Thailand punches above its weight in film creativity and cross-border appeal. Here's why

Australia Broadcast Center

11-07-2025

A Useful Ghost, an internationally acclaimed new film from Thailand, features a woman who dies from dust pollution and returns to posses her husband's vacuum cleaner to protect him from suffering the same fate.
It's a sly commentary about power inequality, queer love, and pollution.
Written and directed by Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, the indy film premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and was the first Thai film to win a Critics' Week grand prize, or Grand Prix.
The award recognises early filmmakers.
A Useful Ghost was Boonbunchachoke's debut feature and the first "proper film shoot" he had been on.
Judges described the film as bold, free and unclassifiable, "a first feature that plays with genres, bends the rules, and offers a vision that is both intimate and universal."
It's just the latest in a slew of Thai drams turning heads abroad as the industry builds on its reputation for distinctiveness and creativity.
Last year, humorous tear-jerker How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies set a new Thai record for international box office takings.
Mad Unicorn — a series about a start-up courier service — reached fourth on Netflix's weekly top 10 for non-English series last month.
Other successful productions included Master of the House and Ready, Set, Love, and Hunger, both on Netflix.
According to audience analytics firm Media Asia Partners (MPA), Thai content among South-East Asian nations had the most cross-border appeal in Asia.
The "travelability" of Thai content (how much of it was consumed overseas vs domestically) was even catching up to Japan, the agency found.
So, what is it about Thai cinema that's pulling audiences from around the globe?
Thai people loved a good drama, A Useful Ghost writer-director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke told the ABC.
He said they measured a film's success by how emotive it was, driving creators to make dramatic and emotionally rich films.
"Thai film is like Thai food — the flavour needs to be strong," he said.
"Culturally authentic" hyperlocal elements in film also resonated with audiences, said Mary Ainslie, an associate professor in film and media studies at the University of Nottingham.
Besides seeing representations of local identity, these depictions appealed to foreign audiences because that knowledge made them "cultural insiders", she said.
"That's about constructing yourself as a very cosmopolitan person, and that's very attractive."
Being over-the-top is not limited to drama series or movies.
Advertising is often where film directors cut their teeth before producing feature films and Thai commercials have a reputation for being "consistently" creative and unconventional, said Paul Nagy, the chief creative officer at VML Asia Pacific.
Mr Nagy judged the film adverts at the 2024 Cannes Lions awards when Thailand won nine awards from 210 entries — the second highest win-to-entry ratio in the Asia-Pacific.
"One of the major takeaways for me last year was just how incredibly creative and joyful the work coming out of Thailand was," he said.
He said the Western world often followed formulaic narratives in storytelling, whereas Thai creators threw out the rule book and leaned into what felt most interesting.
"They don't feel the same kind of constraints as the rest of the world in the same way to tone things down," Mr Nagy said.
This made it fertile ground for creative story telling as nothing was too over-the-top he said.
He cited as an example a government road-safety advertisement where a motorcyclist's brain came out the back of his head the faster he went, a metaphor for him losing control.
"If you're learning your film trade in the advertising industry in Thailand you're unconstrained.
"That's why they do such exciting film work when they leave the advertising industry."
He said with how sophisticated AI has become at creating traditional advertisements, the rest of the world needed to quickly learn from what Thailand was doing to remain competitive.
"We are moving into an era where average is going to be invisible and that's one thing the Thais never are … and that's their starting point."
Much of the latest wave in Thai cinemas was the result of a rapid modernisation and an increasingly affluent middle class, said Dr Ainslie.
Thailand has the eighth-fastest broadband internet in the world and 91 per cent of its population is connected to the internet, according to the Digital 2025 report by Meltwater and We Are Social. The global average is 68 per cent.
Dr Ainslie said modernity was no longer limited to large cities like Bangkok and Chiang Mai because the provincial rural population was now affluent, middle-class who were "globally savvy", well-connected, and had travelled overseas.
Thai directors were also being trained abroad and returning home and studios had started conglomerating into oligopolies creating an ecosystem of cinema and production companies, she said.
Thailand is recognised by international film producers as an attractive filming destination because of its scenery, affordability, and labour force with mature production and English-language skills, aspects the Thai government is capitalising on.
This has created even more opportunities for Thai crew to work alongside international productions to hone their craft to an even higher standard, Booncunchachoke said.
Last year, 491 foreign films like Jurassic World and shows like White Lotus were shot in Thailand which generated THB 6.58 billion ($309.8 million) for the economy.
Along with Pad Thai, mango and sticky rice and Muay Thai, the Thailand's government has identified film as another cultural export instrumental to its influence by persuasion, or soft power.
In November 2024, the prime minister met with executives from Netflix, HBO, Disney, and the Motion Picture Association,
The government also announced increases in cash rebates of up to 30 per cent for eligible foreign productions if they employed Thai cast and crew, used designated tourist areas as film locations, and portrayed Thailand or its culture in a positive light.
The Thai Film Office is part of the government's tourism department and has been integral in growing the industry, but Dr Ainslie warned the incentives biased certain productions which could also lead to a typecasting of Thailand.
This could be frustrating for filmmakers wanting to make other kinds of films, she said.
The lack of diverse depictions could also result in the curating a history to fit a certain state agenda.
"If you construct an image, the image ultimately becomes truth, becomes a representation," Dr Ainslie said.
One example was the "salacious and hedonistic" depictions of Thailand associated with sex tourism, lawlessness, and drugs seen in The Hangover Part II and The Beach.
After the pandemic, young Thai people participated in widescale anti-government protests.
Boonbunchachoke hoped media and cinema would follow suit in challenging the establishment, but felt that traction for freer expression had waned.
Nonetheless, he noticed some commercial film studios beginning to take risks beyond their "comfort zone" of crowd-pleasers and join independent films in taking on darker and grittier topics.
He has also noticed independent film houses starting to censor themselves less and becoming more creative in how they criticised the status quo.
"I think nowadays [these film makers] kind of know and [are finding] new ways to speak and talk about the issue without compromising too much," he said.