, he’s haunted by memories that have been spruced up by legend and myth. Both spooky and enigmatic, the most baffling moments in “Uncle Boonmee” are the core of its appeal. It’s easy to imagine a more traditional drama about deathbed regret, but Apichatpong couldn’t make one if he tried. “Uncle Boonmee” gets inside the conflicting emotions and dislocation of a dwindling mind, finding beauty and wonder in its confines. The ghosts are specters of a past that won’t go dormant, no matter how much its participants — and their country — would prefer to keep it buried for good.  —EK   

13. “The Fog” (1980)

movie ghost girl

“A celebration of our past!” That’s the slogan on a banner hanging over the town square in Antonio Bay, California, which is about to celebrate its centennial. If America has taught us anything, though, it’s that knee-jerk nostalgia always demands critical examination. Turns out that this coastal hamlet was founded by settlers who murdered the survivors of a shipwreck and stole their gold; the victims were lepers and the settlers justified their hate crime under the guise of “protecting their community.” As the fog rolls in leading up to that 100th anniversary, the ghostly victims of that injustice are coming back to collect what’s theirs.

In John Carpenter’s hands, this story has particular impact. A ghoulish campfire-tale prologue sets the mood. Then he one-ups “Halloween” by not only having Jamie Lee Curtis star (as an Antonio Bay townsperson caught up unwittingly in these ghostly affairs), but her mother Janet Leigh too, as one of the organizers of the anniversary celebration. Carpenter’s ghosts here signify the invisible specters in our country that are often ignored, but still hold a powerful sway over our lives. It isn’t easy to confront how the present owes a blood debt to the injustices of the past, but the onus is on us to do it or die trying. —CB

12. “Poltergeist” (Tobe Hooper, 1982)

POLTERGEIST, Heather O'Rourke, 1982, © MGM/courtesy Everett Collection

Northwestern University film studies professor Jeffrey Sconce wrote a book in 2000 called “Haunted Media,” about the phenomenon of people thinking their TVs or radios or phones are haunted. Think about the times you’ve heard of people who’ve lost a loved one suddenly reporting their TV turning on at random — was it a message from the beyond? Certainly there’s a classic episode of “The Twilight Zone,” in which Gladys Cooper keeps getting phone calls from a dead man on the other end. “Pulse” reimagines the concept for the digital age. But the best-known blockbuster formulation of ghosts haunting our media is Tobe Hooper’s relentlessly eerie, and eventually just relentless, “Poltergeist.” How much did producer Steven Spielberg actually direct of this movie? Probably a lot. It sure feels more in line with his work than Hooper’s scuzzy “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” In a gated community in the suburbs the Freeling family is going about their lives until five-year-old daughter Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) starts hearing and seeing things through the family TV. And not just episodes of “Benson.” Messages from ghosts, who eventually suck her in to their world. Over-the-top jump scares eventually replace the more subtle chills of the earlier part of the movie, but “Poltergeist” does veer into as critical a take on suburbia and the cluelessness of the gated-community mentality as Spielberg’s ever given. Turns out that an entire cemetery was uprooted, the bodies buried there disinterred and disrespected, in order to build this neighborhood. When patriarch Steven (Craig T. Nelson) asks the callous developer why they built here the guy delivers a devastating reply: “They were just… people.” —CB 

11. “Ghostbusters” (1984)

movie ghost girl

“Ghostbusters” went big in every sense. The film created the mold for Hollywood’s subsequent decades long obsession with comedy-genre crossovers, director Ivan Reitman combined big action, horror, and special effects with broad comedy that was originally written as a vehicle for “Blues Brothers” stars Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi. Ackroyd’s rewrite with co-star Harold Ramis works in part because it’s grounded in a very real New York and a genuine fascination with the paranormal. For all the goofy antics of the booted academics-turned-commercial exterminators, Bill Murray’s incredible one-liners, Rick Moranis’ physical comedy, Ray Parker Jr.’s punchy hit song and the giant Stay Puft Marshmallow man climax, this was a film that also delivered real action inspired gothic visuals — not to mention the frightening intensity of Sigourney Weaver as possessed by Zuul. A monumental hit that dominated pop culture and the summer box office. –CO

10. “The Shining” (1980)

movie ghost girl

The fault lies not in the ghosts that haunt us but in ourselves. Wouldn’t Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) have ended up going down his psychotic path in “The Shining” no matter what? When we first meet him, he’s already been involved in an incident of domestic abuse with his son. Nicholson certainly plays Jack like he’s demented from almost the very beginning — cue chills: “You see? It’s alright. He saw it on the television.” “The Shining” has a certain dream logic to it, much like that of Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut” nineteen years later — it suggests everything you fear, but dismiss, may actually be true. That dread in the pit of your stomach isn’t lying. If your instinct is telling you that your husband may try to kill you and your son, there’s probably a very good reason for that; in horror movies, as in life, it’s often the denial that kills you in the end. Wendy and Danny are able to wake up before it’s too late, but a lot of us aren’t so lucky. A lot of us, Kubrick recognized, are marching blindly through life so rigidly we might as well be frozen in the snow, doomed to keep repeating our mistakes over and over, like we really have always been the caretaker after all. —CB

