10 Movies Where The Hero Was Dead All Along

2. The Sixth Sense

It may not be the earliest instance of this trope, but M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense is unquestionably the most famous film to feature a protagonist who was dead the entire time - and prompted a host of inferior thrillers to rehash the same twist in the years that followed.

Our hero is Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), a child psychologist who is shot and wounded by a former patient (Donnie Wahlberg) in one of the film's establishing scenes.

But Malcolm seemingly makes a full recovery, with the story picking up the next year as he works with Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), a young boy who can see dead people.

Jaws are collectively dropped at the end of the movie, then, when it's revealed that Malcolm himself was in fact dead the entire time, having died from that initial gunshot wound.

Thankfully with Cole's help Malcolm is able to deliver some parting words to his wife Anna (Olivia Williams) and "move on," his business complete.