Sundance 2017: 10 Films Everyone Is Buzzing About

1. A Ghost Story

Brigsby Bear
A24

Director: David Lowery

The Plot: A Ghost Story centres on a nameless couple (Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara) who move into a new home.

After Affleck's character dies in a car crash, he becomes a ghost (though the special effects are limited to a white sheet with eyeholes cut out), watching his girlfriend as she recovers from her grief, moves out of the house and moves on.

Affleck is then left to observe the house's future occupants, including a Spanish single-mother and an amateur philosopher.

The Buzz: While that concept does sound rather wacky, A Ghost Story isn't a fantasy-horror, it isn't sensationalized and it isn't overly melodramatic.

It revels in the quieter moments. It's so quiet, in fact, that it doesn't really give you any answers, and filmgoers who enjoy those speculative, open-ended type movies will find lots to theorize and discuss here.

Director Lowery opted to shoot in the nearly square 4:3 aspect ratio, an interesting creative choice that, when combined with the inherent ridiculousness of the 'ghost' and his sheet, lends the movie a slightly offbeat vibe.

Casey Affleck was the talk of Sundance last year with Manchester By The Sea, and by all accounts, he's got another success on his hands this year too.

A Ghost Story doesn't yet have a wide release date, but expect to be hearing much more about it during the 2018 awards season.

Any films we missed? Which of these excites you the most? Let us know in the comments below!

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Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.