9. “The Haunting” (1963)

movie ghost girl

Losing one’s mental ground is always fertile ground for deep-seated dread. This Shirley Jackson adaptation follows a group actively trying to prove the existence of ghosts, but unprepared for the unrelenting terror of the experience. With director Robert Wise’s inventive sets — including some of the most effective production design in the history of horror – and his moving camera, the film has a constant feeling of impending doom and claustrophobia that perfectly mirrors the characters’ internal state. –CO

8. “Personal Shopper” (2016)

movie ghost girl

Reinventing the ghost story with radical directness and a modern sense of self, Olivier Assayas’ “Personal Shopper” survived a dicey Cannes premiere to assume its place as one of the most affecting depictions of the grieving process ever committed to the screen. And somehow, even though it includes a scene in which a phantom projectile scream-vomits hot white ectoplasm into the air above Kristen Stewart’s face, it’s also one of the most realistic.

Bracingly direct one moment and elliptical the next, “Personal Shopper” isn’t just a story about a young woman trying to connect with her brother across the great beyond; it’s also a knowing portrait of how technology shapes the way people remember the dead and process their absence. A numbed Stewart is brilliant as Maureen, a celebrity assistant who moonlights as a medium in the hopes of making contact with her dead twin. And since spiritualists have always been magnetized to spectacle, it’s only natural that Maureen is constantly staring at her iPhone, using it to google the paintings of Swedish mystic Hilma af Klint or watch an amusing clip from a (fake) old TV drama in which Victor Hugo conducts a hokey séance. These digital communions lend Assayas’ laconic thriller the feeling of a Russian nesting doll, with each layer hiding a new dead body, and the film’s infamous centerpiece sequence manages to infuse the simple (and decidedly un-cinematic) act of texting with oodles of Hitchockian suspense. —DE

7. “The Phantom Carriage” (1922)

movie ghost girl

Famous for its influence on Ingmar Bergman but increasingly appreciated for its own merits (in large part due to the film’s somewhat recent canonization into the Criterion Collection), Victor Sjöström’s “The Phantom Carriage” is a formative genre classic that still holds up for the rudimentary eeriness of its special effects, which are magnified by the inherent specter of death that now haunts all silent films of the 1920s. The story goes that the last person to die in a given year is consigned to carry the reins of Death’s carriage for the year to follow, and a philandering drunkard by the name of David Holm (played by the director) learns the myth is true when he encounters his late friend Georges (Tore Svennberg) one New Year’s Eve. So begins a spooky, flashback-heavy melodrama that has as much in common with “It’s a Wonderful Life” as it does any horror movie; there’s a consumptive wife and a primal revenge plot and of course a scene in which the hero bargains with the heavens for more time on this mortal coil. Whether watched without sound or accompanied by Swedish musician Matti Bye’s 1998 score, “The Phantom Carriage” has plenty of life in it yet. Its impact is obvious (though it’s fun to make the connections yourself), but Sjöström’s film is far too richly atmospheric and unnerving to be considered a mere curio. —DE

6. “Ringu” (Hideo Nakata, 1998)

movie ghost girl

Gore Verbinski’s “The Ring” appeared on a wave of American aughts remakes of Japanese horror films that also included “The Grudge,” “Pulse,” and “Dark Water.” Also known as “Ringu,” Hideo Nakata’s “The Ring” tells the same story as the 2002 version starring Naomi Watts. But this twisted imagining of a cursed video tape signaling the deaths of those unlucky enough to view it is more stark in its terror. Where Verbinski offers jump scares, Nakata dangles the terror-stricken face of star Nanako Matsushima. It’s timelessly haunting.  —AF

5. “A Ghost Story” (2017)

movie ghost girl

Jokingly pitched as a “‘Beetlejuice’ remake directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul,” David Lowery’s crafty and ingenious “A Ghost Story” elevates a simple haunting into a powerful meditation on love, time, and the inevitable dissolution of all things. The movie, which reunites the lead actors from Lowery’s “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,” stars Casey Affleck as a homebody musician and Rooney Mara as his restless wife. When he dies in a car crash, his spirit ghost lifts right off of the gurney, the white hospital sheet draped over his body as he rejects an opportunity to step into the great beyond. Silent beneath the cloth, invisible to the living, and unsure of his cosmic purpose, he begins to wander around the house where he used to live, a benign presence huddling in its corners and watching as his wife mourns, massacres a pie, and eventually moves out. After she leaves, the ghost becomes unstuck in time. The days skip into months skip into years as his journey blurs into a domesticated riff on the final minutes of “2001: A Space Odyssey” — it soon grows hard to tell if the ghost is haunting the house, or if the house is haunting him. Guided by cosmic forces and set to the beautiful yearning of Daniel Hart’s score, “A Ghost Story” finds poignant new meaning in life after death. —DE

