Sightlines · reception

How Presence was received

2025 · Steven Soderbergh · Presence on Sightlines

The arc

It premiered at Sundance in January 2024 to warm, curious reviews and reached theaters through Neon a year later. It found a respectable audience for a micro-budget experiment. It's too new for a real reappraisal, but it's starting to look like one of the cleverest small swings of Soderbergh's late-career run.

What’s debated

Is the ghost's-eye-view a deep idea or just a gimmick? Viewers split hardest over the ending, which some call a gut-punch and others call a cheap rug-pull.

Where it stands

It's a well-liked curio among Soderbergh fans and a frequent pick for 'smart, slow-burn haunted house' lists, though it isn't canon yet.

Did you know? Soderbergh operated the camera himself. The whole film unfolds in unbroken long takes from the ghost's point of view. It was his second collaboration with screenwriter David Koepp after Kimi, and their next one, Black Bag, opened just two months after Presence in early 2025.