Few filmmakers have had a career arc quite like M. Night Shyamalan. He shot to fame with The Sixth Sense (1999) and quickly became known as the guy who’d pull the rug out right from under you, just when you thought you had everything figured out.
But while the plot twists are often the headline, the real reason his films stand out is because of how he builds to those moments with patience, with precision, and with a distinct sense of mood that feels like no one else’s.
What makes Shyamalan’s films unique is their tone—quiet tension, slow pacing, and the unsettling feeling that something’s off. He doesn’t lean on gore or jump scares. Instead, he builds unease through atmosphere, mood, and characters caught between the supernatural and the deeply personal, where fear often comes from within.
His camera is still, his dialogue walks a fine line between natural and uncanny, and his storytelling always feels intentional. Every line, pause, and frame points toward a bigger idea—one that usually snaps into focus only in the final moments.
So, we ranked all of his best films — full of plot twists and unexpected revelations, as well as the moodiness and suspense we’ve come to expect from his work.
But before we dive in, let’s dig into Shyamalan’s style and approach to filmmaking.
The Shyamalan Formula: What Makes His Films Unique?
Master of the Twist
By now, the “Shyamalan twist” has become a pop-culture phrase. But don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s only about shocking endings. First and foremost, it’s about perspective. His best twists don’t feel like gimmicks. They recontextualize the entire movie. They make you want to rewatch the film immediately, just to see what you missed. Think The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable—those reveals are baked into the structure. They change the genre mid-film without betraying it.
Shyamalan uses misdirection in the way magicians do. He distracts with the ordinary, only to reveal that the extraordinary was right in front of us the whole time. And when done right—yes, we are surprised to the core—but more importantly, we are emotionally satisfied.
Themes & Motifs
Certain ideas show up again and again in his work. Faith, grief, trauma, belief, redemption. His characters are often isolated—physically or emotionally. They’re dealing with loss, shame, or fear, and the supernatural elements are usually metaphors for something deeper. In Signs, it’s about faith. In The Village, it’s about fear as control. In Split, it’s trauma and survival.
Visually, he has a signature too: slow camera movements, long takes, static shots, muted colors, and heavy atmosphere. His use of silence and ambient sound is almost surgical. And he loves a setting that feels “safe” but slowly turns threatening: a house, a village, a forest, a beach.
Writing & Direction Synergy
What makes Shyamalan’s films click—or crash—is how tightly his writing is fused with his directing. He doesn’t overwrite. His dialogue is minimal, sometimes even stilted, but that’s part of the eerie tone he builds. He leaves space for silence, for stares, for pauses that feel like something’s about to snap.
Few directors working today are such pure auteurs in the traditional sense. He writes with directing in mind. His scripts serve two purposes—as blueprints for his direction and as a part of the final product’s mood. And because of that, his films often feel like they’ve come from a single, undiluted voice. It’s rare, especially in genre filmmaking.
M. Night Shyamalan Films, Ranked
And now, onto the fun part! We have ranked his nine best films based on the dual punch of his writing and direction. Let’s dive into it.
09. Wide Awake (1998)
Wide Awake follows a young boy named Joshua (Joseph Cross) who begins a personal quest to find God after the death of his grandfather (Robert Loggia). His search unfolds in the halls of a Catholic school, where he encounters a quirky nun (Rosie O’Donnell), teachers, and classmates who challenge and confuse him in equal measure.
Though largely dismissed or forgotten, Wide Awake deserves more attention for what it reveals about Shyamalan’s foundational themes. Even in this early outing, you can see his fascination with grief, faith, and the emotional experience of children grappling with big, existential questions. The tone is gentler than his later work, but the DNA is unmistakably his. There’s warmth here, along with a touch of quiet weirdness that foreshadows his future style.
What this film shows—especially for screenwriters—is how personal storytelling doesn’t have to be loud or flashy. Even a soft coming-of-age tale can hold weight if it’s built on real emotional stakes. And for directors, Wide Awake is proof that simplicity can still carry meaning, especially when you know exactly what you’re trying to say.
