If you watch one ghost film tonight, make it Hokum. Damian McCarthy’s film for NEON has been on Hulu since October 10: Adam Scott plays a novelist at a remote Irish inn, where the staff’s stories about a witch in the honeymoon suite start to work on him. If you would rather have a classic, take The Shining (1980) on HBO Max while it is still there. Below: what is new this October, what is about to leave, fifteen ghost films with the platform for each, and which of them has a real case behind it.

New this October

In theaters

  • Other Mommy (Universal). Rob Savage directs, James Wan produces. In US theaters since October 9, it opened at number one with an estimated $27.5 million domestic, with a 16% Rotten Tomatoes score by mid-October and a D+ CinemaScore. It is not a true story: it adapts Josh Malerman’s novel Incidents Around the House. What it is built on instead.
  • Ghost in the Cell (Joko Anwar, Indonesia). A horror-comedy from Well Go USA, in limited US theaters since October 2. Rival inmates must uncover, in Fangoria’s words, “an unseen supernatural killer haunting the facility.” No streaming date has been announced.
  • Hell House LLC (2015). The found-footage film about a haunted-house attraction returns to theaters for its tenth anniversary, October 29 to November 1, through Terror Films Releasing and Iconic Events.
  • Dead Media (Joseph Scrimshaw). An indie film about a haunted DVD, on VOD since July. Dread Central reports a theatrical roadshow, with a Los Angeles stop listed for October 17.

On streaming

  • Hokum: Hulu, October 10.
  • Infirmary: a Shudder Original, October 2. A guard’s first shift at an abandoned psychiatric hospital, told through bodycam and security cameras. The one full review we found, at Culture Crypt, is negative.
  • Haunted Hotel season 2: Netflix, October 9, eight episodes. Matt Roller’s adult animated comedy about a single mother running a hotel with the help of her dead brother’s ghost, voiced by Will Forte.
  • Ghost Adventures season 31: Discovery Channel since September 30, with new episodes on discovery+ and HBO Max the next day.
  • Ghosts (CBS): a two-episode Halloween special on October 29. Seasons one to five are on Paramount+.
  • Hunting Matthew Nichols: Shudder, October 31. A scripted Canadian film dressed as a true-crime documentary about two boys who vanished on Vancouver Island in 2001; the boys and their town are invented.
  • Library additions. Netflix added The Sixth Sense and Crimson Peak on October 1. Shudder, whose 2026 Halloween programme is called “Season of Screams” and runs September 1 to December 31 (schedule), added The Haunting (1963), Lake Mungo, Insidious, Session 9 and the Korean found-footage film Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum on October 1, and adds the British portmanteau Dead of Night (1945) on October 21.

One film you will see mentioned is not here yet. What Happened to Doris?, with Heather Graham as Doris Bither, premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 20, but GVN Releasing lists it as coming in 2027. The case it retells is the one behind The Entity.

Leaving soon: watch these before Halloween night

JustWatch lists five ghost and possession films as leaving HBO Max around the end of October: The Shining, Poltergeist (1982), The Exorcist, Hereditary and Talk to Me. The same countdown appears on Paranormal Activity at Peacock and The Sixth Sense at Hulu.

The Shining has a real place behind it, not a real case. Stephen King spent one night at the Stanley Hotel in 1974, and the hotel became the Overlook, though his novel says the Overlook exists “wholly in the author’s imagination.” Poltergeist claims no real case at all.

The watchlist: fifteen ghost films and where to stream them

Grouped by the kind of ghost they offer. For how those kinds differ, see three kinds of ghost movie.

