'Glass' — Samuel L. Jackson, James McAvoy and Bruce Willis in 'Glass.' Jessica Kourkounis/Universal Pictures

M. Night Shyamalan Movies, Ranked

With 'Trap' in theaters, The Hollywood Reporter ranks his filmography. Are twists in store?

There is no filmmaker like M. Night Shyamalan. Whatever you may feel about the director’s work, you’d be hard-pressed to call him unoriginal. He is entirely his own and, through that facet, has built a filmography that challenges our contemporary considerations of tone, performance and narrative. While it’s all too easy to get hung up on the so-called twists in his work, the beauty of Shyamalan is the ability to subvert expectations and tell stories his way. While he’s had a few missteps along the way, as filmmakers who take risks and bold swings so often do, Shyamalan is one of the few filmmakers who can lure audiences through name alone. There’s always a window for discussion provided, ensuring that even if his films are derided, they won’t be forgotten.

In honor of Shyamalan’s latest release, Trap (and news of another, Caddo Lake, on the way), we count down his filmography — omitting his hard-to-find early works Praying with Anger (1992) and Wide Awake (1998), which feel like experiments before Shyamalan truly found his voice and made a name for himself with The Sixth Sense. Though I can’t promise you a twist at the end as we count down to Shyamalan’s best film, it’s the journey that makes it all worthwhile.

14. The Last Airbender (2010)

Image Credit: Paramount Pictures/Photofest

The first adaptation of the popular Nickelodeon animated series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, titled The Last Airbender in wake of James Cameron’s blockbuster hit, Avatar (2009), was an ill-conceived project from the start. The project was greenlit without approval from series creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, so even before release, The Last Airbender lacked credibility. Unfortunately, Shyamalan was caught in the gears of big studio machinery and the film — from its controversial whitewashed casting of lead heroes Aang (Noah Ringer), Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) to its mismatched tone — feels like an effort to appeal to too many voices.

The attempt to cram an entire season into a movie running less than two hours was folly and, despite Shyamalan becoming a fan of the animated show through his daughters, the process of adapting such a popular work stripped away much of his voice on the film. While the spirituality of this world excited him, and is a throughline through much of his work, the break-neck efforts to hit all the key story points of Book One provided little time for such exploration or deviations from the most basic A-to-B plot structure. Despite all of this, Shyamalan still showcased his keen directorial eye, Judianna Makovsky did wonderful work on the costume designs, and Dev Patel portrayed Prince Zuko with a credible rage and vulnerability.
13. After Earth (2013)

Conceived by Will Smith, who’d long been a fan of Shyamalan’s, After Earth was intended to be a franchise through which he could build a family dynasty. Smith took on a supporting role as Cypher Raige, with his son, Jaden Smith, in the lead as Kitai Raige, while Jada Pinkett-Smith and her brother, Caleeb Pinkett, were on board as producers. The film, set in the future after an environmental catastrophe on Earth, sees father and son leave their colony to explore mankind’s former home where they find the plant and animal life drastically changed. Kitai and Cipher must find their way back to each other, both physically and emotionally in their strange and dangerous new surroundings.

Smith had admirably lofty hopes of the film launching a film franchise, TV series, books, video games and even a theme park. However, there’s not much to the story of After Earth to create anticipation for any kind of multimedia takeover. Shyamalan, who does shoot a handsome-looking movie, feels more like an instrument through which Smith could deliver on his plans. But for a filmmaker known for tension and unconventional narrative turns, Shyamalan is stuck with a mostly boring and predictable affair and, much like The Last Airbender, saw a big budget and outside pressures stripping away many of the aspects that make him such an essential filmmaker.
12. The Happening (2008)

Now, we get to the good stuff. Everything from here on down the list is essential Shyamalan. This starting with The Happening may raise a few eyebrows, but if you can meet the film on Shyamalan’s level, it’s an absolute blast.

