A Ghost Story (2017)

Stars	User	Rating
8	FrederikA	60 _50th
Someone looked at a pretty good 20 minute short story and decided to make it theatrical-release ready, simply by extending every. single. shot. as far as they allowed until they reached the magical 90 minute mark. I don't care how off beat and meandering you want to make your film: watching Rooney Mara eating a pie for five straight minutes while Casey Affleck looks on from the corner wearing a sheet, does not constitute a scene that needs to be in any film.
7	NothingsGood	40 _33rd
Probably the best movie where the main character wears a bedsheet with eyeholes ever made.
6	Obdurate	85 _80th
First 20 mins or so I thought this was going to just be a slog, but it became so much more. Full of great imagery, it is incredibly slow, but before I knew it I realized it was subtly fucking me up. Not in some disturbed fashion, but with some existential sadness, an intense longing; I began to feel for this ghost that roams a specific spot, watching life unfold, the loneliness it would feel, the confusion. The aspect ratio did make it feel "boxed in" and more intimate, older.
5	Hawkins	62 _29th
Couldn't help but wonder how often Casey Affleck was checking his phone under that sheet, and how much of that was his brother taunting him with pictures of himself in a metal batman suit. I liked the afterlife-as-cinema vibe, a silent observer subject to the dilation of montage and long take, trying to pull some meaning out. Will Oldham's long monologue drops the quality but the last third of the movie recovers the fumble.
4	glumpy_99	62 _20th
Intriguing meditative fantasy is difficult to unpack on a single viewing, and it's unclear whether there is really anything substantive here - it feels like the last 5 minutes of 2001 stretched to feature length, and Lowery seems to be borrowing from the Kubrick playbook in terms of shot choices and composition as well as a coldly alienating tone. Lingers to the point of irritation in the first half; a clunky exposition monologue in the middle doesn't help matters before an intriguing finale.
4	backwardsuit	71 _53rd
Can you film a cosmic poem about life, the universe & everything without being comedic or pretentious? Yes just watch Le quattro volte or Uncle Boonmee. This hipsterized attempt is trying so hard I can't really call it seamless or humbled in a way that elevated those efforts. I can't really call it a failure either. Some beautiful haunting moments work as a refreshing antidote to a lot of American cinema. Just too forced & single-minded to be as deep or reflective as it seems to think it is.
3	frederic_g54	6 _35th
Rumor has it, Casey Affleck is still wearing that sheet.
3	sellis	73 _43rd
Not quite as psychologically detailed as it could've been. There's so much potential in its simple setup, especially with its leads. The sound design, score, and cinematography are a treasure. And the editing of time establishes a tragically inevitable tone. You can feel the ghost's helplessness; how lost in time and space he is. These are the film's strengths. My problem arises from the filmmaker making it very clear what themes it's exploring, but not what each scene is saying about them.
3	AAAutin	35 _21st
Sheet.
3	hellboy76	68 _65th
I can see what this is trying to do and many times it achieves it, but other times you are stuck in prolonged indie hell and are ready to gouge your eyes out. The highlights are very very high and outweigh the cringy art house scat though.
2	twincinema	80 _75th
There's something so intriguing about the simplicity of this film. It's not a horror film, but it is somewhat haunting because of its existential longing. I wonder if that was really Affleck under the sheet? I also realize that the use of "existential longing" will turn off a lot of people from this film.
2	Dean Franz	20 _21st
Full on hated this movie for the first 30 minutes or so. After that it picks up the pace a great deal, apart from a long ass monologue from Will Oldham (who I otherwise really like, but who's insufferable here). The quality, unfortunately, is pretty damn low throughout. This is an amateurish slog clearly built around a short film and never fleshed out to anything meaningful. A glib catalogue of annoying indie-shorthand techniques.
2	omgfridge	10 _97th
I sat silently as the credits rolled in awe and a few hours later found myself watching it all again. A moving piece of work about love, loss and life itself. The shots are breathtaking, the sound is incredible, the use of time is mesmerizing, A Ghost Story is unequivocally haunting.
