The Best Ghost Films Of All Time

The horror genre as we know it wouldn’t be the same without the spooky classics about ghosts haunting a location. Just as video games have their penchant for featuring ghosts, some more benevolent than others, movies also love to explore ghost stories, even finding new innovative and influential ways of telling them throughout the decades.

More than any other horror subgenre, movies centering around ghosts place an emphasis on sound design, score, atmosphere, emotion, and mystery. The quality of storytelling and plot twists must not fade away into the light but instead, bring you powerful out-of-body experiences, and it’s safe to say that these movies carry that spirit.

13

A Ghost Story

There’s no other ghost story quite like David Lowery’s A Ghost Story, one of the most original takes on grief and hauntings. It follows a married couple played by Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara, where Affleck’s character tragically dies and returns as a ghost wearing a white sheet, precisely like kids would dress up as on Halloween, and starts to silently observe his wife from the other side.

The film presents an intriguing reflection on what the afterlife might look like from the perspective of a ghost. They watch everyone else move on with their life, seeing the world continue to function without them, including their home being inhabited by other families. There are some unforgettable visuals, the mood is very sorrowful and dreary, and Rooney Mara’s performance as a grieving widow is remarkable, especially the pie scene.

12

Presence

Presence is a bit similar to Lowery’s A Ghost Story, but it takes the concept even further and uses some out-of-the-box camerawork and filmmaking techniques as it attempts to convey a story told from the first-person POV of a ghost. The movie is about the titular presence moving around and observing the drama between a family who has just moved into their new house.

From a storytelling perspective, this is one of the most interesting ghost stories you’ll come across. It’s a different style yet still very suspenseful, keeping you guessing until the very end as to who or what this ghost that’s haunting this house really is. And that’s largely due to the film’s seasoned writer, David Koepp, who wrote Panic Room and Stir of Echoes, with Presence feeling like a neat blend of the two.

11

The Night House

If you’re looking for a ghost story with a truly disturbing and unforgettable twist, The Night House is a highly underrated horror film that doesn’t get as much recognition as it should. This film revolves around a grieving widow, Beth, residing in a secluded house in the woods that her deceased husband, an architect named Owen, built for them. However, she also finds a second house that’s an odd mirror version of theirs.

Beth soon begins to suspect that her husband took some secrets with him to the grave and that he might now also be haunting her. But is it really her husband or, is there a more sinister presence with Beth inside the house? That’s the central mystery, and she will uncover some deeply sinister answers that will change everything and reveal the ghost’s true motivations.

10

The Changeling

While the title might suggest the film has something to do with the Irish folklore of changelings, The Changeling is a dark and twisted ghost story through and through. The film is a classic haunted house horror mystery with iconic and terrifying moments and a slow-burn pace. It’ll also make you scared of wheelchairs, especially in one particular scene toward the end of the movie that never fails to give goosebumps.

The movie starts off tragically with a horrible road accident that kills the wife and daughter of composer John Russell. Going through this loss, John then moves to Seattle to teach music at a college and stays in a large mansion, hiding a dark past connected to a prominent senator. The setting is very atmospheric, especially combined with the cinematography, score, and sound design, making it feel like Insidious meets The Omen.

9

The Black Phone

The Black Phone falls among the best horror films produced by Blumhouse and is based on the short story of the same name by Joe Hill, the horror extraordinaire son of Stephen King. It’s another highly unusual and very unique ghost story that also hybridizes itself as a serial killer thriller with its main antagonist, The Grabber (played by Ethan Hawke), kidnapping and murdering children.

Where the ghosts come into the story is via the titular object itself. The Grabber has a mysterious supernatural black phone in his basement which acts as a gateway for his past victims to communicate with whoever he’s holding captive next, their grotesque apparition manifesting in the room as well. The Grabber’s latest victim is Finney Blake, who will work together with the spirits of the murdered children to escape.

8

Talk To Me

Ditching the traditional Ouija board as a way of communicating with spirits from the other side, Australian filmmaking brothers Danny and Michael Philippou (aka RackaRacka) create their own unique spin on a supernatural party game that comes with deadly consequences. The result is Talk To Me, and it’s truly one of the most unsettling, relatable, and well-executed pieces of horror from A24.

The spirit device here is instead an embalmed hand from a psychic, where touching the hand while saying the titular phrase will allow a ghost to appear across from you and briefly possess you. If you don’t pull away in time, the spirit might not let go and things won’t end well for you. The main character, Mia, grieving her deceased mother, will discover the dangers of messing around with the hand in an all-too-clever ending.

7

Ghost

Ghost is an iconic film that blends many different genres into its ghost story, with the screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin even winning an Oscar. The sound design makes for an eerie atmosphere and intense moments, including a jumpscare in the opening title sequence, but then there are also sprinkles of romance, tragedy, crime thriller, and even comedy.