Following science teacher, Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) and his estranged wife, Ellie (Zooey Deschanel), Shyamalan plays with B-movie conventions here, influenced by the plant-based horror of the ’50s and ’60s like Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and The Day of the Triffids (1963). There is an inherent comedy in the idea of the trees being out to get us, releasing a toxin that leads to mass suicides, and Shyamalan fully understands that. Yes, there is his penchant for sincerity on display, both in terms of the underlying warning about humanity’s abuse of the environment and in the lead characters’ exploration of their feelings about parenthood. But The Happening is damn funny, and intentionally so. You can’t see Wahlberg’s constant look of befuddlement in this film and not laugh. He and Deschanel play it straight with complete self-seriousness, and maybe even a lack of self-awareness, as the film highlights the absurdity of their situation. Of course, Shyamalan knows you can’t run away from the wind. But the commitment to the bit makes The Happening a very good stealth horror-comedy.
11. Lady in the Water (2006)

Image Credit: Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection

Lady in the Water proved nearly impossible to market. While the trailers suggested a horror-infused dark fairytale, the final result is far more personal and experimental. Initially rejected by audiences and critics, the film has garnered a cult following and reconsideration within the framework of Shyamalan’s filmography. Lady in the Water is a fable centered around Shyamalan’s storytelling ethos, harnessing his oft-revisited considerations of ordinary people capable of extraordinary feats, the motivating power of faith, the importance of legacy and the protection of storytelling.

These aspects play out through literalism within the film as apartment superintendent Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) rallies his tenants to protect a Nyad named Story (Bryce Dallas Howard). While Lady in the Water is heavy-handed at times, there’s an admirable earnestness to Shyamalan’s storytelling, which some of his critics dismiss as arrogance. This dismissal is exacerbated by a film critic character in the movie, whose reliance on narrative conventions and tropes leads to his death. But hey, I think if we can dish out criticism, we can surely face some ribbing of our own. The film doesn’t entirely mesh on a tonal level — a flaw in terms of the flexibility of storytelling. But Lady in the Water is a film by a filmmaker who knows what he wants to say and trusts himself to say it, even if it took many of us some time to catch on.
10. The Visit (2015)

Image Credit: Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

After disappointing forays into the world of big-budget would-be franchise filmmaking, Shyamalan refocused and found his voice again by betting on himself. Self-funding the film and borrowing $5 million against his home, Shyamalan took a gamble with The Visit, a film that found its identity through the editing process and was initially rejected by every major Hollywood studio. When the film found a home with Blumhouse and Universal, Shyamalan had a tight, immensely marketable found-footage horror film on his hands.

Centered on two siblings, Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), who go to meet their grandparents, Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie), for the first time, The Visit sees Shyamalan once again harness his knack for surprising reveals, with chilling results. While narratively The Visit is not as ambitious as Shyamalan’s other films, the fact that Shyamalan was able to make a celebrated return to form with his own money and a single camera feels like a triumphant tale, the kind of story Shyamalan thrives on. Not only did Shyamalan return, but he also revealed that he had much more up his sleeve as he embarked on the second phase of his career.
9. Glass (2019)

Image Credit: Jessica Kourkounis/Universal Pictures

Glass, the conclusion to Shyamalan’s Eastrail 177 Trilogy, which began with Unbreakable and continued with Split, came out the year superhero movies couldn’t have been a bigger phenomenon. Released in January, before being forced to contend with Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and Joker, Glass carved out a space for itself within the superhero movie conversation and proved to be just as essential, if not more, than some of its billion-dollar contemporaries.

Glass subverts the expected superpowered showdown, instead offering a psychological examination of David Dunn (Bruce Willis), Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) and Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) through which superheroes are treated as mythology, with comic books being a loose translation of ancient, spiritual archetypes. These characters don’t become who they are through comic books, rather comic books help them to better understand what they are and what purpose they serve. While the ending and character deaths proved to be controversial, these characters were never going to don costumes and become traditional superheroes and supervillains like all the other that populate our screens in a Shyamalan film. Glass is a battle of ideologies between mythic figures in a world that has largely forgotten them, and whose legacies serve as a reminder that there are powers beyond those of ordinary people and corrupt institutions.
8. Old (2021)

Image Credit: Courtesy of Universal Pictures

Shyamalan treaded back into the realm of adaptation for a second time, and the outcome was vastly superior to The Last Airbender. Loosely based on Pierre Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters’ French graphic novel, Sandcastle (2011), Old follows an ensemble of characters who become trapped on a beach where they age rapidly. While the film follows a multitude of characters portrayed by Rufus Sewell, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abbey Lee, Eliza Scanlen, Aaron Pierre and Ken Leung, Shyamalan retains focus on a vacationing family, Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal), Prisca (Vicky Krieps) and their two children, Trent (Nolan River, Kuca Faustino Rodriguez, Alex Wolff) and Maddox (Alexa Swinton, Thomasin McKenzie).

