The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable are his only really good movies (though I found The Village tolerable, at least), but I enjoy Unbreakable more, so it gets my vote. I guess it was because of the subject matter, the treatment of comic-book and superhero tropes with respect and seriousness. I always wanted to see a TV series continuation, maybe with Jerry Doyle in Bruce Willis's role (though he'd probably be too old for it now). I haven't seen any MNS films earlier than T6S or later than The Village, and I didn't bother to see Signs or The Village until they showed up on network TV. I'll probably Netflix Airbender at some point just for the sake of the reportedly impressive visuals, and out of morbid curiosity, but it would be in spite of MNS's involvement. Whatever mojo he had that let him make two impressive films, he pretty much used it all up on them.
I really like Sixth Sense and Unbreakable and appreciate signs despite it's lack of logic. But my favorite of Shamalamadingdong's movies would be Lady in the Water. Not so much for the movie itself but for the movie it wants to be. It's clear that Night intended Lady to be a love letter to storytelling but it's storytelling is so confused that it obscures it's intentions and its casting makes it come across as a love letter to Shyamalan himself rather than to storytelling. Still it has real heart in it and a great performance by Paul Giamatti that causes me to overlook it's myriad flaws. Flame me you fuckers. I expect it.
Signs. The Sixth Sense was really good though. I thought The Village, The Happening (was nothing close to what the trailers made it appear to be), and The Last Airbender were all garbage. The whole premise of The Village was so ludicrous that I just couldn't get past it. At some point, an airplane or helicopter would have had to have flown over them. Any attempt to explain that away just seems like rubbish to me. The others I've never seen.
Okay then, here you go.... Don't ever say I never gave you anything. Or, am I being too literal here.
Signs. I also like Unbreakable, and the Sixth Sense. The Village was okay. I have not seen The Last Airbender, and I both want to and don't want to, because I do want to see the characters from my favorite series on the Big Screen, but I don't want to see the horrible fate to which they have been assigned due to the folly of the Director.
I regard The Village with greater fondness than most, largely because I empathise with the elders' desire to escape the evils of society and the pain in their past and to be reborn in innocence. It's utter fantasy, of course - more for its romanticism of life in times past than the implausibility of the village remaining undetected in the present - however when seen through that lens the film presents a tragic and yet ultimate hopeful tale: the attempted murder of Lucius shatters the carefully crafted illusion of the village and demonstrates that evil will follow man wherever he goes, but ultimately it is love - expressed by Ivy's willingness to brave the woods to save Lucius - which triumphs in the film. That said, The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable are better films.
Unbreakable- great film with a twist I didn't see coming! The Sixth Sense- Great film almost ruined by and ending I saw coming from about 2 minutes in! Taken as a stright horror film though it's wonderful. Signs- Not great but the end where it all pulls togeather redeems it. The Village- Twists for the sake of it, but some parts are brilliantly directed. The part where she's stalked through the woods is a masdterclass in tension building. The Happening- One of the funniest films I've ever seen. I kept expecting M Knight to come out and say it was a parody, that would be the only explanation for Mark Walhlberg and Zooey Dechenal's terrible po faced wooden acting! The worst thing though is how pedestrianly it's directed, however flawed Signs and the Village were, there were great bits in them. The Happening feels like a TV movie. Haven't seen any of the others.
Whereas I think the ending is what damns it, because what "all pulls together" is completely forced and convoluted, making it feel like a contrived exercise, an overly elaborate game played with the audience. "Hey, here's a bunch of random things and events. And here's an arbitrary circumstance that fits them all together so they're not random! Surprise!" That's awful. It's getting it backward. What made The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable so inspired was that the ultimate revelations were so simple and straightforward; the explanation that tied all the clues together was one single fact that was staring us in the face the whole time, and it made us realize that everything we'd seen before actually meant something different than we'd thought. That's brilliant. But Signs was a soulless, hollow exercise by comparison. The random clues only added up to something because they were forced to, and they were really still random all along. They didn't arise organically out of a single, clear premise that was deftly hidden in plain sight; they were just slapped together for the sake of screwing with the audience. It's like a terribly constructed riddle. "What do a fountain pen, a rutabaga, a billboard, and a walrus have in common? They're all part of this event I made up that involved a fountain pen, a rutabaga, a billboard, and a walrus all at the same time, ha ha ha!" That doesn't mean anything. It doesn't come from anywhere honest. It's just a lazy cheat. And that's not even getting into the monumental idiocy of aliens who are poisoned by water invading a planet that's almost completely covered in the stuff...
My favorite one was "The Sixth Sense" not just because of the great ghost story/horror flick, but because of the very sad love story that was happening. I cried like a baby at the end of that movie, and have with each repeat watching. Just sad. I do have to say that I enjoyed "Unbreakable" and "The Village"..both very entertaining. Haven't seen them in a while, but from what I can remember, I enjoyed.
You could be right, I've only ever seen it the once however and just remember not liking it v much until the end. I think he's made the right decision now in seemingly either writing or directing rather than both at the same time, though I guess he'll go back to that eventualy.