08. The Visit (2015)
Two siblings, Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), are sent to stay with their estranged grandparents for the week, only to discover that something is seriously off about them. Told through a found-footage lens, the kids document the visit as things spiral into deeply unsettling territory.
The Visit marked a turning point for Shyamalan. After a string of misfires, this was his scrappy return to indie horror—and it worked. The writing is lean, funny, and full of creeping dread. He uses the found-footage format to great effect, turning everyday moments (a simple game of hide-and-seek) into unsettling experiences. The humor is sharp but never undercuts the horror, and the final act pays off with a twist that feels earned.
This is a film that proves how scale isn’t everything. Sometimes, limitations push a filmmaker to get creative, and Shyamalan did just that. It’s a great study in how to blend tone, manage tension, and build genuine character arcs within a horror setting.
07. Knock at the Cabin (2023)
Written by: M. Night Shyamalan, Steve Desmond & Michael Sherman
A family—Eric (Jonathan Groff), Andrew (Ben Aldridge), and their adopted daughter Wen (Kristen Cui)—is vacationing at a remote cabin when four strangers, led by Leonard (Dave Bautista), show up with a grim request: the family must willingly make a devastating choice to prevent the apocalypse. The setup is minimal, but the emotional weight is anything but.
Shyamalan pares things down here to a near-theatrical chamber piece. The tension comes not from what’s happening outside the cabin, but from the quiet moral unraveling inside it. Dave Bautista delivers a career-best performance, subdued and deeply empathetic, and Shyamalan’s direction shows surprising restraint. The script walks a tightrope between ambiguity and conviction, avoiding easy answers and leaning into discomfort. The movie is more about what the characters choose to believe than it is about the twist.
This film reminds storytellers that horror doesn’t need spectacle. A single location, strong characters, and a compelling dilemma can be just as effective, sometimes more. It’s a great reference for how to extract dread and suspense through pacing and psychological conflict rather than gore or jump scares.
06. The Village (2004)
In a secluded 19th-century village surrounded by woods, residents live in fear of creatures they call “Those We Don’t Speak Of.” When Lucius (Joaquin Phoenix) is wounded, Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard), a blind young woman, must brave the woods and uncover truths her community has kept hidden.
Initially misunderstood—and unfairly dismissed—The Village has aged into something far more compelling. It’s not really about monsters in the woods; it’s about what people are willing to believe in order to feel safe. The film explores collective fear and how trauma can be manipulated to shape an entire society. James Newton Howard’s haunting score, Roger Deakins’ painterly cinematography, and Shyamalan’s confident framing create a visual and emotional atmosphere that sticks with you.
What’s great about The Village from a craft standpoint is how it builds its world through implication. Shyamalan doesn’t over-explain. He lets the visuals and performances do the work. It’s a useful study in creating mystery through omission and trusting the audience to fill in the blanks.
05. Glass (2019)
Glass picks up the threads from Unbreakable and Split, bringing David Dunn (Bruce Willis), Elijah Price, a.k.a. Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson), and Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) into one grounded, grimy take on a comic book showdown—set not in a city skyline, but a mental institution.
This is Shyamalan at his most self-referential and ambitious. He leans into genre deconstruction, not just of superhero tropes, but of narrative expectations themselves. The movie takes big risks—some land, some don’t—but it’s never boring. The writing is layered with commentary on belief systems and narrative control, while the direction keeps things taut and tense. McAvoy once again dazzles with his rapid-fire identity shifts, and Jackson’s measured performance balances the chaos around him.
For storytellers, Glass is a fascinating case study in closing a trilogy unconventionally. It shows how a filmmaker can use a genre to say something deeper, even if it means subverting fan expectations. It’s bold, and whether you love or hate the ending, you can’t say it’s playing it safe.
04. Signs (2002)
When mysterious crop circles appear on his farm, former priest Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) and his brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) must protect their family while trying to understand what’s happening. What begins as a potential alien invasion slowly unravels into something much more intimate.
