Back to trending
Ghostlight

Ghostlight

Comedy · Drama · 2024

When melancholic construction worker Dan finds himself drifting from his wife and daughter, he discovers community and purpose in a local theater's production of Romeo and Juliet. As the drama onstage starts to mirror his own life, he and his family are forced to confront a personal loss.

Movie details

Ghostlight

2024 Comedy · Drama 1h 55m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

7.2 / 10

Community rating

When melancholic construction worker Dan finds himself drifting from his wife and daughter, he discovers community and purpose in a local theater's production of Romeo and Juliet. As the drama onstage starts to mirror his own life, he and his family are forced to confront a personal loss.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Ghostlight?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

The Royal Tenenbaums

The Royal Tenenbaums

Comedy · 2001

Royal Tenenbaum and his wife Etheline had three children and then they separated. All three children are extraordinary --- all geniuses. Virtually all memory of the brilliance of the young Tenenbaums was subsequently erased by two decades of betrayal, failure, and disaster. Most of this was generally considered to be their father's fault. "The Royal Tenenbaums" is the story of the family's sudden, unexpected reunion one recent winter.

Rudderless

Rudderless

Music · 2014

A grieving father in a downward spiral stumbles across a box of his recently deceased son's demo tapes and lyrics. Shocked by the discovery of this unknown talent, he forms a band in the hope of finding some catharsis.

Goodbye June

Goodbye June

Drama · 2025

Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.

The Safety of Objects

The Safety of Objects

Drama · 2002

In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.

Daddy Longlegs

Daddy Longlegs

Drama · 2010

After months of living a solitary existence, Lenny, 34, picks up his kids from school. Every year he spends a couple of weeks with his sons Sage, 9, and Frey, 7. Lenny hosts his kids within a midtown studio apartment in New York. During these two weeks, he must figure out if he wants to act as their father or be their friend. Ultimately, their trip upstate results in complete lawlessness taking over their lives.

Marriage Story

Marriage Story

Drama · 2019

A stage director and an actress struggle through a grueling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal extremes.

Magnolia

Magnolia

Drama · 1999

On one random day in the San Fernando Valley, a dying father, a young wife, a male caretaker, a famous lost son, a police officer in love, a boy genius, an ex-boy genius, a game show host and an estranged daughter will each become part of a dazzling multiplicity of plots, but one story.

Igby Goes Down

Igby Goes Down

Comedy · 2002

Igby Slocumb, a rebellious and sarcastic 17-year-old boy, is at war with the stifling world of old money privilege he was born into. With a schizophrenic father, a self-absorbed, distant mother, and a shark-like young Republican big brother, Igby figures there must be a better life out there -- and sets about finding it.

This Is Where I Leave You

This Is Where I Leave You

Drama · 2014

When their father passes away, four grown, world-weary siblings return to their childhood home and are requested -- with an admonition -- to stay there together for a week, along with their free-speaking mother and a collection of spouses, exes and might-have-beens. As the brothers and sisters re-examine their shared history and the status of each tattered relationship among those who know and love them best, they reconnect in hysterically funny and emotionally significant ways.

Madeline's Madeline

Madeline's Madeline

Drama · 2018

Madeline has become an integral part of a prestigious physical theater troupe. When the workshop's ambitious director pushes the teenager to weave her rich interior world and troubled history with her mother into their collective art, the lines between performance and reality begin to blur. The resulting battle between imagination and appropriation rips out of the rehearsal space and through all three women's lives.

Where it lives

Watch in your region.

Cinema release signals and current streaming, rental, and purchase options for your region.

Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.

Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Alex Thompson · Kelly O'Sullivan

Written by

Kelly O'Sullivan

Keith Kupferer

Keith Kupferer

Dan Mueller

Katherine Mallen Kupferer

Katherine Mallen Kupferer

Daisy

Tara Mallen

Tara Mallen

Sharon

Dolly de Leon

Dolly de Leon

Rita

Hanna Dworkin

Hanna Dworkin

Lanora

Tommy Rivera-Vega

Tommy Rivera-Vega

Lucian

Alma Washington

Alma Washington

Moira

Court is in session

Put Ghostlight on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.