Every director worth their salt has a trademark that tells audiences they’re watching one of their films. Wes Anderson has symmetrical framing, Martin Scorsese has long tracking shots, and Quentin Tarantino has too many trademarks to name (tales of revenge, close-ups of bare feet, 70s classics on the soundtrack etc.).
M. Night Shyamalan’s trademark is a little more on-the-nose – he uses plot twists to tell his stories. Some are good, some are bad, and some are terrible. Some of them don’t even make sense in the world of the narrative (or the real world). Nevertheless, they’re often completely unexpected, demanding a re-watch of the movie in question with this new information in mind. Let’s take a look at all his major plot twists, ranked from best to worst. Needless to say, watch out for spoilers!
9. The Happening: The apocalypse stopped right before Mark Wahlberg went outside
The first major plot twist in The Happening is that plants are the ones causing people to harm themselves, to get revenge for how humans have been treating the environment. In theory, that’s a good message to peddle with a movie, but in execution, it’s completely misguided.
However, since that’s more of a premise than a twist and it comes early on, it doesn’t really count. The real twist is that when Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel decide to surrender themselves to the plants and go outside, the titular “happening” has conveniently stopped by the time they get out there. Did the plants decide that was when humanity had learned its lesson?
8. Signs: The aliens’ weakness is water
For its first two acts, Signs is a powerful thriller about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. The threat is not worldwide; it’s confined to the farm of a bitter preacher who’s questioning his faith following the untimely death of his wife. Thematically, it was the perfect setup for a small-scale alien invasion chiller.
However, then the third act arrives and the characters discover that the aliens’ weakness is water. This is questionable for two reasons: 1) it makes for a rather lame finale, and 2) it doesn’t make sense that aliens who are allergic to water would choose to visit a planet that’s 80% water.
7. Lady in the Water: M. Night Shyamalan’s writing saves the day!
As far as premises go, Lady in the Water is as irritatingly stupid as they come. Paul Giamatti plays a landlord who finds a nymph, which M. Night Shyamalan calls a “Narf,” in his building’s pool, rescuing her from a grass-covered wolf, which Shyamalan calls a “Scrunt.”
At the end of the movie, it is revealed that the Narf escaped from her fantasy world and came to the human world in order to get an author (played by a gleefully self-indulgent M. Night Shyamalan himself) to inform a brighter future with his writing.
6. Split: It’s an Unbreakable spin-off
The worst thing about this twist is that it’s a marketing ploy. M. Night Shyamalan tricked you into thinking you were watching an original story, but you were actually being yanked into yet another attempt at a cinematic universe.
When the news of Kevin Wendell Crumb’s rampage at the end of Split was reported on the TV in a diner, someone noted its similarity to the case of Mr. Glass (even though the two cases are completely different, and this only served to establish that Split and Unbreakable were set in the same universe). Pan to Bruce Willis as David Dunn, watching the TV. So, this was the Unbreakable sequel we’d been waiting so many years for.
5. The Village: It was the present day all along
M. Night Shyamalan himself made a cameo appearance at the end of The Village to slap his viewers in the face. After two hours of being convinced that an old-timey village was haunted by monsters, we find out that the village’s elders have been duping the residents in a cordoned-off modern-day park in an attempt to preserve historical values.
At the very least, it was a surprising turn of events. However, that alone isn’t enough to sustain it as the ending of the story.
4. Glass: Dr. Staple is killing superheroes
This twist would’ve been a lot more effective if Sarah Paulson’s Dr. Staple had given us any kind of indication that she couldn’t be trusted. As it stands, it just seems to have been haphazardly tossed into the screenplay so that Shyamalan could tick the standard plot twist off his list of required script elements.
Dr. Staple is introduced to us as a psychiatrist whose specialty is dealing with patients who believe they’re inside comic books (how many patients can she possibly have with that very obscure specialty?), but she turns out to be a member of a secret organization dedicated to ridding the world of individuals with superpowers.
3. The Visit: The old couple aren’t really Becca and Tyler’s grandparents
2015’s The Visit was a return to form for M. Night Shyamalan. He funded the movie out of his own pocket as a low-budget indie found-footage horror movie. It’s decidedly more comedic than most of the director’s other work, but it still has a harrowing third-act plot twist.
It’s about two kids, Becca and Tyler, who travel up to stay with their grandparents, who they’ve never met. One day, they’re video-chatting with their mom and point the camera at the old couple they’re staying with, when their mom tells them they’re not their grandparents. As it turns out, they’re dangerous, escaped villains who murdered their grandparents.
2. Unbreakable: Mr. Glass was the villain the whole time
They say that every good villain is the opposite of their hero. This is true in Unbreakable, although having a hero who is practically indestructible and a villain who will break every bone in his body if he trips over doesn’t exactly set up a thrilling fight scene.
That’s why Unbreakable doesn’t end with a fight scene – it ends with the twist that Mr. Glass orchestrated all the terrible incidents faced by David Dunn, killing hundreds of people along the way, in an attempt to test David’s powers. With the resolution explained via on-screen text, it’s a little anticlimactic – but it’s a great twist.
1. The Sixth Sense: Bruce Willis was a ghost the whole time
This plot twist doesn’t actually make sense. If Bruce Willis was a ghost the whole time, then who hired him to be Haley Joel Osment’s therapist? Why didn’t he realize that he hadn’t needed to open a door or use the bathroom in months? When he sat down to have dinner with his wife, how come he didn’t realize she couldn’t actually see him?
None of that really matters, though, because no-one’s thinking of that when they watch the movie. What matters is that this is easily M. Night Shyamalan’s most shocking and iconic plot twist.
