It’s been a while. Long-form content is hard. Okay, here we go:
I am (and likely always will be) a fan of M. Night Shyamalan. If I were writing this in the year 2000, the prior sentence would echo a pervasive sentiment coming off the director’s early triumphs The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. In 2024, however, naming M. Night as one of your favorite directors sounds the alarms. Once hailed as the next great auteur (often likened to Spielberg for his early ability to craft emotionally resonant, suspenseful narratives with wonder and psychological depth), he may now be equally identifiable as the man who ruined Avatar: The Last Airbender.
But today in Calvin Culture, I’m here to make the case for M. Night.
Beneath the shifting tides of public opinion lies a consistent ability to create wide release “Hollywood” films that completely challenge our expectations of tone, performance, and structure in mainstream moviemaking.
Plus, his movies are perfect for the fall season.
Maybe it’s his preoccupation with themes of faith, family, belief and storytelling that I love so much—threads that feel profound in his oeuvre and interest me on a personal level. Maybe it’s his love of Pennsylvania (I did grow up there after all). But most likely, it’s that in a time where the box office is dominated by sequels, IP, and Marvel movies, it’s unbelievably refreshing to be entertained by something that takes risks and makes bold choices. As I scroll through my Letterboxd account looking at some Netflix “originals” I watched last month, there’s nothing original about them! But an M. Night film, even if you hate it, you’ll never forget it. They’re FUN! Suspenseful. Thoughtful. Often humorous. Critically misunderstood. And GOOD!! (Even if not always great). Let’s do a brief walkthrough of his filmography…
“I see dead people…”
It’s the line everyone knows. Shyamalan's ascent began with The Sixth Sense, and I’m not going to spend too much time pontificating about it because it remains his most celebrated work. It’s my #1 ranked Shyamalan film, and it’s #1 on many a “Best M. Night Shyamalan” lists out there.
The narrative—a psychological thriller about a young boy named Cole who can see and communicate with the dead—serves as an ideal introduction to Shyamalan’s thematic concerns and structural style. Like all of his films (and most other decent horror/thrillers), the thing is never the thing. At its core, The Sixth Sense is not about ghosts; it is an exploration of human vulnerability and the need for connection in the face of grief. The film's iconic twist ending (and if you haven’t seen this film or had the ending spoiled for you, I honestly don’t know how you’ve made it this far) is lauded for its ingenuity. But the classic “Shyamalan Twist” is not the primary strength of this film. Its timelessness is instead driven by its incredible intimacy.
Take, for instance, the recurring motif of red—a color that signals the presence of the supernatural in multiple Shyamalan films. His haunting eye for color enhances the atmosphere and builds suspense in scenes between Cole and the apparitions he sees.
Close ups. Deliberate long takes. Restrained camera movement. Unsettling angles.
Every cinematic decision lends itself to an immersive experience that draws you in.
The success of The Sixth Sense was followed by Unbreakable, which cemented Shyamalan’s reputation as a master of psychological complexity. This film is a superhero movie, but it looks and feels like nothing you’d watch from Marvel or DC. Instead, Shyamalan sees comic books as mythology, and the film ends up being a meditation on identity and destiny. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. Bruce Willis’s character, David Dunn, grapples with the realization that he possesses superhuman abilities. Yet, the film’s most compelling element is its exploration of belief—both David’s belief in his own abilities and the audience’s willingness to accept the extraordinary within the mundane.
Signs, my second favorite Shyamalan film, further illustrates his fascination with faith. The film, starring Mel Gibson and an especially memorable young Joaquin Phoenix, centers on a family grappling with an alien invasion. Spooky, sure. But the aliens serve as a backdrop for a more intimate story about healing and rediscovering faith. There is absolutely a religious reading of this film, but even if you’re not a spiritual person and do not subscribe to a particular faith, such as myself, it is still impactful. I find myself deeply moved by the film’s thesis that we are all constantly searching for meaning and reassurance in life’s chaos. Given the current state of the world, this film feels more resonant than ever, and if you haven’t seen it lately, I recommend a rewatch!
