abe55

What's the best or your personal favorite M. Night Shyamalan movie?

slop101

You're kidding with this poll, right?

I mean, he's made one decent movie (6th Sense) and the rest have been varying degrees of shit.

And honestly, the more I think about 6thS, the less it holds up and the less I like it. He's a talented director, but he can't write for shit.

Tarantino

We can hate on M. Night all day long, but lets be honest...The 6th Sense is a fantastic movie.

Unbreakable wasn't bad, Signs was alright. Hated The Village. The Lady In The Water I didn't think was terrible, but I wouldn't see it again. The Happening was one of the worst movies I've ever seen (which I'm guessing Ronnie Dobbs selected in jest), and I have never heard of the last two.

= J

islandclaws

His first 3 films are more or less equally good in my mind, but The Sixth Sense is the best of that bunch.

Groucho

Kudos for including Praying with Anger and Wide Awake since most people don't even know they exist.

Here are my rankings:

• Praying with Anger -- haven't seen
• Wide Awake -- too preachy
• Sixth Sense -- good
• Unbreakable -- not bad
• Signs -- too preachy
• The Village -- haven't seen
• Lady in the Water -- haven't seen
• The Happening -- say hi to your mother for me

fumanstan

You're kidding right? Quite a lot of people liked Unbreakable and Signs.

Personally, I think Sixth Sense is very good and still holds up despite everyone knowing the twist. Unbreakable is good. And Signs was good except for the ending. The Village was just ok , and I haven't bothered watching anything of his sense.

tommyp007

Unbreakable for me.

iamiam

Shalalalamadingdong peaked with Sixth Sense and it's been progressively worse with every new attempt,

Shannon Nutt

I actually picked Unbreakable. It's one of my favorite Bruce Willis performances (yes, even more than Sixth Sense).

Charlie Goose

The Sixth Sense, easily. I do like Unbreakable and Signs too.

And maybe The Village. A wee bit.

Goat3001

I picked Sixth Sense. I thought it was brilliant at the time and it still holds up.

Next in line is Unbreakable. Not as good as Sixth Sense but very innovative in its own right.

I think The Village is pretty underrated. It had some freaky moments and I might be the only one in the world that liked the ending. Maybe not very shocking but the idea and reasoning behind it was great.

I enjoyed Signs too.

Lady in the Water was complete shit. Maybe it had a moment or two but I can't remember them.

The Happening had the makings of a great story and started out well but fell very, very flat in the end.

There are two problems people have with Night.

1- His "twist" endings are predictable or stupid -- it's too bad people think this way because there are more to his movies than just the ending. I guess he got stuck with the stigma of having Twilight Zone-esque endings after Sixth Sense and people just decided that is what he's about so they watch his movies waiting for an ending that will blow them away again and it just won't come. I think with The Happening he's trying to get away from that, but he made the mistake that instead of having a good easy ending he went with having no ending at all.

2- He can't write -- Yeah he can't. I honestly think he's an incredibly talented suspense director. He has a huge ego that's getting in the way so he thinks he can write everything he makes. If he directed a script written by a talented suspense writer then I'm confident the movie would be very good.

Hokeyboy

Sixth Sense is a gimmick in search of a movie.

Shyamalan's best movie is still UNBREAKABLE. No contest.

mndtrp

I'm going with The Village, simply because I liked it, and I'm tired of ranking his movies.

I continue to do it, though, for some strange reason.

Torchur317

Unbreakable

NoirFan

The Sixth Sense, easily. I thought Unbreakable and Signs were both lousy films, and from what I can gather, his more recent output is even worse.

Infrared Sight

Unbreakable for me with Sixth Sense close behind.

MaxMFP

I guess you never saw Unbreakable. Your loss.

MaxMFP

Fixed.

Double_Oh_7

You rank a movie you have never seen as #1?

iamiam

I didn't see any numbers next to those bullet points

EdTheRipper

Unbreakable

slop101

Saw it in the theater the day it came out - fucking hated it.

It's one thing if a movie's dumb and it's another thing if it's boring, but when a movie is both dumb and boring, well, then you get a piece of crap like Unbreakable, and really, pretty much every M.N.S movie.

GenPion

Am I one of the only people here that truly loves M. Night's work as a director?

Regardless of that, here are my rankings:

The Sixth Sense - This is easily my favorite of his films. It's my third favorite film of all time (after Back to the Future and Spirited Away).

The Village - Shyamalan's best made film to date IMHO. It's a beautiful film and one of the most thought provoking films I've had the pleasure of seeing during an otherwise dissapointing summer movie season. This film continues to grow on me every time I see it. It is not quite as good as The Sixth Sense but it comes awfully close.

Signs - This is another brilliant film and I really love the themes in this film. Obviously, M. Night cares a lot about thematic elements to help create foundations for his stories but I think Signs handled this better than any of his other movies.

Lady in the Water - I loved this movie. What a great fable it is, and a message to everyone that the power and gift of storytelling can have a meaningful impact on the lives of everyone. It is such a wonderful metaphor to have Bryce Dallas Howard's character be named Story as it helps the audience understand the whole point of the movie - that the power of a story can enchant us all and give meaning to our lives. On a deep level, this film is clearly the most personal movie Shyamalan has made, and while it is not in his top-tier IMHO it still ranks as a classic in my eyes.

Unbreakable - Despite ranking this one so much lower than the rest this is a really great movie with some great themes and ideas and the whole movie is very much in the classic vein of comic book mythology. I loved that about it back when I saw it in theaters, and while I continue to love it, I do not believe this film ranks quite as high as the rest. Still, this is a delicate masterpiece that has held up well over time. I believe this one will continue to find it's audience.

The Happening - What can I say about this one... I thoroughly enjoyed it, found it an entertaining horror ride with B-movie grade fun, thought it was pretty hilarious (intentionally!), and somehow also moving. This is his least effective mainstream release though (without question) and despite this it still has many solid moments of horror and is a blast to watch. I was very excited to get this one on Blu-ray the day of it's release.

Wide Awake - This one's a bit different from the rest of his film's stylistically but the themes are all familiar favorites to his canon. I loved this movie but it is hardly a masterpiece. Still, it is a solid *** 1/2 and should not go unseen.

Praying With Anger - I have a copy of this and have yet to see it. I'm waiting for the right time. It's hard to imagine not having any more M. Night films to look forward to for a while so I'll probably get around to checking this one out before The Last Airbender hits theaters. In fact, I will definitely have seen it by then.

vcuram

He sucks.

He fucking sucks.

movielib

I'm glad to see Unbreakable running almost neck and neck with The Sixth Sense. Those are my 1-2 in order.

I haven't seem the pre-Sixth Sense films but of the others the only one I really hate is The Village. The rest are OK.