Audiences may remember a movie for how good the plot twist was or how pathetic it was. M. Night Shyamalan is one of the only directors whom audiences will remember for both. Using one or many plot twists is his trademark which audience keeps expecting in all his movies. The journey has been hit-or-miss for him.
He gave the audience one of the most memorable plot twists with The Sixth Sense and then, in contrast, he went on to make Lady in the Water. Here is a list citing best and worst plot twists from his movies. It goes without saying, spoilers ahead.
Best: The Sixth Sense - Malcolm Crowe Is Dead Throughout The Movie
The Sixth Sense is the undisputed masterpiece in which Shyamalan delivered his best ever. It follows Cole, who is a boy who sees dead people and Malcolm Crowe is his psychologist.
The movie pulled the rug under the audience with its big reveal at the end. There were several clues that built up to the fact that Crowe is one of many ghosts Cole sees, as he wears the same clothes throughout the entire movie and does not have a two-way conversation with Cole's mom, yet audience couldn’t guess it.
Worst: Devil - The Devil Is The Old Lady
Shyamalan envisaged the story of Devil in which a group of people gets stuck in an elevator. And it just so happens that one of them is a devil.
With the twist of the old lady being the devil, the audience felt betrayed instead of being shocked. There was no foreshadowing and therefore, it did not come off as a big, I-should-have-seen-it-coming ending.
Best: The Visit - Grandparents Are Mentally Ill Impostors
The Visit falls into the found footage genre with a minimal cast and a shoestring budget. In the film, two kids visit their grandparents for the first time, the latter of whom behave extremely odd and downright creepy.
It turns out that the original grandparents are dead and these two feigning grandparents are escaped murderous mental patients who took their place. With no narrative cheats and enough clues sprinkled throughout, the unsettling and outrageous twist is a one to look out for.
Worst: Lady In The Water - Fairy Tale Tropes Are False
Lady in the Water is a fairy tale fantasy that revolves around a creature named Story. She is a Narf (water-nymph) running from wolf-like creatures named Scrunts. There is also a writer in the movie which is played by Shyamalan himself. Story predicts that the writer’s work will one day change the world for the better. The lead character, Heep, depends on literary tropes to direct the effort.
Eventually, this fails as Heep finds out that the best stories are not dependent on tropes. This ending is supposed to be a twist, but hardly feels like one, making it one of the worst.
Best: Unbreakable - Price Stages Mass Casualties To Find His Counterpart
Unbreakable follows David Dunn who is unaware of his superpowers until Elijah Price finds and mentors him.
In the end reveal, the audience finds out that the insanely driven, brittle-boned Price deliberately caused the fatal train crash to reveal Dunn’s powers and discover his unbreakable counterpart. The film suggests that every extreme breeds its opposite end of it like each superhero has a supervillain. Unbreakable happens to be the origin story of both of them.
Worst: Signs - The Aliens Are Allergic to Water
For the big twist, it was shown that aliens are allergic to water. The high-tech, light speed traveling aliens didn’t know that the planet they are invading is two-thirds the substance, they are allergic to. The ending seems out-of-nowhere and bizarre aligning with a sloppy script.
Best: Split - It Occurs In The Unbreakable Universe, Turning Out To Be Its Sequel
Kevin Crumb, or The Horde, is the main character who has multiple personalities. To be precise, he has 24 distinct personalities including monstrous, superhuman, The Beast. He undergoes some sort of transformation with each of them.
The huge twist is the very last scene in which the camera pans to David Dunn in a diner causing the audience to realize that the movie is actually a sequel to Unbreakable, changing the entire universe it took place in.
Worst: The Happening - Plants Are Trying To Kill Humans
The Happening is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller in which a couple and a young girl are seen struggling to survive an outbreak which causes people to commit suicide when infected.
In the end, it is revealed that plants' toxins are responsible for mass suicide as opposed to what the audience believed to be an attack from a bioweapon. It came out as downright stupid.
Best: Glass - Twist-Heavy Climax
Glass is the final installment in the Unbreakable trilogy and it has a twist-heavy in the ending. Mr. Glass put both Dunn and Crumb's father on the same train which ends up killing both fathers. The finale reveals that Dr. Staple is a member of a secret group of people who are on a mission to repress the existence of superheroes from the public.
Mr. Glass, who always intended to die, secretly copied all the security camera footage from the Clover for public to see and find out that superheroes are real before he died.
Worst: The Village - Movie takes place in the present
The Village is set in what appears to be 19th century isolated, technology-deficit village. People of the village are told never to leave it for fear of hidden creatures. The main character, Ivy, leaves the village to find that it is modern-day times as the village was created as a social experiment.
With several logic leaps and a boring twist that doesn’t aid or damage the story, The Village's plot twist did not go down well with the audience.