Haunted house

  • The Haunting (1963, Robert Wise). Shudder, AMC+, Philo. The real case: none; it adapts Shirley Jackson’s novel.
  • The Others (2001, Alejandro Amenábar). Shudder, AMC+, Philo. The real case: none.
  • The Changeling (1980, Peter Medak). Free on Tubi, Pluto TV, Plex and YouTube. The real case: claimed. Playwright Russell Hunter said he lived through the events at the Henry Treat Rogers mansion near Denver’s Cheesman Park in the late 1960s; the Denver Public Library has no record of him living there.
  • The Conjuring (2013, James Wan). HBO Max. The real case: the Perron family, who moved into a farmhouse in Harrisville, Rhode Island, in 1971; Ed and Lorraine Warren investigated. What the record shows.
  • The Conjuring 2 (2016). HBO Max. The real case: the Enfield poltergeist, centered on Janet and Margaret Hodgson at 284 Green Street, 1977 to 1979. The sisters later admitted faking some of the activity, and a camera caught Janet bending spoons.

Possession

  • The Exorcist (1973, William Friedkin). HBO Max, leaving. The real case: the 1949 exorcisms of a 14-year-old boy known as “Roland Doe,” in Cottage City, Maryland, and St. Louis. Researcher Mark Opsasnick called him “a very clever trickster.”
  • Hereditary (2018, Ari Aster). Hulu, Prime Video, HBO Max (leaving); free on Kanopy and Hoopla. The real case: none.
  • Talk to Me (2023, Danny and Michael Philippou). HBO Max (leaving); free on The Roku Channel, Plex and Kanopy. The real case: none.

Found footage

  • Paranormal Activity (2009, Oren Peli). Paramount+, Starz, Peacock (leaving). The real case: none. How the camera became the haunting.
  • Lake Mungo (2008, Joel Anderson). Shudder, AMC+; free on Tubi, Plex and Kanopy. The real case: none. It is a fictional pseudo-documentary that many viewers take for a real one.

Older than both, and made for television: Ghostwatch (1992), a scripted BBC drama broadcast as a live ghost hunt on Halloween night, streams on Shudder and AMC+.

Ghost story

  • The Sixth Sense (1999, M. Night Shyamalan). Netflix since October 1, and Hulu (leaving). The real case: none.
  • The Entity (1982, Sidney J. Furie). Prime Video, including the ad-supported tier; there is no digital rental. The real case: Doris Bither, who in 1974 said she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by an invisible attacker. Researchers from UCLA’s parapsychology lab documented the case.

Not in English

  • Ring (1998, Hideo Nakata, Japan). MUBI; free on Tubi and Kanopy. The real case: partly. Sadako’s story draws on the Okiku legend of the well and on two real early-20th-century psychics, Sadako Takahashi and Chizuko Mifune. Tomokichi Fukurai studied Takahashi, and his work influenced novelist Koji Suzuki.
  • The Devil’s Backbone (2001, Guillermo del Toro, Spain and Mexico). No subscription service; free on Tubi and Fawesome. The real case: none.

Comedy

  • Ghostbusters (1984, Ivan Reitman). Hulu since October 1; free on Fandango at Home Free. The real case: none, but a real family behind it. Dan Aykroyd’s great-grandfather was “a renowned spiritualist,” and his grandfather experimented with radios to contact the dead.

The full account of which films rest on a real case, and how much of each holds up, is in ghost movies based on true stories.

Two ghost films are in the US public domain and free to watch on the Internet Archive.

  • Carnival of Souls (1962, Herk Harvey). Public domain in the US because it lacked a valid copyright notice. Watch the archive.org copy; the Criterion restoration is a separate product.
  • The Phantom Carriage (Körkarlen, 1921, Victor Sjöström, Sweden). Public domain by date, released before 1931. On New Year’s Eve, Death’s carriage driver comes to collect. Watch the archive.org copy, and skip uploads that add a modern score or a commentary track, which may be under copyright.

House on Haunted Hill (1959, William Castle) is widely shared free on archive.org and often described as public domain, but its status is disputed: one library catalogue record reports a 1987 renewal. We have not confirmed either way.

Several films above are also free with a library card, through Kanopy or Hoopla.

The Phantom Carriage opened in Sweden on January 1, 1921, a New Year’s Day release about a New Year’s Eve ghost. A hundred and five years later its driver is still making the rounds, on a server, for anyone who calls him up.