4. “Carnival of Souls” (1962)

movie ghost girl

A waking nightmare that’s every bit as ghoulish as its title suggests, Herk Harvey’s “Carnival of Souls” — a singular one-off as storied as “Night of the Hunter” and twice as eerie — is an indelible tour through a funhouse of our deepest fears. Shot for a measly $33,000, and imbued with the morbid unease of a rediscovered snuff film, this micro-budget classic stars Candace Hilligoss as Mary, the sole survivor of an ill-fated drag race. Dredging herself out of the water and re-entering a world that feels ominously shadowed by her near-death experience, Mary finds herself trapped in a stretch of American nowhere that’s as inescapable as the Twilight Zone, twice as dark, and where everyone around her has been reduced into wraiths. Once upon a time, this was the kind of nameless movie you might stumble upon at 2 A.M. on TCM; the kind of thing you felt you shouldn’t be watching. Today, even though you can watch it on a Criterion Collection Blu-ray or stream it on your laptop, Harvey’s unnerving masterpiece still retains every last drop of its delirious power. —DE

3. “The Others” (2001)

movie ghost girl

A breathlessly told and richly atmospheric riff on “The Innocents,” Alejandro Amenábar’s “The Others” marries the eeriness of a classic haunted house story with the more immediate scares of a modern horror film. Nicole Kidman delivers one of the most brittle and brilliant performances of her career as Grace Stewart, a severe woman who’s raising her two young kids in a mansion on the misty British island of Jersey while her husband is off fighting World War II. It’s a lonely place to be, and one made all the worse because both of Grace’s children are afflicted with a rare disease that makes them allergic to sunlight, so it isn’t much of a surprise when the butter slides off her knife and she begins to fear that the house is haunted. Full of beautifully orchestrated gothic thrills (“Are you mad? I am your daughter”) and patient enough to sink into the darkest corners of its settings “The Others” is one of the best movies of its kind even before it erupts into a plot twist so satisfying that it puts “The Sixth Sense” to shame. —DE

2. “The Innocents” (1961)

movie ghost girl

A governess (Deborah Kerr) becomes convinced the house where she cares for two orphaned children is haunted. The haunted threat is brought to life through an incredible use of sound design, including a pioneering use of synthesized electronic sound. Truman Capote’s screenplay adapts “The Turn of the Screw” with a fresh angle that gives the British film a southern gothic feel and the disturbing sense of repressed sexuality. Jack Clayton’s direction, aided by cinematographer Freddie Francis’ claustrophobic widescreen cinematography, takes the audience on Kerr’s downward descent that becomes increasingly psychologically unsettling. A true horror masterpiece, “The Innocents” most recently had a major influence on Ari Aster’s “Hereditary.” –CO

1. “Ugetsu” (1953)

movie ghost girl

One of the best films ever made, ghost content or otherwise. But there is a ghost — lifelike one involved in a relationship with a living person and whose presence takes on a particularly devastating significance: As it is with most of Kenji Mizoguchi’s films, the real horror involves a woman living a patriarchal society. The most remarkable thing about this late Mizoguchi masterpiece is that the ghost doesn’t really appear until the second half of the film, but his moving camera (mounted on a crane for nearly every shot) grounds the audience in a cinematic space that has an otherworldly spiritual resonance. The story itself, set in the 16th century and adapted from 18th century ghost tales by screenwriter Yoshikata Yoda, is a fatalistic tragedy about the delusional foolishness of two husbands during a civil war, and the wives they leave at home to fend for themselves. One of cinema’s purest creations, these fables about a world made unstable by the whims of men, is a ghostlike experience itself. —CO

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The 10 Best Horror Movies That Explore Womanhood

W omanhood is a concept often explored in dramatic movies , with many features tackling the struggles of being a woman on a daily basis and providing food for thought, not only to female but also to male audiences. When it comes to illustrating the conditions women are often prone to and have to endure at some point in their lives, horror can provide viewers with even more compelling and provocative perspectives.

Throughout the years, the portrayal of women has changed in horror movies — ranging from the Puritan to the Monstress — and it wasn't just a few times that the genre has relied on female sexuality. Whether a film illustrates the exploitation and objectification of women's bodies or analyzes the nightmarish side of motherhood, it has become evident that womanhood and horror walk hand in hand and thrive on each other's complexities. From Fresh to Rosemary's Baby , these are 10 of the best horror movies that explore womanhood .

