The directorial career of M. Night Shyamalan has been, without a doubt, one of Hollywood’s most bizarre. While he first became known for his films’ dark, suspenseful aesthetic and clever plot twists in the early 2000s, he later gained infamy as the director of several poorly-received flops, and many of his detractors have credited this to what they perceive as arrogance and illusions of grandeur on his part.
He’s one of the most complex, three-dimensional directors of all time, and with a huge catalog of films, we’re going to look at his best and worst cinematic exercises.
Worst: Glass (2019) - 37%
M. Night Shyamalan’s newest film was somewhat of a disappointment. Tying together his previous films Unbreakable and Split, superhero and supervillain origin stories respectively, Glass wasn’t able to match the energy, thrills, or creativity of its predecessors. It follows three men, all of whom were featured in the previous two films - a vigilante superhero, David Dunn; a villain most notable for his 23 separate personalities, The Beast; and Mr. Glass, a global terrorist with big plans for both of them.
Critics viewed the film as a disappointing finale to Shyamalan’s trilogy, noting that the rise of superhero movies over the last decade made the film less groundbreaking as its predecessors, while also criticizing the film’s gimmicky tone and overly busy atmosphere.
Best: The Visit (2015) - 67%
Shyamalan has experimented with quite a few different genres over his vast film career - and with found-footage becoming such a popular genre, his psychological horror film The Visit was a welcome addition to his repertoire. The film follows two teenagers, Becca and Tyler, who are left at the house of grandparents they’ve never met so their mother can go on vacation.
Bored, they begin documenting their experiences, only to encounter strange, disturbing phenomena. The film was praised for being Shyamalan’s perceived return-to-form, as many found it a thoroughly engaging character exploration wrapped in a horror narrative that nails all of the genre’s signature elements.
Worst: Lady in the Water (2006) - 25%
Lady in the Water is one of Shyamalan’s most perplexing films. It follows Cleveland Heep, an apartment complex superintendent who discovers a water nymph in the swimming pool, eventually coming to the realization that he and his neighbors are characters “acting out” a fairy tale.
It’s a bizarre passion project that features Shyamalan in his first acting role, which some reviews criticized as being an egotistical act; others noted that the film was campy, far-fetched, and almost exuberantly arrogant on the part of Shyamalan.
Best: Unbreakable (2000) 70%
In Shyamalan’s first directing venture since The Sixth Sense, he combined elements of the superhero and thriller genres to create the film Unbreakable. It follows David Dunn (Bruce Willis), a security guard who discovers he has superhuman abilities after he is left as the only survivor of a catastrophic train crash. He meets Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), a wheelchair-bound comic book fan who believes David is a superhero and wishes to become his mentor, and together they discover the full scope of David’s crime-fighting ability.
The film has become a cult classic and is considered one of the best non-Marvel or DC superhero films to date, with praise for its genre-bending plot, as well as its performances, visual aesthetic, and suspense.
Worst: The Happening (2008) - 18%
Shyamalan’s apocalyptic disaster film The Happening tries too hard to be rife with the grandeur found in earlier films like Signs or The Sixth Sense, and because of this bungles a semi-promising premise, quickly descending into a confusing, muddled mess. Its plot focuses on a mysterious force that is inexplicably causing millions to commit suicide across the northeastern United States, as a high school science teacher, his best friend, his wife, and his daughter try to navigate the disaster.
While some critics praised the film as so-bad-it’s-good or even high-quality B-movie fare, many drew issues with the film’s pace, characters, and writing, with many citing it as an example of the perceived inhuman nature of many of Shyamalan’s works.
Best: Signs (2002) - 74%
After his success with films like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, Shyamalan once again gave audiences his signature thriller with a twist ending in the form of 2002’s Signs. The film follows a small-town former priest and his family as they fight for survival in the midst of an alien invasion, and critics praised it for its suspense, characters, and atmosphere, with Roger Ebert praising Shyamalan as a “born filmmaker.”
After hype for the film had dissuaded, later reviews found inconsistencies in the film’s plot and claimed it was more shallow than first believed, although many critics still consider it one of Shyamalan’s best and most thrilling films to date.
Worst: After Earth (2013) - 11%
Often, Shyamalan disappoints when working with larger budgets and less creative control; one of the clearest examples of this is After Earth, starring father-and-son acting duo Will and Jaden Smith. It follows Cypher, a prominent general on the planet Nova Prime, and his overshadowed son Kitai, as they crash-land on an alien planet - Earth itself, which humankind abandoned nearly a millennium ago due to an environmental crisis.
The film was criticized as having poor acting, writing, and direction, as well as for being a fairly cliched exercise in science fiction, and it represents one of the lowest points of Shyamalan’s career.
Best: Split (2016) - 77%
Up until Split was released in theaters, barely anyone knew it was a sequel to Shyamalan’s hit film Unbreakable, primarily because it hadn’t been marketed as such. Another original idea the film had was focusing itself on being a supervillain origin story, a practice that wouldn’t become popular until later films like Venom and Joker replicated it. It follows a man with twenty-four different personalities, who appears as “Dennis” to kidnap a group of three girls, with the intent to sacrifice them to another one of his personalities, “the Beast.”
While some audiences viewed it as a misrepresentation of dissociative identity disorder, most critics praised the film for its acting, drama, and witty air of unconventionality.
Worst: The Last Airbender (2010) - 5%
When it was announced that the popular anime-influenced Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender would be getting a live-action adaptation, fans were confused, to say the least. While some praised the idea, others said one of the show’s best qualities is its distinct visual style, and thus a live-action version wouldn’t be able to match the charm of the original. The Last Airbender follows four nations - Water, Earth, Air, and Fire, which house “benders” - those able to control their nation’s element using telekinesis and martial arts. Everything changes once the Fire Nation attacks, leading to a seemingly never-ending war. However, a century after it began, Aang, a young boy capable of manipulating all four elements, is determined to bring an end to the conflict.
The film was relentlessly lambasted by critics and fans of the series, with some of the film’s core problems being its acting, direction, writing, and needless compression of important scenes and subplots from the series.
Best: The Sixth Sense (1999) - 86%
Headlined by Bruce Willis and often considered one of the great films of 1999 (alongside hits like Fight Club and The Matrix), The Sixth Sense follows a child psychologist who is perturbed and mystified by his strangest patient yet, a boy who claims he can talk to dead. With one of Shyamalan’s signature twist endings, alongside a chilling atmosphere that houses amazing performances, the film remains the best-reviewed and most popular film for its director.
It’ll be interesting to see if Shyamalan will ever conjure together another film that can even compare to this horror-thriller behemoth - a challenging task to say the least.
