Every M. Night Shyamalan movie, ranked

Talk about being born under a bad sign. This adaptation of the Nickelodeon show was cursed from the start when Shyamalan decided to cast a white person in an Asian role and turn an animated spectacle into a live-action event. 

Will Smith once called After Earth the most painful thing in his career. He hadn't slapped Chris Rock yet, but even after the Oscars, this movie is still in the running for his biggest mistake. His character crash lands on Earth after a war with aliens, only to find the planet completely empty. The script is pretty empty, too. 

The only directorial effort from Shyamalan outside the horror genre is a kid's comedy, which might come as a shock to some. But there's a reason this movie has gone unnoticed for nearly three decades: it's bad, real bad. 

Lady in the Water is what happens when someone drops acid and then watches The Little Mermaid, and then decides to make their own Little Mermaid but with werewolves and bears. It's hard to tell what Shyamalan was going for here. He's got all the elements of a great underwater fantasy (including Bryce Dallas Howard as a mermaid), just without the elements that matter. You know, elements like water and fish. 

If you weren't already afraid of getting old, Shyamalan goes the extra mile to make you dread those retirement years. People begin to age rapidly at a secluded beach in Mexico and splash around in a fountain of death. It's a good premise for a movie, but then it starts to get old. 

Glass might be the biggest letdown of Shyamalan's career. Both Unbreakable and Split marked some of his best and most cohesive work. Of all the twists he'd ever done, these two movies showcased the best of the best, as well as a throughline that tied them all together. But then Glass shattered the entire series...

The plants are trying to kill us! That was the main takeaway of this disaster flick, in which Mark Wahlberg plays a scientist who talks to a literal plant. The premise is right up there with Sharknado. The actors aren't sure whether they are supposed to act natural or confused, and the dialogue sounds like it was written by a crackpot. And yet...The Happening remains one of my favorite Shyamalan flicks because it mixes trash and art, a killer plant with a chilling score that could have been lifted from Bach. 

Never count out M. Night Shyamalan. Just when you thought he was down for the count, he put his personal savings into a movie and saved his career. The Visit is a low-budget, high-stakes romp about two teenagers visiting their grandparents on a farm, where they discover not everything is what it seems.

Everyone has one Shyamalan movie they think is underrated. For me, that movie is The Village, a slice of horror that pays more attention to atmosphere than it does to scares. The Village is set in a 19th-century encampment where monsters lurk outside, though some villagers aren't sure they are actual monsters. The movie builds to a twist that made me literally gasp — a shoutout to Stephen King's The Mist — and paved the way for dozens of films like it. 

A cabin in the woods sounds a little cliche, right? But a cabin in the woods where the apocalypse is happening, and the guests have to kill one of their own? Now I have your attention. Knock at the Cabin is not your average slasher, and the differences make it one of the genre's best. The tone is much darker than usual, which allows Shyamalan to hide his twists in plain sight. 

Proof the Oscars have no respect for horror. McAvoy was not nominated for his tour-de-force performance as Wendell, the serial killer with 23 personalities that reflect off each other like shards of glass. The movie was recognized by audiences, though, making a killing at the box office and kicking off the Unbreakable franchise. 

Plot twist! The director has made better movies than The Sixth Sense. Most people would assume this is his best work — it's certainly his most famous — but the story of a kid who sees dead people has a few skeletons in the closet. Mainly, the pace that never gets moving faster than a Frankenstein lurch. Still, the story is always engaging, and the mix of human drama and horror is hard to beat. 

Shyamalan was doing superhero flicks long before Marvel was making movies. But what makes Shyamalan's version better is not that he beat them to the punch but that he tells the story the same way a director at Sundance tells a story. It's all about the human aspects — how Willis comes to terms with his role in society and learns to use his powers for good. 

There must have been something in the water when Shyamalan was directing Signs . Everyone on set was working at the top of their games, from the lighters to the gaffers to the performers (Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix). This is a perfect movie, with all the pieces working harmoniously to make one of the great science-fiction films.