M. Night Shyamalan's Best Movie, According To Rotten Tomatoes

As a guy from Philadelphia, I've always felt a kinship with M. Night Shyamalan. The filmmaker who made plot twists hip again is a Philly guy, and a large chunk of his movies are set in the City of Brotherly Love. As a result, when I watch an M. Night movie, I often spot locations that are overly familiar to me. This turns me into the "pointing Leo" meme, and I sit up, point at the screen, and say "Hey, I know where that is!" It's like a little treat. But beyond Shyamalan's penchant for using Philadelphia as a setting, I also just really enjoy his films. I'm proud to say that I stuck with the filmmaker while others turned on him, and I was thrilled when he began what is considered his big comeback starting with "The Visit" and continuing with "Split." After being written off by many critics and moviegoers, and the industry as a whole, Shyamalan was hot again! 

You likely know all about his meteoric rise. After his indie drama debut "Praying with Anger" (1992) and the forgotten family film "Wide Awake" (1998), Shyamalan broke out in a huge way with the 1999 ghost story "The Sixth Sense." While that movie got a lot of press because of its big twist, it was also just a damn good movie overall, and more or less gave Shyamalan carte blanche to do whatever the hell he wanted. And what he wanted to do was follow things up with "Unbreakable," a movie that was a serious drama ... about superheroes. The superhero movie boom would make such an idea commonplace, but it was somewhat radical when "Unbreakable" arrived in 2000. M. Night followed that up with one of his biggest blockbusters, the alien invasion thriller "Signs." But While "Signs" garnered good reviews and even better box office returns, there was a sense that people were starting to grow a little tired of Shyamalan's schtick. The downfall began. Shyamalan's next movie, "The Village," was also a box office hit — but critics weren't happy with it, and audiences felt hoodwinked by the marketing, which tried to sell the film as a full-blown horror movie, something it absolutely was not. 

Shyamalan pressed on, but his "brand" was damaged. His next movie, "Lady in the Water," was not well-received at all. Nor was his wonderfully silly B-movie "The Happening." "The Last Airbender" wasn't a total flop, but it wasn't a hit either — and fans downright hated it. Things had gotten so dire for Shyamalan that when his next movie, the Will Smith sci-fi film "After Earth," arrived, Shyamalan's name was left out of the trailers, as if the studio was afraid mentioning him would turn people off. Some of us might've called it quits at this point, but not Shyamalan. His next film, 2015's "The Visit," was financed entirely by Shyamalan himself. And his gamble paid off: audiences had fun and critics called it a return to form. M. Night was back, baby! 

Shyamalan kept things moving along in the wake of "The Visit." His next film was "Split," an excellent, tense thriller that also acted as a continuation of "Unbreakable." This, in turn, lead to "Glass," a film that acted as a sequel to both "Unbreakable" and "Split." Critics didn't love it (and sadly, that includes me), but it still did well at the box office. And at this point, Shyamalan was cooking again. He followed "Glass" with the wonderfully strange "Old," aka the movie about the beach that makes you old. After that came the apocalyptic thriller "Knock at the Cabin."

Now, Shyamalan is about to do it again with "Trap." Sadly, the studio releasing "Trap," Warner Bros., is not screening it for critics — and that both concerns me and gives me pause. Usually, when a studio doesn't screen a film for critics it's a sign that folks involved don't have confidence in the movie. But hasn't Shyamalan earned that confidence by now? The guy was counted out before, only to bounce back in a big way. Why not give him the benefit of the doubt? Then again, for all I know, this "no critics screening" edict could be coming directly for Shyamalan himself. Perhaps he's been so burned by negative reviews in the past that he wants to avoid them altogether. I don't know the answer. All I know is that I think "Trap" looks like a lot of fun, and I'm sad I wasn't given the opportunity to review it. 

Speaking of reviews, you might be wondering: what is Shyamalan's best movie, at least according to the critics? For that question, we turn to Rotten Tomatoes. As is usually the case with a story like this, it's worth noting that Rotten Tomatoes is not the final say in a movie's quality. It should be used as a guide, not definitive proof. That said, when we look at Shyamalan's movies on Rotten Tomatoes, one title stands above the rest. 

This probably won't surprise you, but according to Rotten Tomatoes, the best M. Night Shyamalan movie is "The Sixth Sense." You know the story: Bruce Willis is Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist who begins working with Cole Sear, played by Haley Joel Osment. Cole is a shy, quiet young boy with a big secret: he sees dead people. Cole has the power to see, and even communicate with ghosts, and while this is traumatizing for the kid, Malcolm helps him harness his powers for good. And then — what a twist! — we learn that Malcolm has been dead for almost the entire movie. He's a ghost, too, and only Cole could see him. 

With 163 reviews, the film sits at a fresh 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, which, in all honesty, is way too friggin' low for my tastes. The Critics Consensus states, "M Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense is a twisty ghost story with all the style of a classical Hollywood picture, but all the chills of a modern horror flick." "An effectively understated and moodily engrossing ghost film with a surprisingly satisfying jolt at the end," wrote Andrew Sarris for The Observe. Carrie Rickey, in Philly's own Philadelphia Inquirer, said, "So transparent is Osment as an actor, and so rare, that the pain on his face stabs you in the heart." And the GOAT Roger Ebert wrote, "'The Sixth Sense' has a kind of calm, sneaky self-confidence that allows it to take us down a strange path, intriguingly."

All this begs the question: is "The Sixth Sense" the best M. Night Shyamalan movie? It's an excellent film, and definitely ranks near the top of his filmography. But I don't think I agree that it's the best. For a while there, I might've said "Unbreakable" was Shyamalan's number one film. But these days, I think I'd have to pick "The Village." I know this is a controversial choice — as mentioned above, this is the film where it felt like audiences began to turn on Shyamalan. Critics didn't love it, either — it sits rotten at 44% on RT. 

But I believe the film is simply misunderstood, and worth revisiting — or rediscovering. A haunting, melancholy meditation on grief and the lies people are willing to tell themselves in order to feel secure in this terrifying world, "The Village" was marketed as a full-blown scary movie, but it's much more meditative than that. It's a quiet, gorgeous film featuring a star-making turn from Bryce Dallas Howard, and I'll always defend it.