An Entertaining Ghost Trailer: Thailand's Submission for the Oscars and Cannes Champion Set to Premiere This January

      One of the most confidently executed debut films I encountered last year, Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s A Useful Ghost presents an intriguing and captivating paranormal narrative. It premiered at Cannes’ Semaine de la Critique, where it won the Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prize, and has been selected as Thailand’s official entry for the Oscars. It is set to be released in U.S. theaters on January 16, 2026. In anticipation of the launch, Cineverse has released a new trailer and poster.

      Here’s the synopsis: “March is grieving for his wife Nat, who has recently died due to dust pollution. He finds that her spirit has returned, possessing a vacuum cleaner. Troubled by a ghost that materialized following a worker's death that led to their factory's closure, his family disapproves of their unusual human-ghost connection. In an effort to prove their love, Nat proposes to cleanse the factory. To become a useful ghost, she must first eliminate the useless ones.”

      In my review, I remarked, “While ghosts and spirits have traditionally been used for cinematic thrills and frights, from The Innocents to Poltergeist to The Ring, a recent trend in filmmaking focused on the supernatural has shifted towards examining the real, emotional impacts these apparitions can have on the living. In this regard, akin to works like Uncle Boonmee, Personal Shopper, A Ghost Story, and Light from Light, Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s directorial debut A Useful Ghost offers a peculiar, serene, and humorous investigation of the dilemmas that would arise if ghosts were an accepted part of everyday life, and what such entities might reveal about the social and political challenges in contemporary Thailand and industrialization as a whole.”

      Check out the trailer and poster below.