The Ward is a 2010 American supernatural psychological horror film directed by John Carpenter and starring Amber Heard, Mamie Gummer, Danielle Panabaker, Laura-Leigh, Lyndsy Fonseca and Jared Harris. Set in 1966, the film chronicles a young woman who is institutionalized after setting fire to a house, and who finds herself haunted by the ghost of a former inmate at the psychiatric ward. As of 2024, this is Carpenter's most recent film as a director.

John Howard Carpenter is an American filmmaker, composer, and actor. Most commonly associated with horror, action, and science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s, he is generally recognized as a master of the horror genre. At the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, the French Directors' Guild gave him the Golden Coach Award and lauded him as "a creative genius of raw, fantastic, and spectacular emotions".