2	wetwillies	80 _37th
For something so carefully assembled, atmospheric and thoughtful, it reveals itself as vapid with astonishing speed - perhaps that's harsh, but there's nothing about overall man's rant in the final third that doesn't unpleasantly bludgeon the audience with the big ideas that the rest of its soul-searching kept close to its vest.
2	Matthew Parkinson (CineMarter)	100 _99th
It'll be a shock if A Ghost Story doesn't wind up being one of my top films of 2017. This is a thoughtful, emotional, and intelligent take on love, loss, legacy, death, and time. It's a slow-paced film that gives you lots of opportunities to think and reflect, and while it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, if you think it'll be yours there's a good chance that you'll really fall in love with it. A Ghost Story is truly fantastic cinema. [Full Review]
2	guy piranha	70 _69th
people live, people die, empires rise and fall...but the KKK is eternal!
2	bof	73 _66th
I had a joke about Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore all lined up, but damnitalltohell (or don't, as it were), this movie deserves better than that. Sure it thinks it's smarter than it is, and Will Oldham pretty much said the same thing in 4 1/2 minutes in "Death To Everyone", but don't credit it with being TOO deep and it's really kind of beautiful.
2	mattorama12	61 _37th
On the one hand, it was extremely slow at points. But, on the other hand, the most interesting thing about the movie was the way it made you think about time itself, and I don't think it would have had the same effect without some of the tedious scenes. So credit for achievement in that regard, but just did not leave me with too much else.
2	Adam P-D	60 _71st
I love the tone of this film but if I was at that party with Will Oldham, I'd have excused myself to go find another conversation. Such an excruciatingly boring scene! The period stuff is a bit sloppy too (aesthetically as well as politically).
1	schnofel	89 _97th
Will Oldham's nihilistic rant is in stark contrast to the needs of this ghost and everyone else we see. Cut off from love and belonging it moves through this world disembodied, not understanding. History repeats and doubles back until there comes a moment of remembrance, something that is rightfully hidden from us. I don't know how Malick copycat Lowery achieved these simple, elegant motions but holy shit, he made an essential love story.
1	Actionberg	85 _84th
In cliché parlance, this is What American Indies Should Aspire to Be. It's a little rough around the edges but that's probably more to its benefit. It's a bold, beautifully depicted story of a soul unmoored from time.
1	Alex Watkins	4 _70th
Retains just enough ambiguity to remain a touching evocation of the ineffable and ephemeral nature of love. The way it slowly disposes of its protagonists until they're dwarfed by time and the universe is admirably bold. If it has a weakness, it's that goddamn Will Oldham scene; no need to state the film's central thesis through the mouth of an incredibly annoying character.
1	AFlickering	4 _58th
lowery has called it BEETLEJUICE or POLTERGEIST by way of apichatpong or tsai, and sure, the uncanny resonance of its central conceit brings e.g. BOONMEE to mind. his muse is still malick however, rerouting the language of the ghost genre toward an evocation of being in time, provoking heideggerian angst with a visualisation of the eternal recurrence. ultimately, the nihilism embodied by will oldham (in a deliberately obnoxious film's most deliberately obnoxious scene) is firmly dismissed.
1	KasperL	50 _30th
If you're patient - really patient - it has some rather poignant moments. And all the shots of Casey Affleck in a sheet work surprisingly well.
1	Detox	48 _20th
Wants you to feel the REALLY BIG EMOTIONS for almost THE ENTIRE RUNTIME. Fails of course. I felt nothing.
1	Neonman	89 _90th
Boldly takes us through time and the universe (and further if it had had the budget), following its own ghost logic. This film treads the same existential non-narrative paths of Malick and Reygadas, as well as Noe's Enter the Void, though all the emotionally with-held pieces that make this up end up producing an intoxicating and awe-inspiring effect. An original piece of work that sure will tickle the souls of some film-goers.
