| Director | Roman Polanski |
|---|---|
| Budget | $45 million |
| Box office | $60.3 million |
A nameless British ghostwriter is hired by London-based publishing firm Rhinehart, Inc. to complete the autobiography of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang after the original ghost, Lang's aide Mike McAra, dies in an apparent drowning accident. The Ghost travels to Old Haven on Martha's Vineyard, where Lang and his wife Ruth are staying at a complex with Lang's personal assistant, Amelia Bly. As Lang's time as prime minister is marred by his involvement in the war on terror, the Ghost encounters anti-war demonstrators and activists who are protesting Lang's presence on the island.
As the Ghost works on the book, former British Foreign Secretary Richard Rycart accuses Lang of authorizing the extraordinary rendition of terrorists. Lang faces prosecution by the International Criminal Court if he leaves the United States and is rushed to Washington, DC, for PR, while the Ghost finds a hidden envelope under a clothes drawer. The envelope contains photographs that contradict Lang's claims about his past, including that he and Ruth met at Cambridge University, and the personal phone number of Rycart.
The Ghost probes the death of McAra and investigates the shore where his body was found, where he is told by a resident the tides would not deposit a body on the beach. The Ghost grows more suspicious when Ruth reveals that Lang and McAra argued the night before he died. The Ghost uses McAra's old car to return to his hotel, but instead follows pre-programmed directions on the car's satellite navigation system, which takes him to the Belmont home of Harvard Professor Paul Emmett. The Ghost questions Emmett, who denies ever having met McAra and having only a cursory acquaintance with Lang, becoming more evasive when the Ghost presents him with evidence that shows otherwise.
The Ghost attempts to return to Martha's Vineyard, but remains on the mainland when he is followed to the ferry. With no one else to turn to, he phones Rycart for help, who agrees to a meeting. The Ghost researches links between Emmett, a military contractor, and the CIA. Rycart reveals McAra discovered Lang's involvement in so-called "torture flights", in which terrorist suspects were tortured while airborne on private planes. In regard to Emmett's relationship with Lang, Rycart recounts how Lang's decisions as Prime Minister uniformly benefited US interests, and says McAra found new evidence that he supposedly wrote about in the "beginning of the manuscript", but they find nothing written in the early pages.
Bly contacts the Ghost, offering to have him flown back to Old Haven aboard Lang's private executive jet on its return from DC. Rycart encourages him to do so, where on board Lang angrily refutes the Ghost's suggestion he was recruited as a CIA agent by Emmett. When the plane lands in Old Haven, Lang is assassinated by an activist, and the Ghost is subsequently asked to complete the book for posthumous publication. At the book's launch in London, the Ghost learns that Emmett tutored Ruth when she was at Harvard. After Bly mentions the "beginnings" of the original manuscript, the Ghost inspects the first word of each chapter, discovering the message: "Lang's wife Ruth was recruited as a CIA agent by Professor Paul Emmett of Harvard University." The Ghost passes a note to Ruth revealing his discovery; perturbed, Ruth attempts to confront the Ghost, but he leaves the building and attempts to flag down a taxi in the street, when a car accelerates in his direction, a crash is heard, and the pages of the manuscript scatter in the wind.