Ghost films were very popular from the '60s until the '80s, and they have certainly resurfaced more successful than ever in the last 10 to 15 years. The old days offered classics like The Innocents and The Shining, while more recently people have seen successful franchises like The Conjuring and The Ring become huge critical and commercial favorites.
Ghost films can be ingenious metaphors about the lingering past, about pervasive fears, love and loss or…they can just be so creatively scary they do not let one sleep for a week. Here are 10 ghost films from the past 5 years that really impressed.
10 Personal Shopper (2016)
Kristen Stewart stars in this film as Maureen, a young American who works as a personal shopper for a supermodel and is recovering from the loss of her twin brother. Being both sufferers of the same health condition, the twins have promised each other that whoever dies first would give indications of their spiritual presence to the one that stays back.
This very interesting premise makes for a thought-provoking movie that has an approval rating of 81% on Rotten Tomatoes; one great example of psychological suspense meeting arthouse, Personal Shopper helped Olivier Assayas win the Best Director award at the Cannes festival.
9 Lights Out (2016)
Critically appraised for its direction, acting, screenplay, and music, David F. Sandberg’s supernatural horror film Lights Out is worth a watch by the lovers of the genre. The film tells the story of a family that encounters the ghost of Diana, a former acquaintance of mother Sophie, who had died because of a medical mistake.
The response to Lights Out was positive and it grossed $148.9 million worldwide, while its production only cost $4.9 million. If anyone has ever been afraid of the dark, this movie turns up that fear by ten; the longer the lights are off, the closer the evil can approach.
8 Doctor Sleep (2019)
Stephen King’s name is without a doubt linked to some of the best horror movies anyone has ever watched. This film, much like its predecessor, The Shining, is about literal ghosts – but, on a deeper level, the ghosts of our past and present.
Doctor Sleep, directed by Mike Flanagan, follows the character of Danny Torrance from The Shining, who has been struggling with ghosts because of his supernatural ability. Now an adult, Dan must protect a young girl with the same abilities from a dangerous cult. The response to the movie is positive, with a 7.4/10 rating on IMDb, but lots of comments on how Flanagan’s balance between the King and Kubrick tradition was perhaps a poorer choice than the director trusting his own vision. Nevertheless, the nostalgia this movie awakes in audiences really reminds of the '80s highlights of haunted mansion films.
7 Darling (2015)
In this film directed by Michael Keating, Lauren Ashley Carter stars as Darling, a lonely young woman charged with keeping an old home in New York. Darling’s descent into madness begins when she meets a strangely familiar man and starts hallucinating.
Darling's tale of visions and ultimate self-destruction has provided viewers with the experience of a very fascinating horror movie, praising the atmosphere and the style of the picture. On Rotten Tomatoes, Darling has received 71% positive reviews; it has to be noted that this movie is an excellent example of a modern black-and-white film.
6 We Are Still Here (2015)
We Are Still Here by Ted Geoghegan (a filmmaker and writer with a long career in horror) is about actual ghosts, but also ghosts of painful events that still linger and follow people no matter where they go. The couple Anne and Paul move to an old big house in a secluded New England town to heal after the death of their young son.
Mysterious occurrences and ominous visions ensue, as Anne swears that her son, Bobby, is haunting their house. The couple also learns that the house was originally a funeral home, whose owners were body snatchers.
5 A Ghost Story (2017)
This is one of the most surreal and sad films of the decade, with small doses of comforting – but still dark – humor. A musician who lives with his wife in a happy marriage in Dallas dies in a car crash just before they are ready to move.
He has the opportunity to move to the afterlife but chooses not to, instead opting to follow his wife back home to watch her grief and eventually try to move on with her life. He stays with the house through other families moving in and out, until the house eventually gets abandoned, all the while trying to get a note that his wife hid into the cracks before she left. The one certainty is that this film leaves audiences with a poetic feeling.
4 Ghost Stories (2017)
Ghost Stories was based on the homonymous stage play by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman that premiered in 2010 at the Liverpool Playhouse in the UK. Those who have seen both the play and the film would say that the play is more frightening, but that might be because of the theatre’s atmosphere (being in an all-dark theatre with an actor holding a flashlight with mannequins on the stage can be unnerving).
Nyman stars as Philip Goodman, a professor of parapsychology who debunks fake psychics. When he is prompted by an older psychic debunker and idol of his to explore three paranormal cases that he was never able to explain, Goodman’s firm belief in reality starts to shatter around him. As the film reaches its sinister conclusion, it becomes obvious everything is closer than it seems.
3 Under The Shadow / زیر سایه [Zeer-e Sāye] (2016)
One of the best films on the list is the 2016 Iranian production called Under the Shadow. Set in post-revolutionary Tehran during the '80s, the movie is a brilliant metaphor about fear of loss, trauma, and PTSD.
Shideh and Dorsa are devastated when they find out that Iraj, their husband and father respectively, is called to fight. As the two women are plagued by ominous feelings and nightmares in the midst of the bombs and shellings, they realize that a sinister presence may be haunting them: A djinn, a malevolent spirit that can possess humans…
2 The Autopsy Of Jane Doe (2016)
The haunting pervasiveness of The Autopsy of Jane Doe is unique; it stays with its audience long after the credits roll. Tommy and his son Austin are the sole coroners of a small town when the body of a young unidentified woman (hence, a Jane Doe) who was found in the foundations of a homicide scene is brought in.
As the two perform the autopsy, mysterious and creepy happenings begin to unnerve them. The woman’s corpse confuses them: She looks perfect on the outside but is deeply damaged inside. Did she die hours or weeks ago? They cannot escape their claustrophobic and cut-off place of work and they cannot leave unless they find answers…by concluding the autopsy of Jane Doe.
1 Hereditary (2018)
Hereditary is by far the most horrifying film on the list and a masterpiece by Ari Aster, whom audiences also know from his most recent brilliant horror movie Midsommar (2019). Annie Graham attends her mother Ellen’s funeral where she refers to their less-than-ideal terms. She later thinks she saw her mother’s apparition, while her husband finds out Ellen’s grave has been desecrated.
Peter, Annie’s older son, is forced to take his younger sister, Charlie, to a party with him (having lied that he was going to a school event); a series of ugly events result in Charlie’s death and the family left full of shock and simmering hate. Annie is convinced to do a séance, while Peter is plagued by his sister’s apparition.
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