Ghosts are supernatural inhabitants of the spiritual world who often   reveal themselves as shadowy, transparent forms. Some classic Hollywood film ghost stories have included:

• Topper (1937) starring Cary Grant and Constance Bennett as the fun-loving spirits of two people who died in a car crash and returned to haunt Cosmo Topper (Roland Young), a stuffy banker.
• The Canterville Ghost (1944) starring Charles Laughton in an Oscar Wilde story about an aristocratic ghost doomed to roam his ancestral home.
• The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) starring Gene Tierney as Mrs. Muir, a woman who moved into a New England coastal cottage to find it inhabited by the ghost of a sea captain.
• A Christmas Carol (1951) starring Alastair Sim as the penny-pinching Ebenezer Scrooge and his midnight encounter with a series of prophetic ghosts.
• The Haunting (1963) starring Julie Harris in a tale based on Shirley Jackson's story of a haunted mansion.
• Blackbeard's Ghost (1968) a Disney film with Peter Ustinov starring as the ghost of a legendary pirate.
• Poltergeist (1981) a slick Steven Spielberg movie starring Craig T. Nelson in a supernatural tale of a family whose home (built over a graveyard) was invaded by unfriendly spirits.
• Ghostbusters (1984) starring Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd as a team of paranormal investigators who rescue New York City from apocryphal destruction.
• Beetlejuice (1988) starring Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis as a newly deceased couple who were assisted in their afterlife experience by a zany, precocious spirit named Betelguese played by Michael Keaton.
• Ghost (1990) starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore in a romantic tale of the spirit of a slain lover who tries to reach across from the dead to save his girlfriend's life from mortal danger with the help of a spiritual medium played by Whoopi Goldberg
• Casper (1995) a Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment live-action special effects movie based on the theatrical cartoon character.

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