Signs is Shyamalan at his most emotionally direct. It’s about fear, faith, and the randomness—or design—of the universe. The horror isn’t flashy; it creeps in around the edges. The basement sequence, the birthday party video, the silence between words—these are masterfully orchestrated. He keeps the camera low, grounded, and human. It doesn’t remain a sci-fi spectacle, but becomes a personal crisis wrapped in a global one. And it’s all the more powerful for it.
The way Signs handles tone is a great lesson for filmmakers. It juggles dread, dark humor, and deep sadness without losing its rhythm. It’s proof that genre boundaries can be bent to serve something more personal—and that sometimes, your most “out there” concept should stay centered on character.
03. Unbreakable (2000)
Security guard David Dunn (Bruce Willis) survives a train crash without a scratch. Soon, he’s contacted by comic book dealer Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), who suggests there’s more to David than he knows. What follows is a quiet, moody exploration of identity and purpose through a superhero lens.
Shyamalan flips the comic book origin story on its head by slowing everything down. No capes. No cities in ruin. Just two broken men trying to make sense of themselves. The writing is elegant, with minimal dialogue and a heavy reliance on visual storytelling. Eduardo Serra’s cinematography adds to the melancholy, often framing scenes through glass, doors, or reflections, mirroring the characters’ fragmented identities.
One of the strongest lessons here is that reinvention doesn’t have to mean razing everything to the ground. Sometimes it’s just about telling a familiar story from an unfamiliar angle. For anyone writing within a genre, Unbreakable shows how much freedom lies in restraint.
02. Split (2016)
Three teenage girls are kidnapped by Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), a man with 23 distinct personalities. As they attempt to escape, a terrifying new identity—“The Beast”—begins to emerge, blurring the lines between myth and reality.
Split feels like Shyamalan’s return to full confidence. The film is tightly paced, claustrophobic, and fueled almost entirely by McAvoy’s electric performance. But it’s not just a showcase for an actor’s range—the script is sharp, the tension relentless, and the direction unflinching. What elevates Split is its ability to juggle genre expectations while laying groundwork for a larger universe without sacrificing its self-contained story.
What makes this particularly interesting for filmmakers is how Shyamalan seeds psychological horror with comic book logic. The film walks a tightrope, keeping things grounded just long enough before pushing into something more mythic. It’s a reminder that genre mashups don’t have to feel stitched together—they can flow seamlessly if the tone holds.
01. The Sixth Sense (1999)
Child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) works with a troubled boy, Cole (Haley Joel Osment), who claims he can see dead people. As their sessions unfold, the line between supernatural and psychological trauma begins to blur.
This is the film that put Shyamalan on the map—and for a good reason. The writing is economical, emotionally resonant, and carefully structured. The direction is patient, relying on silence, stillness, and deliberate pacing. There’s no wasted moment, no scene that doesn’t serve the story or deepen the characters. The final reveal is clever and downright devastating.
From a craft standpoint, The Sixth Sense is a masterclass on how to structure a narrative around a central theme—grief—without tipping your hand too early. It’s a masterclass in plant-and-payoff, and a reminder that if your characters are strong, your twist will carry emotional weight.
The Legacy of a Twist Master
Shyamalan’s career has seen more ups and downs than most. He’s been called a genius, a has-been, and everything in between. But through it all, he’s stayed consistent in one thing: telling the stories he wants to tell, the way he wants to tell them. That kind of authorship is rare. He’s made studio thrillers with indie confidence, and indie thrillers with blockbuster ambition.
His impact is clear in the wave of slow-burn horror directors who came after him—people like Ari Aster, Mike Flanagan, and Jordan Peele, who also combine emotion with genre tropes. But Shyamalan’s voice remains singular. He takes risks. He gets weird. He makes you feel like you’re watching a dream—until it turns into a nightmare or a revelation.
What’s next? He’s got more films on the horizon, and after Knock at the Cabin, it’s clear he’s not done experimenting. Whether the next twist lands or not, he’s never boring—and that’s a legacy worth having.
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