'Fresh' (2022)

Director: mimi cave.

Directed by Mimi Cave , Fresh is one of the most surprising body horror movies of recent times. It follows Daisy Edgar-Jones ' Noa as she meets the charming Steve, played by Sebastian Stan , at a grocery store. Eventually, the two get to know each other, and Noa accepts Steve's invitation to a romantic weekend getaway. The results are nothing short of tragic.

Fresh sheds light on the toxicity and dangers of the dating scene , especially as a woman who is often prone to feeling pressured into finding a partner. It also satirizes the digital world of dating apps. Still, the film's strongest aspect is how it illustrates the exploitation of women's bodies, often by men who believe that women are only valuable when they can be of service. For its intriguing storyline alone, Fresh is certainly worth watching, especially if audiences are into the cannibal subgenre .

Release Date 2022-03-04

Cast Jojo T. Gibbs, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Sebastian Stan, Andrea Bang

Runtime 114 minutes

Genres Thriller, Horror

Watch on Hulu

'Perfect Blue' (1997)

Director: satoshi kon.

One of the best adult animated films of all time, the Japanese psychological thriller Perfect Blue centers around a pop singer (voiced by Junko Iwao ) who gives up her career to become an actress. Mimia slowly descends into a haunting nightmare when she starts being stalked by an obsessed fan.

Reflecting on obsession and identity as well as reality versus perception, this introspective, disturbing, and compelling movie features, at its center, a pop idol protagonist who is often portrayed as sweet and innocent. Despite this, Mimia is still sexually objectified and frequently seen as a product. No doubt, Perfect Blue is a relevant watch all these years later , especially considering how it critiques the themes it tackles, including stan culture's toxicity and concerning hyper fixation.

Watch on DIRECTV

'The Babadook' (2014)

Director: jennifer kent.

In this Jennifer Kent -directed horror film, audiences are introduced to a single mother ( Essie Davis ) and her 6-year-old son ( Noah Wiseman ), who she struggles to discipline. The film follows the two as they fall into a well of paranoia when a children's book titled "Mister Babadook" manifests in their home years after the violent death of her husband.

What is so fascinating about Kent's feature is, namely, how much of a three-dimensional and complex character Amelia is. The Babadook successfully explores the trials of motherhood combined with mental health struggles , as well as thoroughly meditates on the depiction of women as primarily victims. Combined with a strong narrative that reflects on grief, loss, and rage, this captivating film is a must-see horror from the 2010s .

The Babadook

Release Date 2014-01-17

Cast Barbara West, Hayley McElhinney, Daniel Henshall, Noah Wiseman, Essie Davis

Genres Drama, Mystery, Thriller, Horror

'Raw' (2016)

Director: julia ducournau.

In Raw , a rigorous young vegetarian ( Garance Marillier ) who ambitions to become a vet slowly develops a craving for human flesh. This happens after she eats meat for the first time in an attempt to fit in at a veterinary school. As expected, this does not end well, and Justine is eventually left to deal with the terrible consequences of her actions.

Raw is certainly a gripping French extremity must-see (as is Titane , also by the talented filmmaker). Julia Ducournau 's movie deals with puberty and sexual awakening in a truly captivating manner; it illustrates feminine pleasure and the mightiness of oppressed women through cannibalism. Besides that, Raw tackles power dynamics .

Rent on Amazon Prime

'The Invisible Man' (2020)

Director: leigh whannell.

Based on H. G. Wells ' novel of the same name, The Invisible Man is a haunting horror movie that follows Elizabeth Moss ' Cecilia, a young woman who believes she is being hunted by someone no one can see after her abusive ex takes his own life and leaves her his fortune.

A character undergoing severe abuse of any kind is cruel and terrifying enough for a movie premise. Still, what makes The Invisible Man so scary is how it handles trauma and the fear it spreads, even though its antagonist is unseen. With a nightmarish premise at its center, this Leigh Whannell powerful film manages to keep audiences invested as it meditates on gaslighting, mental health, sexuality, and motherhood with absorbing results.

Watch on Peacock

'Black Swan' (2010)

Director: darren aronosfky.

Featuring one of Natalie Portman 's best performances , Black Swan is a compelling tale of womanhood and repressed sexuality . It chronicles the story of a talented and extremely hardworking ballerina who is set to open a production of the iconic "Swan Lake." Nina's life takes a wild turn when competition newcomer Lily ( Mila Kunis ) steps into the picture.