1	moraesfelipe	45 _24th
The idea of a ghost terrorized by time -- in house that haunts him with new people coming in and even a building taking place in a Blade Runner-like world -- seems brilliant, but it's just too bad that Lowery relies on arthouse indieness bullshit than true thought-provoking cinema. He literally prefers the most comfortable to shoot it -- like an Instagram account -- and uses silences and dead times to unfold the dullest possible trasncendental love story. It's that OTHER Ghost done the wrong way
1	WWallce4prez	83 _82nd
I came for the Instagrammed-framed pie, but left with the understanding that Lowery's film is something special. The profound vastness of time is intimately explored in an unassuming, and odd, way. The melancholy this exploration emotes is impressive. I never thought I would be so moved to see a bedsheets drop to the floor.
1	deaddilly	85 _84th
Meandering yet innovative, primitive yet wise - A Ghost Story is The sort of Malick-ian variety of arthouse film I was so anticipating. An entrancing journey that consumes all.
1	MArkjp	50 _28th
What a neat trailer. Should have left it at that.
1	axleblaze	90 _77th
A strange, slow and eerie film that somehow makes you take Casey Affleck wearing a sheet with holes for eyes very seriously.
1	Jerky	60 _72nd
The last 2/3rds of the film landed and saved it, but the first 3rd was as slow as molasses running uphill in the snow. Somebody needs to tell the director that it's ok to yell "cut". Too many shots went on for way too long. Seriously, there's a 5 minute scene of Rooney Mara eating a pie....and not sexually! It was a 60 minute story stretched over 90 minutes, but I really liked their idea of the afterlife...or semi afterlife if you will.
1	natebarrios	70 _56th
wholly unique and original, with an execution that will work only for a select audience. fans of slow cinema: this is for you.
1	deep_green	60 _39th
Works a particular angle reasonably well, namely, David Lowery's sad, small, lonely movie. At it's most insignificant also when it is most evidently an 'indie' movie, which you can really feel a lot.
1	Yiannos	48 _19th
A total ape job of recent audio-visual trends in 'slow cinema' combined with loose genre elements and a vaguely Malicky attempt to link personal loss/grief with a bigger statement about time and mortality. When it focuses on the personal, it's a mildly effective, if obvious, mood piece that approximates an infantile quasi-hipster American take on this stylistic mode, but It falters when it strives for a deeper meaning, most embarassingly in a pessimistic monologue that recalls The Turin Horse.
1	Ippei	50 _12th
A fascinating concept and pretty well executed. The only problem is that it's too conceptual and too arthouse-y for your average movie viewer and the novelty quickly wears out its welcome. Maybe I missed the point of this film or it was too deep for me, but I didn't get what they were trying to say, and this really impeded my enjoyment of this film.
1	Byder	75 _80th
2spooky4me
1	RuruSmasher	90 _75th
Hauntingly beautiful. (Sorry, but it's true) It's something that has to be felt and engaged emotionally with. Loved the music and the sound design, the editing that jumps in time and the painfully long (that some would call slow) moments and how it plays with the relativity of time. Side note: I was glad that Affleck's face was under a sheet the whole time. Fuck that guy.
1	SageSledge	100 _91st
Wordless in its beauty and hypnotic in its form, "A Ghost Story" is unlike anything you've ever seen.
1	feublo	80 _57th
A beautiful take at the enormity of the universe. Aside from really appreciating the cinematography, I completely connected with the enmity of time during grief. Lowery's insight on existentialism through the haunting of one's soul was interesting and thought provoking. Although I don't think it's a film for everyone, this worked for me.
1	DarkNights	82 _88th
C'est fou, c'est beau, c'est fascinant. On y regarde les images, le vide, le flou et le paysage comme par une fenêtre ouverte. Des silhouettes s'y inscrivent. De dos, la plupart du temps, comme pour mieux nous faire sentir ce besoin d'aller de l'avant. Un véritable ovni à découvrir !

Average Percentile 57.49% from 1342 Ratings