M. Night Shyamalan Ranked

Welcome to "Ranked", where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best and hand out assorted relevant accolades. This week, I'm profiling the prolific master of the plot twist otherwise known as M. Night Shyamalan-whose latest project "Old" hits theaters on Friday.  

M. Night Shyamalan's Filmography Ranked:

11.Lady in the Water (D)

10.The Village (D)

9.The Last Airbender (D+)

8.Glass (C-)

7.Signs (C-)

6.Split (C-)

5.After Earth (C)

4.The Happening (C)

3.Unbreakable (B-)

2.The Visit (B)

1.The Sixth Sense (B+)

Top Dog: The Sixth Sense (1999)

The "BRUCE WILLIS IS A GHOST" twist ending and Shyamalan's reliance on said plot twists turning into punchlines over the years has kind of eroded the legacy of The Sixth Sense, which is really unfortunate because its a terrific psychological thriller. Shyamalan does a great job of establishing an unsettling tone, the central performances (Willis, Toni Collette, Haley Joel Osment) are superb and the aforementioned ending was legitimately shocking before everybody was aware of the reveal.  

Lowlight: Lady in the Water (2006)

Despite having a riotously funny final 30 minutes that is pure gold for any purveyor of trash cinema, Lady in the Water is otherwise a boring, convoluted and woefully acted fairy tale that represents Shyamalan at his unhinged worst.

Most Underrated: The Visit (2015)

After watching his steady decline following Unbreakable, I was pretty confident that Shyamalan would never make a legitimately good film ever again. Then truly out of nowhere, he snapped out of his 15 year funk with this little gem. The Visit marked a true back to basics project for Shyamalan-who at the time was coming off a pair of blockbuster bombs (The Last Airbender, After Earth). It was a low budget horror thriller with a simple hook (a pair of teenagers visit their estranged grandparents for the the first time, only to become increasingly disturbed by their erratic behavior), largely unknown cast (Kathryn Hahn was the only prominent Hollywood regular involved) and a lean 94 minute runtime. Keeping things simple for the first time in a long time allowed Shyamalan to really focus on his craft and in turn, he was able to create a clever, entertaining film that features an effective comedy/horror balance, the best ensemble acting (Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, Hahn) of any of his films since The Sixth Sense and *gasp* a high quality plot twist that gives way to a really solid ending.      

Most Overrated: Split (2017)

For the opening 2/3 of Split, Shaymalan seemed like he was on a path to string together back-to-back respectable projects and continue his unexpected revival. James McAvoy crushes the brutally difficult assignment of playing a man with dissociative identity disorder (he plays 8 different characters over the course of the film) and the central mystery centered around why this mentally ill man kidnapped three teenage girls (Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson, Jessica Sula) was very compelling. Then the master of the shitty plot twists ruins the entire thing when he introduces a ridiculous supernatural element to the story that ultimately ends with the groanworthy Unbreakable tie-in that birthed the similarly underwhelming Glass.

The Film Responsible for Shyamalan's Woes: Signs (2002)

The swift downturn of Shyamalan's career can be tied to one specific scene in Signs. Upon discovering that the aliens that have quietly invaded Earth have made their way into his farmhouse, grieving widow Graham (Mel Gibson) instructs his bat-wielding former minor league baseball player brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) to "swing away" at the extraterrestrial visitors -which then leads to an unforgettably terrible sequence where Merrill knocks a glass of water onto an alien and discovers that it melts their skin. This moment proved to be just a taste of the stupidity that Shyamalan was capable of, but its importance in the history of the gloriously dumb ideas that have come out of his head can't be understated.