In addition to tackling Nina's mental health disorders, Black Swan showcases the painful transition from girlhood to womanhood, as well as the pursuit of achieving the unachievable — perfection. This 2010 film provides a lot of food for thought and makes for one of the most compelling films of the year. Additionally, Portman won her first Academy Award thanks to her efforts in the Darren Aronofsky movie.

Release Date 2010-12-03

Cast Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder, Mila Kunis, Benjamin Millepied, Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel

Runtime 110

Genres Thriller, Documentary

Watch on Netflix

'Carrie' (1973)

Director: brian de palma.

1973's cult classic Carrie follows the unpopular titular 17-year-old character, played by Sissy Spacek , as she is mistreated by her controlling religious mother and humiliated by her classmates at her senior prom. When the happiest moment of her life that far is ruined by bullies, Carrie loses her cool and unleashes her telekinetic powers.

No doubt, Brian de Palma 's intense feature stands the test of time due to the universal themes it tackles , including bullying and abuse. The 1973 revenge film, which was certainly ahead of its time, reflects on how women find their channels of power and how absolutely terrifying those, too, can be. It is one of the earliest examples of "female rage" in film, providing audiences with an intriguing message about sexuality and familial repression.

Cast Piper Laurie, Sissy Spacek

Runtime 100

Genres Drama, Horror, Documentary

Watch on Max

'A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night' (2014)

Director: ana lily amirpour.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a must-watch, often overlooked vampire flick with an interesting twist. It follows a lonesome vampire viewers only know as The Girl ( Sheila Vand ) as she preys upon men who take advantage of women in the fictional Iranian ghost-town, Bad City.

A delightful mix of genres, this slow-paced female-directed horror provides a very well-crafted feminist commentary on desire, the female gaze, and expectations of gender. Like Carrie , it is a revenge tale that explores female rage — except this time, it is aimed directly against violent men who abuse their power. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is worth checking , if not only for its breathtaking black-and-white visuals.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

Release Date 2015-04-20

Cast Rome Shadanloo, Marshall Manesh, Arash Marandi, Dominic Rains, Mozhan Marn, Sheila Vand

Runtime 101 minutes

Genres Romance, Thriller, Horror

Watch on Hoopla

'Suspiria' (1977)

Director: dario argento.

Both versions of this captivating tale are solid examples of horror films about womanhood. However, there is no doubt that the original Dario Argento picture remains the true blueprint. Suspiria follows American student Suzy Bannion ( Jessica Harper ) who travels to a prestigious school to study the art and history of ballet and perfect her skills in the field. However, she ends up unearthing a terrifying secret in the meantime.

With stunning neon visuals that are easily engraved in audiences' minds, a haunting atmosphere, and a memorable lead performance, the psychedelic horror film is certainly worth taking a look at. Furthermore, Suspiria successfully sheds light on womanhood and motherhoo d , serving as a metaphor for both . It also depicts women's liberation from the patriarchal structure.

Release Date 1977-02-01

Cast Susanna Javicoli, Barbara Magnolfi, Miguel Bos, Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Jessica Harper

Genres Horror

Watch on Tubi

'Rosemary's Baby' (1968)

Director: roman polansky.

Starring Mia Farrow as a young wife who is trying to have a baby with her struggling actor (filmmaker and actor John Cassavetes ) husband as they move into an aging apartment, Rosemary's Baby is a truly disturbing psychological horror by controversial filmmaker Roman Polanski . Adapted from Ira Levin 's best-selling novel, the movie takes a wild turn when the two find themselves surrounded by strange neighbors.

Regarded as one of the best in the genre to this day, the suspenseful Rosemary's Baby deals with topics of womanhood not only for highlighting how scary and insecure pregnancy feels like but also — and especially — how men often make decisions about women's bodies behind their backs, as Get Out director Jordan Peele rightfully pointed out when analyzing the film in a conversation with Criterion .

Rosemary's Baby

Release Date 1968-06-12

Cast Ralph Bellamy, Sidney Blackmer, John Cassavetes, Maurice Evans, Ruth Gordon, Mia Farrow

Runtime 137 minutes

Genres Drama, Horror

NEXT: 10 Best Female Monster Horror Movies, Ranked by IMDb

The 10 Best Horror Movies That Explore Womanhood

Haunted by you: 10 great films about ghostly romance

BY James Oliver

13th Aug 2017 Film & TV

Haunted by you: 10 great films about ghostly romance

Not all ghost stories are scary, says James Oliver. As these films show, there’s more than one way to be "haunted"...

Whether or not you actually believe in them, ghosts have proved themselves excellent subjects for stories over the centuries, from camp fire tales to hair-raising novels and, most recently, in movies.

Most such offerings are thoroughly creepy affairs but there’s a small group of films that are more emotional, where supernatural elements are used not to chill the blood but to explore feelings.