The existential crisis that plays out is both captivating and alarming, but not bereft of humor or a poignant statement on beauty, jealousy, forgiveness and life. While the final reveal may lose some people, Shyamalan has never been interested in entirely isolated narratives, and the ending offers up commentary on the far-reaching repercussions of pharmaceutical companies operating without oversight. Old not only manages to be an impressive balancing act of genres and tones, but it’s also one of Shyamalan’s best-shot films.
7. Trap (2024)

Image Credit: Sabrina Lantos/Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Shyamalan’s latest film, Trap, is a tense cat-and-mouse game that highlights the filmmaker’s interest in performance and the suspension of disbelief. Loving father, Cooper (Josh Harnett) takes his teenage daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to see her favorite pop-star, Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan) in concert, but both get more than they bargained for when the concert turns out to be a trap to catch serial killer, The Butcher. Plot-wise, Trap may be one of Shyamalan’s most straightforward. And, as the trailers showcased, Cooper is indeed The Butcher. But the fim’s thrills, twists and turns come from seeing exactly how Cooper can manipulate his way out of the close calls he finds himself in.

There’s a theatricality in Trap, highlighted not only by the concert film aesthetics that make up most of it but also in the performances, especially Harnett’s. He goes big in Cooper’s expressions, mannerisms and volume, which not only speaks to the character’s attempt at normalcy but also recalls silent film actors. The result is sometimes intentionally comedic, but more often than not chilling, especially since his most sincere interactions are with his daughter. Trap is arguably Shyamalan’s darkest film, abandoning the optimism of his previous work, and leaving a lasting sense of unease that feels timely as so many of us fall prey to smiling faces of psychopaths with a weird need to have control.
6. Split (2016)

Image Credit: Courtesy of Universal Pictures

After making his grand return to the thrills he’s best known for with The Visit, Shyamalan revisited a familiar territory: the world of Unbreakable. But Split’s relation to Unbreakable as a “stealth-sequel,” which wasn’t revealed until the film’s very end, was just the icing on top of an already well-constructed cake. Split examines abuse, fear and dissociative identity disorder through the lens of Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) aka The Beast, a man with 23 alternative personalities that range from kindly and naïve to downright evil.

As a horror film, Split resulted in some controversy over the depiction of a mentally ill man as a monster, though in context, Shyamalan’s approach doesn’t feel different from the kind of pseudo-psychiatry of Batman’s villains. And while The Beast is treated as something to fear, the film is not without empathy as one of the teenage girls he’s taken captive, Casey Cooke (Anya-Taylor Joy), connects with several of Crumb’s alters through their shared suffering. While we can certainly debate the notion of whether suffering truly does make us stronger, McAvoy’s tour de force performance feels like a means for Shyamalan to channel all of the stories and ideas within him, each combating one other and fighting for space. Beneath its genre conventions, Split also speaks to the suffering of artists, yet Shyamalan’s refusal to dwell in that space and also craft a thrilling tale of escape and freedom keeps the film from becoming navel-gazing or too centered on the past. Rather, this notion of suffering as a beneficial and ultimately empathetical evolution pushes the central characters, and Shyamalan, forward.
5. Knock at the Cabin (2023)

Image Credit: Universal Pictures / PhoByMo

Adapted from Paul Tremblay’s novel A Cabin at the End of the World (2018), Shyamalan challenges faith with a film that, while making significant deviations from the source material, feels like a companion piece to Signs. Vacationing at a remote cabin, Eric (Jonathan Groff), Andrew (Ben Aldridge) and their daughter, Wen (Kristen Cui), are visited by four strangers: Leonard (Dave Bautista), Redmond (Rupert Grint), Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird) and Adriane (Abby Quinn). The strangers have a message that at first seems based on bigotry: one of the family members must willingly choose to sacrifice themselves to prevent the end of the world —and for every day they don’t, a plague or catastrophe will be unleashed on mankind as each one of the strangers is forced to kill themselves in a horrific way with the tools they brought.

Shyamalan gets a lot of scare mileage from sound alone in Knock at the Cabin, but, as is so often the case with his films, the horror evolves into something else and while the film doesn’t harness to bleak power of Tremblay’s terrific novel, it does leave us something else to think on. Eric and Andrew, understandably, believe they are being targeted for being a gay couple, and they have no reason to save a world that has given them little reason to care about it. But therein lies the beauty of Knock at the Cabin, the insistence that human connection is forged through faith in the future, and that we can witness the divine in the seemingly ordinary.
4. Signs (2002)

Shyamalan’s take on the alien invasion doesn’t rely on collapsing monuments, modern warfare or any other elements we expect from an extraterrestrial-focused summer movie. Instead, Signs is an intimate family drama about loss, grief and the chances not taken. While often framed in the context of 9/11 and invasion films like The War of the Worlds (1953), Signs is grander and less fixed to a specific point in time than Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (2005).