Visions Misunderstood
Okay, so here’s where things get dicey. Despite these early successes, Shyamalan’s subsequent works were met with increasing skepticism. The Village was criticized for its predictability and lackluster execution, which in my estimation is total bull.
The Village is highly deserving of a rewatch (or first watch if you haven’t seen it)! Before I even get to the story, it is firstly Shyamalan’s most beautifully shot film. All of Shyamalan’s films look great (The Sixth Sense, Signs, Old, and The Happening come to mind), and to be fair, this is largely due to Shyamalan’s exceptional discernment in cinematographers (The Silence of the Lambs’s Tak Fujimoto, The Witch’s Academy Award-winning cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, and most recently Luca Guadagnino’s beloved cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom of Call Me By Your Name and Challengers). But The Village photographed by Roger Deakins is scary gorgeous. It gets a few stars just for how it’s shot.
On top of the stunning imagery, the film’s story is a nuanced exploration of fear and control. A community living under the shadow of manufactured threats. Sound familiar? How can we not relate to the blind protagonist, Ivy Walker, as she ventures into the woods, scared, only to discover the reality of the so-called monsters terrorizing her world. The film’s twist (I’ll talk around it in case you haven’t seen the film) underscores the film's deeper critique of how people are manipulated by fear mongering while asking the audience: to what extent is it okay to lie? How do we protect our children and future generations from the dangers of the world? Like in most Shyamalan films, he presents us with a question, asked deftly with no judgement, and then lets us decide for ourselves.
P.S. The cast for this film is CRAZY: Joaquin Phoenix, Bryce Dallas Howard, Adrien Brody, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Brendan Gleeson, Judy Greer, Jesse Eisenberg and Michael Pitt.
The thing about a Shyamalan film is you have to be on board with it. His following two films Lady in the Water and The Happening are often derided for their eccentric nature: strange campy dialogue, unconventional storytelling, bizarre endings: What do you mean it was the trees the whole time? Etc.
I challenge you to live in the world of the film. Lady in the Water’s most significant achievement lies in its imaginative exploration of storytelling as a means of understanding and shaping our lives. The character of the "narf" storybook heroine, literally named Story, represents the creative process and the role of storytelling in human connection and self-discovery. The fact that no one in the apartment complex setting questions her name or what is happening or what’s being said is not absurd in this world—it’s the whole point. It’s about how the transformative power of stories can influence reality itself. The film’s meta-narrative, where the characters themselves become part of a larger story, reflects a profound commentary on the nature of creativity. Is the film perfect? No. Is it weird? Definitely. But it’s also wildly interesting, so worth the watch if not a few rewatches as well!
The Happening admittedly has some bad dialogue and strange acting, but, especially in light of the recent pandemic, this film is also worth looking at again. People do act and speak strangely in a crisis. Like all of Shyamalan’s work, the film is interestingly conceived and centers on the innate human fear of the unknown and the inexplicable. What is causing this invisible force that’s killing people and spreading quickly? How should we respond to it as a nation? What happens in the film eerily prophesied what we saw happen in the wake of COVID-19: confusion and panic, misinformation spread, arguments over quarantining, the safety of others versus self-preservation. Is the story mechanism behind this film strange and random? Yes. But so is disease. So is catastrophe.
Let’s Pretend These Never Happened
After Earth (2013).
The Last Airbender (2010).
While I believe these films have more heart than they’re given credit for, they’re an attempt to comply with the studios, which is un-Shyamalanian. They’re bad films.
Return to Form
After the brutal and mostly valid criticism of his venture into fantasy and sci-fi, I’m happy to say Shyamalan has turned the ship around for me with a return to form, starting with The Visit, a found-footage horror film. The film's simplicity—an unsettling tale of two siblings visiting their grandparents—belies its thematic complexity. The found-footage format serves as an homage to films like The Blair Witch Project while also heightening the tension and intimacy of the narrative, exploring M. Night’s favorite themes: family, faith, and the fear of the unknown.
Since then, it feels like Shyamalan has settled into the work he knows and does best: captivating high-concept thrillers with lots of twists and metaphors.