With unconventional spook show A Ghost Story materialising in cinemas now, we thought we’d look at some other notable examples of the form.

We begin with Ghost , and not just because it’s the best-known title on our list (Patrick Swayze? Demi Moore? Pottery? Yeah, that one). It’s also an excellent summary of many of the themes and ideas found across this list, of love, loss and grief, all packaged in high Hollywood style.

That means it’s shamelessly manipulative, of course, but that should not be taken as criticism. This is manipulation of the very highest order—Marks and Spencer manipulation, if you will. Even more cynical viewers might find themselves in danger of blubbering as the spirit of a murdered man (Swayze) reaches out across the great divide to his grieving girlfriend (la Moore) only... stop! I’ve got something in my eye! Boo-hoo!

Ahem. Anyway, it’s a proper three hankie weepie and then some.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir 

Portrait of jennie.

movie ghost girl

More Hollywood tearjerking here—times two, in fact. Both are improbable romances: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir has Gene Tierney being wooed by deceased sea captain Rex Harrison, while in Portrait of Jennie , struggling artist Joseph Cotten discovers his muse (Jennifer Jones) comes from another time.

Each is lovely in its own right but it’s worth double billing them for what they can tell us together. Look at the dates when they were made—Mrs. Muir met her ghost in 1947 while Jennie had her portrait painted in 1948. In other words, they were released at a time when folks were still mourning those they lost in the most brutal war in history.

So not only do they depict the sadness of loss, they were also—in some minuscule way—a part of the mass grieving process. And seen like that, they become yet more moving still.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Portrait of Jennie are but the tip of the iceberg vis a vis supernatural films of the 1940s. Seriously, there are loads— A Matter of Life and Death ; Blithe Spirit ; Heaven Can Wait ; Here Comes Mr. Jordan ...

A Guy Named Joe is another. Not quite as good as those listed above, but Steven Spielberg liked it well enough to remake it as Always . Transposed from wartime to peace time, it’s about a pilot doing his best to look after his gal, slowly learning to accept that he’s dead—and that she must move on.

Spielberg is a director often said to be awkward with love stories but this is the most unashamedly romantic thing he’s ever done. Oh, and it’s got Audrey Hepburn as an angel too, which might be typecasting but is another reason to see it.

Truly Madly Deeply 

Kiss of life .

movie ghost girl

The ghost story is a staple of British film—hardly surprising, given that Britain has more ghosts per square centimetre than anywhere else on Earth (well, probably). Sometimes they’re spooky ( Dead of Night , The Innocents ), sometimes they’re funny ( The Ghost Goes West , The Ghosts of Berkeley Square ) and sometimes, they’re a bit more sympathetic to our phantom friends.

Most obviously there’s Truly , Madly, Deeply ; released around the same time as Ghost , it deals with much the same sort of themes, albeit without the Hollywood sheen. Here it’s Juliet Stevenson who’s struggling to deal with the death of her partner (Alan Rickman), something complicated by the fact he’s still around in spectral form. 

Less well known is Kiss of Life . Directed by Emily Young, it concerns the spirit of a woman trying to reunite with her husband (Peter Mullen) after dying in a car accident. (Tragically, the film suffered its own bereavement—Katrin Cartlidge was due to play the lead but passed away days before shooting began. Ingeborga Dapkunaite’s performance is even more remarkable given how little time she had to prepare.)

Ugetsu Monogatari

movie ghost girl

Ghosts are found in every culture but the traditions can be very different, as can be seen in these two films from Asia.

Rouge comes from Hong Kong. The ghost here is that of a young courtesan who undertook a suicide pact with her lover in the 1930s. Unlike westerners, it seems they have the luxury of arranging to meet up again; when he doesn’t show, she sets out to find what happened.

Ugetsu Monogatari , meanwhile, is Japanese: the ghosts here are lonely and are not above deceiving living souls to supply companionship. But in this film deception is everywhere—some men are duped by ghosts, others by glory. Both are ultimately revealed to be illusory.

Neither depends too much on local mythologies and both speak of universal subjects: it would seem that unhappy spirits are the same the world over.

Midnight in Paris 

Mind you, not every ghost is a miserable old thing. Those in Midnight in Paris look to be having a high old time. And why wouldn’t they, when they are the shades of the gilded generation who flocked to France in the 1920s—yer actual Hemingway, yer actual Scott Fitzgerald, yer actual Salvador Dali.

Of course, they might not be ghosts in the strictest sense of the word. Maybe they’re just the product of a restless imagination, that of the young screenwriter played by Owen Wilson who lionises their achievements and who relishes the chance to pal about with them.

But let’s not start splitting hairs about dictionary definitions of "ghosts" and accept it belongs here. Otherwise we’ll end up in a right old metaphysical tangle, and no one wants that, do they?

