‘A Useful Ghost’ Trailer – Thai Oscar Entry is an Eerie Supernatural Black Comedy Drama

A ghost returns from beyond the grave, but not as you expect. In A Useful Ghost, the recently deceased Nat (played by Davika Hoorne) literally haunts her husband’s life by possessing a vacuum cleaner, determined to prove that even in death, love (and utility) endures.

Also starring in the film are Witsarut Himmarat as March, the grieving husband; Apasiri Nitibhon, Wanlop Rungkumjad, and Wisarut Homhuan.

Directed by Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, A Useful Ghost world premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, in the Critics’ Week section, where it took home the top honor, the Grand Prix. Since then, it went on to screen at the Chicago International Film Festival and others. It was selected as the Thai entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards

Cineverse is slated to release the film in theaters in the US on January 16, 2026

In the black comedy film, March is mourning his wife Nat who has recently passed away due to dust pollution. He discovers her spirit has returned by possessing a vacuum cleaner. Disturbed by a ghost that appeared after a worker’s death shut down their factory, his family reject their unconventional human-ghost relationship. Trying to convince them of their love, Nat offers to cleanse the factory. To become a useful ghost, she must first get rid of the useless ones.

Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke has said that A Useful Ghost uses fantastical elements – ghosts, haunted appliances, reverberations of memory, to explore grief, social injustice, and collective memory in modern Thailand.

“One of the main intentions for the film would be [to talk about] how we deal with injustice in the past,” says Ratchapoom. “There’s so many people who suffered, who got punished, who disappeared.”

The Wrap in their review praised A Useful Ghost as ‘a humorous and haunting gem’ writing, “this is no mere twisty supernatural horror to be forced into neat genre classifications. It’s a work that flaunts all expectations with a disposition as gloriously and gracefully silly as it is incisive and illuminating.”

Watch the official trailer for A Useful Ghost, above.