To avoid belaboring, I won’t go into as much detail on his more recent works, but to me they all (Split, Glass, Old, Knock at the Cabin) are all solid 3.5/5 star films: Beautifully shot, richly rendered, get the wheels turning, and have something they’re reaching for—even if they aren’t always able to grasp it in the most satisfying way.
I refrained from deeper discussion of the above films to spend more time reviewing Shyamalan’s most recent 2024 release: Trap.
Um, I liked this a lot? Probably in my top five Shyamalan films! It’s clear M. Night films will always be divisive, but this had everything I wanted: a sinister high-concept, thoughtful themes, Josh Hartnett giving a wild performance (bonus: shirtless at times), and lots of twists (If you’ve seen the trailer, its events play out in the film’s first fifteen minutes—which is refreshing when so often it feels like if you’ve seen a trailer you’ve seen the whole damn movie).
Quick plot intro (obviously no spoilers): A father named Cooper (Josh Hartnett) and his teen daughter named Riley (Ariel Donoghue) attend a pop concert in cute bumbling-dad, adolescent-daughter fashion to see Riley’s favorite artist Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan). Things take a sharp turn after they quickly learn that the concert is actually a ruse set up by the FBI to catch a serial killer called The Butcher.
Twist #1 (not a spoiler, it’s the logline): Cooper is The Butcher.
The film follows him as he attempts to evade the police blockade while also protecting his daughter and treating her to a good time.
Let me go back to something I said earlier in this piece: The thing about a Shyamalan film is you have to be on board with it. I think it’s very clear that this situation would NEVER happen in real life. Why would the FBI put so many innocent people at risk? How did they know the ticket was for him and not for his daughter and a friend? As the plot progresses you can ask several more questions like these, but the fact is, they don’t matter. Just like the characters are trapped in the concert, you are trapped in Shyamalan’s world. Run with it! It’s much better that way.
I found this film to be perhaps Shyamalan’s most autobiographical film. Yes, the film is about a serial killer (make of that what you will), but it’s really about a man trying to fulfill his passions and his obsessions while raising a family and being a good and caring dad. Has the art=murder thing been done before? Yes, but it works well here.
This idea behind the story becomes even more meta and compelling when you consider M. Night Shyamalan is directing his own daughter Saleka Shyamalan, who plays a large part in the latter half of the film. It’s easy to pin this film as a pitch for Saleka’s potential film and music career. And I think this is both true and playfully acknowledged within the film, which also deals with themes of stardom, performance, dangerous intentions behind charming faces, and the traits we pass on to our children.
This is by no means a perfect film. It has the quintessential stilted dialogue that plagues many Shyamalan films, and the twists may not work for everyone, but I was entertained the entire time. It’s fast-paced, suspenseful, thoughtful, and surprisingly funny (casting Hayley Mills from The Parent Trap as the FBI profiler leading the manhunt for a serial-killing dad just for the bit is truly the chef’s kiss).
Understanding Shyamalan
Well, I hope I convinced some people to revisit Shyamalan’s work and/or see his new movie Trap. The key to appreciating a Shyamalan movie lies in your willingness to submit to his narrative vision. His films demand to be engaged with on their own terms. Critics who focus solely on the surface-level twists and genre conventions miss the deeper explorations of human vulnerability, belief, and redemption that define his work. And with that in mind, here is my ranking of all Shyamalan’s films to date:
The Last Airbender (2010)
Wide Awake (1998)
After Earth (2013)
Lady in the Water (2006)
The Happening (2008)
Old (2021)
The Visit (2015)
Glass (2019)
Knock at the Cabin (2024)
Split (2016)
Trap (2024)
The Village (2004)
Unbreakable (2000)
Signs (2002)
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Funny story about me. I don’t like and have never liked scary movies, and I’ve never seen Signs. But when it first came out, my sister saw it, and she told me about the ending. And just from hearing her describe the part where they see the alien in the reflection of the TV, I was so scared that I put a blanket over my television before I went to sleep every night for years!