A Ghost Story 

And in conclusion we come to the films whose recent release inspired this entire list. It earns its place not because of that, though, but because of the twist it places on the format.

All ghost stories depend upon the living being able to interact, however imperfectly, with the dead. Here, though, death is an unbreachable wall, with Casey Affleck on one side, watching his widow Rooney Mara on the other. And when she goes—moves on, as it were—he’s stuck in their house to stare at what follows. It is, if you’ll excuse the pun, thoroughly haunting.

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Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)

When the discovery of an ancient artifact unleashes an evil force, Ghostbusters new and old must join forces to protect their home and save the world from a second ice age. When the discovery of an ancient artifact unleashes an evil force, Ghostbusters new and old must join forces to protect their home and save the world from a second ice age. When the discovery of an ancient artifact unleashes an evil force, Ghostbusters new and old must join forces to protect their home and save the world from a second ice age.

  • Jason Reitman
  • Ivan Reitman
  • Mckenna Grace
  • Carrie Coon
  • Annie Potts

Official Trailer

  • Phoebe Spengler

Carrie Coon

  • Callie Spengler

Annie Potts

  • Janine Melnitz

Bill Murray

  • Peter Venkman

Paul Rudd

  • Gary Grooberson

Finn Wolfhard

  • Trevor Spengler

Kumail Nanjiani

  • Nadeem Razmaadi

Dan Aykroyd

  • Hubert Wartzki

Emily Alyn Lind

  • Walter Peck

Ernie Hudson

  • Winston Zeddemore

Celeste O'Connor

  • Lars Pinfield

Logan Kim

  • Woman Running Away

Lauren Yaffe

  • Taxi Driver
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Ghostbusters: Afterlife

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  • Trivia The working title for this film was "Firehouse" after the Ghostbusters' firehouse headquarters.
  • Connections Follows Ghostbusters (1984)
  • When will Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire be released? Powered by Alexa
  • March 22, 2024 (United States)
  • United States
  • London, England, UK
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  1. ghostgirl

    (March 2015) ghostgirl is the debut novel from author and filmmaker Tonya Hurley. It is the story of high school senior "Charlotte Usher", The young teenager dreams of becoming popular in school, but before she gets the chance of that OR asking Damen out, she dies from choking on a gummy bear.

  2. The Scariest Female Ghosts in Horror Movies

    Madison in 'What Lies Beneath' (2000) Ghosts rarely haunt people in horror movies without a reason, as the married couple in What Lies Beneath Learned. It turned out that the unseen ghost of Madison Elizabeth Frank wanted revenge against her murderer, and she wasn't afraid to take the form of Michelle Pfeifer's heroine along the way.

  3. Shutter (2008)

    1h 25m IMDb RATING 5.2 /10 37K YOUR RATING Rate POPULARITY 4,273 2,912 Play clip 0:55 Watch Shutter 12 Videos 13 Photos Horror Mystery Thriller A newly married couple discovers disturbing, ghostly images in photographs they develop after a tragic accident.

  4. Ghostbusters (2016)

    1h 57m IMDb RATING 6.8 /10 243K YOUR RATING Rate POPULARITY 2,059 222 Play trailer 1:50 99+ Videos 99+ Photos Action Comedy Fantasy Following a ghost invasion of Manhattan, paranormal enthusiasts Erin Gilbert and Abby Yates, nuclear engineer Jillian Holtzmann, and subway worker Patty Tolan band together to stop the otherworldly threat. Director

  5. Mama (2013 film)

    Mama is a 2013 supernatural horror film directed and co-written by Andy Muschietti in his directorial debut and based on his 2008 Argentine short film Mamá. The film stars Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier, Isabelle Nélisse, Daniel Kash, and Javier Botet as the title character.

  6. Child of Glass

    Child of Glass is a 1978 American made-for-television family fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and based upon the novel The Ghost Belonged to Me by Richard Peck. Its plot follows a young boy who moves into a former plantation in Louisiana, and encounters the ghost of a young girl who was murdered on the property.

  7. Ghost Girl (2021)

    Videos 1 Backdrops 1 Posters 1 On the night before she is set to leave New Orleans to audition for a high-budget television pilot in Los Angeles, Ashley must overcome her best friend and closest collaborator's attempts to thwart her ambitions as this sudden opportunity reveals the long-festering differences between the two of them.

  8. Ghostgirl

    Ghostgirl 2010, Drama/Romance, 32m -- Tomatometer -- Audience Score Want to see Your AMC Ticket Confirmation# can be found in your order confirmation email. Movie Info Two very different people...

  9. Ghost Girl (2021)

    On the night before she is set to leave New Orleans to audition for a high-budget television pilot in Los Angeles, Ashley must overcome her best friend and closest collaborator's attempts to thwart...

