M. Night Shyamalan's greatest twist remains the ending of The Sixth Sense. With the release of The Sixth Sense in 1999, Shyamalan became one of the hottest directors in the business for several years, and achieved widespread acclaim with his follow-ups Unbreakable and Signs. While the reception to Shyamalan's overall body of work has grown more mixed, he nonetheless has established quite a legacy as a filmmaker.
M. Night Shyamalan's story in The Sixth Sense sees Bruce Willis as child psychologist Dr. Malcolm Crowe, who takes on the case of a troubled young boy named Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment). Eventually, Cole makes the chilling revelation to Crowe that "I see dead people." While this line and Cole's supernatural abilities were a heavy fixture of The Sixth Sense's marketing, the movie saved the biggest twist for last in revealing that Malcolm Crowe is himself a ghost.
Shyamalan's Twists Still Haven't Beaten The Sixth Sense
Crowe realizes at the end of The Sixth Sense that he died the night Vincent Grey (Donnie Wahlberg) arrived in his home and shot him for failing to free him of his own hidden ability to see ghosts, which was a shocking ending. Shyamalan would later pull off major plot twists like Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) finally realizing his wife's dying message in Signs, but this did not create the same kind of shock waves as The Sixth Sense's ending. Later, The Village's twist of the movie being set in modern times drew criticism for being predicted by many viewers.
Shaymalan would come the closest to replicating the twist of The Sixth Sense with Unbreakable and Split. In Unbreakable, Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) is revealed to be a supervillain and nemesis to superhero David Dunn (Willis), while Split would see Dunn return in a cameo to confirm the two films take place in the same universe. While each is an outstanding twist ending, neither quite had the same mushroom cloud effect as the ending of The Sixth Sense, as by this time the director's reputation made audiences expect twists more.
Should Shyamalan Have Stopped Movie Twists After Sixth Sense?
While Shyamalan's twists tend to be divisive and he has not crafted one to outdo that of The Sixth Sense, that does not necessarily mean it should have been the only one he delivered. While the twist of The Village fell flat, Unbreakable and Split's twists still showed Shyamalan's storytelling and world-building skills. Additionally, the impact of The Sixth Sense's twist was such that it would arguably be all but impossible to top.
Indeed, The Sixth Sense's success was significantly propelled by the widespread surprise of the movie's twist. Achieving The Sixth Sense's level of box office success and popularity with a twist ending being so central to both is the definition of lightning in a bottle. Though he might not have managed to sur The Sixth Sense twist ending, Shyamalan's numerous big twist endings are nonetheless a worthy staple of his filmography.