In the aftermath of his wife’s death, a former priest, Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), discovers crop circles on his farm. As it becomes all too apparent that Earth is under siege by an alien threat, Graham, his kids Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Abigail Breslin), along with his brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), find themselves isolated and barricaded within their house, with only news footage to keep them informed of Earth’s fate. But more than serving as a commentary on the potential of alien life, Signs is about the existence of miracles and, true to its name, the symbology in the seemingly ordinary. Where some might see pure luck or a confluence of circumstances, Shyamalan posits that a series of seemingly unrelated events and conditions are the means not only to survival but to the restoration of faith, with a direction. “Swing away.”
3. The Village (2004)

Image Credit: Buena Vista/Courtesy Everett Collection

Out of all of Shyamalan’s films most deserving of reappraisal, The Village is the one that feels increasingly impactful and timely with each subsequent viewing. A romance framed as folk horror, The Village is set in a small, isolated town, surrounded by woods where dangerous creatures dwell. When her fiancé Lucius (Joaquin Phoenix) is attacked, the blind and fearless Ivy Walker (Dallas Howard) must venture into the woods to a nearby village to obtain the medicine that could save his life. The Village is further brought to life by the performances of William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Brendan Gleeson, Adrien Brody, Judy Greer, Jesse Eisenberg and Michael Pitt.

Beautifully photographed by Roger Deakins, and set to an arresting score by James Newton Howard, The Village is Shyamalan’s most aesthetically pleasing film. But beyond that, Shyamalan weaves an emotionally convincing tale of parental anxieties and a fear of the outside world. To protect their children, village leaders go to great lengths to maintain isolation and a fictional story that allows that safety to exist. But to what end? Shyamalan empathizes but doesn’t pass judgment, and as our world seems increasingly dangerous, and driven by news media set on reminding us how awful everything is, audiences are left to judge for themselves whether the village is a place where generation after generation can grow, or if it’s merely a cave, drawing attention to shadows rather than the reality.
2. The Sixth Sense (1999)

“I see dead people.” It’s a quote so embedded in our pop culture lexicon that we can almost forget how chilling it was the first time we heard it uttered from Cole’s (Haley Joel Osment) mouth. The Sixth Sense made Shyamalan a phenomenon and, to this day, remains the film that audiences compare all of his other works to — which has been both a blessing and a curse. The film resulted in Oscar nominations for best picture, best director, best original screenplay, best supporting actor for Osment, and best supporting actress for Toni Collette. It was, and still is such a rarity for horror, though many have put it under the more respectable (i.e. cowardly) classification of thriller.

But make no mistake, Shyamalan’s dalliance with death in which child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) attempts to treat a young boy who can see the dead is horrifying right from the opening moments that see a former patient of Malcolm’s, Vincent Grey, so memorably and hauntingly portrayed by Donnie Wahlberg, break into his home. There’s a beauty in The Sixth Sense’s theme of resolution. But Shyamalan knows exactly which buttons to push to remove the covers and terrify unsuspecting audiences, always with a sense of empathy for the dead and their stories. Shyamalan treats ghosts as more than just specters, but people with full lives and that’s what makes the famous reveal so powerful.
1. Unbreakable (2000)

Shyamalan’s follow-up to The Sixth Sense reunited the director with Willis, this time for a grounded take on superheroes. Interestingly, this film predates the age of superhero movies, with Blade (1998) and X-Men (2000) being the only modern counterparts. While the language Shyamalan is pulling from here, that of comic books, hadn’t been thoroughly exposed by Hollywood yet, the film garnered a cult following from comic readers who were in the know — how Shyamalan reshaped epic tales of good vs. evil relied on color as symbol, and constructed shots like comic book panels to bring the world of myth down to a human level.

Instead of tights, colorful powers, or a great head of hair, Shyamalan’s super man in Unbreakable is David Dunn (Willis), a balding, depressed, middle-aged security guard who forms a bond with a comic book store owner and collector, Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), and discovers he is meant for great things. There’s a religious awakening that Dunn and Price find on their journeys of self-discovery. While they ultimately find themselves at odds through the conventions of comic books, Shyamalan posits that they and the comic books they consume are channeling something ancient and historic. This story, like so many others in Shyamalan’s filmography, stretches beyond the present but is built in both history and religion. There’s no doubt that Shyamalan is one of Hollywood’s most original filmmakers but so often it feels, as it does with Unbreakable, that Shyamalan is excavating human history, and exploring and recontextualizing the stories that are essential to us through his unique cinematic lens.