Film
Ghosts
Other titles called Ghosts: the 2019 series (BBC iPlayer), the 2021 series (CBS).
Judi Dench commands Henrik Ibsen's masterpiece about respectability, inheritance, and the lies families tell themselves. A widow prepares to honour her dead husband's memory, only to have the past detonate during one tense evening. Austere, chamber-like, devastating—it's intellectual theatre that moves with genuine emotional force.
If you liked this
A Doll's House1973
Another Ibsen adaptation about a marriage built on deception and the moment it shatters. Jane Fonda's Nora discovers who she actually is in the wreckage. Essential feminist literature, brutally well-executed.
But Dated in some visual choices. The ending remains deliberately uncomfortable, which is the point, but some find it dramatically abrupt.
Shadowlands1993
Richard Attenborough directs Anthony Hopkins as C.S. Lewis falling in love with an American poet he meets by correspondence. Grief, intellectual passion, and the gap between what we tell ourselves and what's true. Quietly devastating.
But Moves slowly. If you need constant plot momentum rather than character revelation, it'll feel like nothing happens until everything does.
Long Day's Journey Into Night1962
Eugene O'Neill's greatest play, directed by Sidney Lumet with extraordinary restraint. A family of addicts, liars, and dreamers trapped in one house, secrets unravelling across twelve hours. Ibsen's spiritual cousin.
But Four hours of American trauma without much light or air. Deliberately, relentlessly bleak. Not a film you watch for pleasure, exactly.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Ghosts
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Marriage of Maria Braun1979
Both dissect respectability as a woman's prison; both suggest that what a family keeps hidden is what it was built on.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder's masterwork follows a German woman navigating post-war survival through pragmatism and performance. Like Ghosts, it's about what a woman must hide and the cost of keeping up appearances in a corrupt world. Formally audacious—every frame is composed, controlled, suffocating.
But It's a critique of German capitalism and complicity told through a woman's sexual transactions. Uncomfortable, darkly funny, and refuses easy sympathy. Glacial pacing by design.
More like this (8)
The Crucible1996
Arthur Miller's Salem witch trials as allegory for McCarthyism and moral panic. Daniel Day-Lewis as John Proctor, wrestling with pride, principle, and whether confession to a lie is survival or damnation. Theatre of ideas with genuine stakes.
But You need to follow theological and political argument to feel its weight. Not a plot-driven thriller, despite the courtroom machinery.
The Deep Blue Sea2011
Terence Davies directs Rachel Weisz in a chamber drama about a woman's breakdown after her lover leaves. Post-war London, class, desire, and the quiet horror of being trapped in your own life. Exquisitely sad.
But Nothing external happens. It's entirely interior—a woman falling apart in a room. If you want action, look elsewhere.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?1966
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton wage intellectual and emotional warfare across one night. Albee's play is savage about marriage, performance, and the cruelty beneath civility. Ferociously entertaining and real.
But Both leads are at full volume for two hours. The shouting and drinking can feel like endurance rather than drama if you're not on its wavelength.
The Father2020
Anthony Hopkins in his final major role as a man losing his grip on reality. It's formally inventive—locations shift, identities blur—making you feel his confusion. Grief and deterioration rendered with precision and tenderness.
But Deliberately disorientating, which serves the story but can feel gimmicky. Some find the technique more clever than moving.
An Enemy of the People1978
Steve Reeves (yes, the Hercules actor) in another Ibsen adaptation about a doctor who discovers his town's water supply is poisoned and watches society turn against him. Political, prescient, about what truth costs.
But Obscure and episodic. The production values are modest. You're watching this for the idea, not the craft of filmmaking.
Taste of Cherry1997
Abbas Kiarostami's Iranian masterpiece about a man driving through Tehran encountering passengers on the eve of his suicide. Philosophical, patient, about meaning and connection. A film that sits with you for months.
But Minimal plot. A series of conversations in a car going nowhere geographically. Demands active, meditative attention and trust.
Ikiru1952
Both show a person late in life confronting that their entire existence was performance; both ask what authentic living looks like when it's probably too late.
Akira Kurosawa's film about a Tokyo bureaucrat discovering he's dying and questioning everything his orderly life meant. A meditation on legacy, inherited duty, and whether living properly matters if nothing you've done was ever truly yours. Japanese cinema's answer to Ibsen's questions about authenticity and purpose.
But Slow, interior, sometimes feels like a philosophy lecture. The second half is almost abstract. You're watching a man's existential reckoning, not a plot.
Mother2009
Like Ghosts, a family secret detonates in the present; like Ghosts, a parent's actions from the past define their child's life. But it's wrapped in genre, faster, and arrived from cinema, not the stage.
Bong Joon-ho's Korean thriller about a mother protecting her son from a murder charge. It's a noir plot, but structured like a Greek tragedy—the 'truth' is a moving target, and maternal love is both redemptive and morally corrosive. Genre wrapping around a chamber play.
But It's a mystery-thriller that subverts those genres entirely. If you want conventional suspense, you'll feel manipulated. Tense, dark, and morally queasy.
People
Cast
Judi DenchHelene Alving
Michael GambonPastor Manders
Kenneth BranaghOswald Alving
Natasha RichardsonRegina Engstrand
Freddie JonesJacob Engstrand
Directing
- Elijah MoshinskyDirector
Writing
- Henrik IbsenTheatre Play
- Michael MeyerWriter
Production
- Louis MarksProducer