Warning: This article contains spoilers for several of M. Night Shyamalan’s movies.
WithThe Sixth Sense,M.
Night Shyamalanset an impossible standard for himself, one he’d have a hard time matching.
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The 1999 minor-key supernatural thriller about a sad man and a scared kid grossed $673 million.
The promise of mind-blowing plot turns made him a blockbuster brand, then edged quickly into self-parody.
His endings can be amazing, ridiculous, or both.
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Read on for M. Night Shyamalan’s twist endings, ranked.
Alas,Signsis a mostly-great movie people only remember because the aliens are allergic to water.
This unlikely revelation (isn’t Earth mostly water?
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Where to watchSigns: Max
10.
Some tenants are contemporary avatars for the woman’s mythic defenders.
Exceptthey’renot her defenders, some other neighbors are: Whoops!
Alex Wolff in ‘Old.'.Universal Pictures
More funny than annoying, still better thanSigns’Joaquin Phoenixpummeling an alien with a baseball bat.
Where to rentLady in the Water: Amazon Prime Video
9. then dares to answer: Because a well-funded conspiracy has an impossible plan full of plot holes.
The moody source comic,Sandcastle, didn’t bother with a why.
Zade Rosenthal/20th Century Fox
The adaptation overexplains too much.
Where to watchOld: Max
8. are pumping the air full of suicide toxins before the one-hour mark.
Where to rentThe Happening: Amazon Prime Video
7.
Dave Bautista, Abby Quinn, and Nikki Amuka-Bird in ‘Knock at the Cabin’.Universal Pictures
The buff melancholiac headlines as Leonard, an oddly endearing home invader who holds a vacationing family hostage.
He offers a dark warning: One of them must die, or humanity will perish.
Where to watchKnock at the Cabin: Amazon Prime Video
6.
Jessica Kourkounis/Universal
Glass (2019)
Shyamalan built a backdoor franchise out of 2016’sSplit.
Their peculiar warden isSarah Paulson’s psychiatrist, whose methods, legal authority, and motivation make no sense.
There’s nothing modest about the finale, though.
Universal Pictures
Those rug-pullers get their own rug pulled.
The late Mr. Glass releases footage of the super-fight via posthumous video dump.
That footage maybe ushers in a new era of global super-people?
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Oh, and theUnbreakabletrain wreck also killed the father of McAvoy’s disordered baddie.
It doesn’t have the best twists, but it has the most of them.
Where to rentGlass: Amazon Prime Video
5.
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I know people who think theUnbreakableconnection turned a fine singular movie into a grasp toward fan service.
That opinion is valid; I disagree.
Happiness is Bruce Willis sipping coffee in a diner with a sequel-baiting glare in his eyes.
Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment in ‘The Sixth Sense’.Everett Collection
Where to rentSplit: Amazon Prime Video
4.
Defenders pegThe Villageas a lacerating tale of American self-delusion and nostalgia cresting into horror.
I don’t buy the allegory, but I’ll take the hot mess.
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Where to rentThe Village: Amazon Prime Video
3.
The Visit (2015)
Two teens visit their grandparents.
After a very strange week, it turns out their grandparents arenottheir grandparents.
No conspiracy, no speeches about fate or faith.
The nice people are murderers who must be stopped.
- This brisk found-footage thriller was the director’s comeback, and its financial success offers a critical lesson.
Keep It Simple, Shyamalan.
Where to rentThe Visit: Amazon Prime Video
2.
The Sixth Sense (1999)
In some ways this wonder is unrecoverable.
Sometimes, Malcolm has problems with a red doorknob.
His wife (Olivia Williams) is so distant she literally never talks to him.
(A grinch could complain thatJacob’s LadderapproximatedSixth Sense’s finale way back in 1990.)
ButSixth Senseworks even if you know Malcolm dies in the prologue.
The performances by Willis, Osment, Williams, andToni Colletteare thoughtfully matched by Shyamalan’s patient storytelling.
But it is not his best twist ending.
Where to rentThe Sixth Sense: Amazon Prime Video
1.
Unbreakable (2000)
You have to remember Shyamalan didn’t need to become the Twist Guy.
They got an eccentric human-sized thriller about David Dunn, the sole survivor of a train wreck.
As brittle-boned superhero theorist Elijah Price, Samuel L. Jackson made an outspoken contrast to Willis’ hushed performance.
Then comes the final scene.
Elijah shakes his protege’s hand.
The look of betrayed shock on Willis' face is haunting and Jackson’s performance here is towering.
“Now that we know who you are, I know who I am,” he declares.
We should’ve known.
In a lot of Shyamalan’s movies, self-realization and human connection lead to serenity.
Here, those sincere yearnings make a man a monster.
Where to watchUnbreakable: Max
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