After a robbery gone wrong, the main protagonist, Sam Wheat, indeed becomes a ghost, so you also get to experience what that’s like along with Patrick Swayze’s character. From the other side, he tries to adapt to his new form and also protect the love of his life, all with the help of a medium who can communicate with him, played by the iconic Whoopi Goldberg in her first Oscar-winning role as Oda Mae Brown.

6

The Orphanage (El Orfanato)

The Orphanage is a collaboration between director J.A. Bayona and co-producer Guillermo del Toro, and it’s one of the most devastating ghost stories you’ll ever experience. The setting is an orphanage hiding dark and disturbing secrets that will be unearthed by a woman named Laura, who was once a child adopted from the same orphanage. She chooses to re-open it with her husband and son, Simón, and then the horrors ensue.

A ghost of a boy wearing a bag over his head starts haunting Laura and her family and then her son suddenly goes missing, adding to their anguish. It then becomes a quest for the sinister truth behind the young boy’s death and Simón’s disappearance. The ending to The Orphanage has one of those amazing twists that’s just utterly depressing and unforgettable once you see it, and just so masterfully written.

5

Crimson Peak

In his long and fruitful career as a horror-fantasy filmmaker, Guillermo del Toro made some of the finest Gothic ghost stories in cinema. Crimson Peak is set against the backdrop of Victorian-era England, and it follows a romance between a young girl being visited by ghastly spirits, including that of her own mother, and an inventor who steals her away to a mansion known as Allerdale Hall, where dark secrets, unexpected twists, and more ghosts await.

Crimson Peak’s costuming and production design, particularly for Allerdale Hall, are Oscar-worthy, and the design of the ghosts is a grotesque mix of practical and VFX work that’s unlike any phantoms you’ve ever encountered before, once more portrayed by the great contortionist and creature actor Doug Jones. There’s Gothic romance, horror, sibling drama, and a pretty twisted and dark resolution to the story.

4

The Devil’s Backbone

Another del Toro masterpiece, The Devil’s Backbone is set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War and takes place in an all-boys orphanage where the spirit of a young boy haunts the grounds. This movie has the best storytelling of Guillermo del Toro’s career, featuring compelling characters, well-defined villains, and ghosts that drive the story in two very different ways, especially given the ending.

The Devil’s Backbone starts with a bomb being dropped in the middle of the orphanage, a reminder of the war that’s taking place, and a young boy, Santi, is also seen dying and being drowned. Soon, Carlos, a boy orphaned after losing his father in the war, is taken in, where he’ll uncover a conspiracy tied to gold that’s stored in the orphanage and the mystery surrounding Santi’s death.

3

The Others

The Others stands as one of the most pivotal, unforgettable, and iconic ghost stories in cinema with a truly unbelievable twist that will stay with you for the rest of your life. Without going into too much detail and accidentally spoiling the movie for you, the setting takes place in an isolated home in post-war 1945, with a young mother, her two children, and a family of maintenance workers all living together.

The film’s title, The Others, refers to the spirits that Nicole Kidman’s Grace believes are haunting her home, but you’ll discover there’s more to the mystery. The atmosphere is highly reminiscent of The Changeling and deals with similar themes as well, but the story really adds something new and mind-blowing to the genre and has some striking visuals carried by a terrific performance by Nicole Kidman.

2

Poltergeist

What do you get when you combine the forces of legendary horror director Tobe Hooper of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre fame and screenwriter Steven Spielberg? It’s an all-time classic ghost story that came to be Poltergeist. It’s a haunted house tale with some very original concepts and phantom designs, including the iconic scene where the young Carol Anne communicates with ghosts via TV static.

Poltergeist follows the Freeling family, who begin experiencing paranormal phenomena after moving into their new house in the Cuesta Verde neighborhood, which they find out was built over a former cemetery. There are plenty of surprises and scares, and the film also leaves you with one of the most haunting visuals of Carol Anne’s mother surrounded by skeletons that have resurfaced in the floodwater from their graves.

1

The Sixth Sense

M. Night Shyamalan has become a hit-or-miss storyteller in the horror genre. Some of his original ideas and twists really work while others are better left unseen. But his debut film, The Sixth Sense, proved to be a ghost story that stood above the rest and was even nominated for six Oscars, which is quite rare for horror/thriller films.

If you’re experiencing The Sixth Sense for the first time, like The Others, you’re in for something special. The movie is about the relationship between Bruce Willis’ Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist, and his patient, Cole Sear, played by Haley Joel Osment. One of the twists is that Cole can see the dead and communicate with ghosts, which is why Malcolm is there to help. As for the other twist, watch and see.