  10. Ghost Girl (TV Series 2019- )

    2019- YOUR RATING Rate Crime Drama Fantasy Roxy Moore has always said she can see ghosts, but no one believed her, until they had to. Now with a fellow student murdered she must help Detective Max Wolfe solve the case - by speaking to the victim. Stars Janetta Ivanova Emma Natasha Holdaway Connor Croucher See production info at IMDbPro RENT/BUY

  11. 33 Best Ghost Movies of All Time

    About a pair of siblings who are tormented by a long-haired shadow figure, A Tale of Two Sisters is a chilling Korean folk tale with tonal shifts and jumps scares so jarring you may just rethink the dark corners of your household.

  12. The 18 Scariest Female Horror Villains, from 'Us' to ...

    Bathed in blood or sucking up souls, these wicked women fostered the fear for epic horror films including "Misery," "Friday the 13th," "Titane," "Us,"…

  13. The Best Movies About Ghosts

    Maybe the great, definitive ghost story in the literary world is Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw," his 1898 novella about an innocent nanny who grows convinced that the remote estate she has...

  14. Ghostbusters (2016 film)

    Starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Neil Casey, Andy García, Cecily Strong, Charles Dance, Michael K. Williams, Matt Walsh, and Chris Hemsworth, it is a reboot of the 1984 film of the same name and the third film in the Ghostbusters franchise.

  15. Ghost (5/10) Movie CLIP

    Ghost movie clips: http://j.mp/1CP6kfgBUY THE MOVIE: http://amzn.to/rXePC5Don't miss the HOTTEST NEW TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/1u2y6prCLIP DESCRIPTION:Oda Mae ...

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    'The Invisible Man' (2020) Director: Leigh Whannell. Based on H. G. Wells' novel of the same name, The Invisible Man is a haunting horror movie that follows Elizabeth Moss' Cecilia, a young woman ...

  17. Haunted by you: 10 great films about ghostly romance

    Ugetsu Monogatari. Anita Mui in Rouge (1988) Ghosts are found in every culture but the traditions can be very different, as can be seen in these two films from Asia. Rouge comes from Hong Kong. The ghost here is that of a young courtesan who undertook a suicide pact with her lover in the 1930s.

  18. 50 Of The Best Ghost Movies

    In 1945, immediately following the end of Second World War, a woman who lives with her two photosensitive children on her darkened old family estate in the Channel Islands becomes convinced that the home is haunted. Director: Alejandro Amenábar | Stars: Nicole Kidman, Christopher Eccleston, Fionnula Flanagan, Alakina Mann

  19. Molly Finally Believes

    Ghost movie clips: http://j.mp/1CP6kfgBUY THE MOVIE: http://amzn.to/rXePC5Don't miss the HOTTEST NEW TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/1u2y6prCLIP DESCRIPTION:Molly (D...

  20. List of ghost films

    Films Television series Dramas and comedies 1953-1955: Topper 1955-1965: Alfred Hitchcock Presents 1959-1961: One Step Beyond 1959-1964: The Twilight Zone 1968-1970: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir 1969-1971: Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) 1971-1978, 2005- : A Ghost Story for Christmas 1975: The Ghost Busters 1976-1978: The Ghosts of Motley Hall

  21. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

    Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is a 2009 American romantic comedy film directed by Mark Waters. The script was written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, based on Charles Dickens ' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol.

  22. Ghost (1990)

    Directed by Jerry Zucker ... (directed by) Writing Credits ( WGA) Bruce Joel Rubin ... (written by) Cast (in credits order) verified as complete Produced by Music by Maurice Jarre ... (music by) Cinematography by Adam Greenberg ... director of photography Editing by Walter Murch ... (film edited by) Casting By Production Design by Jane Musky

  23. Ghost Girl (2013)

    2013 50m YOUR RATING Rate Fantasy Mystery A boy happen to meet a girl by chance, and then come to know about the secret that she haunted around without any memory that she has been murdered. He helps her to go to heaven by revealing the details of her death... Director Kidong Kim Writer Kidong Kim Stars Minchul Shin Jisu Choi

  24. Ghostgirl (Short 2010)

    21 YOUR RATING Rate Short Drama Romance A beautiful, atmospheric & unique film that tells the story of two very different people thrown together by a curious set of circumstances - with an unexpected outcome... Official Selection, New York United Film Fest 2010. Director David Armstrong Writer David Armstrong Stars Tony Eccles Ron Berry

  25. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)

    Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire: Directed by Gil Kenan. With Mckenna Grace, Carrie Coon, Annie Potts, Bill Murray. When the discovery of an ancient artifact unleashes an evil force, Ghostbusters new and old must join forces to protect their home and save the world from a second ice age.