2. Unbreakable (2001)
When M. Night Shyamalan sat down to write his second movie,
Unbreakable, he set out to answer a simple question: "What if Superman existed in the real world, and didn't know that he was Superman?" This is the premise that the
Sixth Sense writer/director's remarkably restrained and infinitely interesting superhero deconstruction attempts to deal with, a movie that is underwhelming in many ways, but remarkable in others. Aside from in its central character,
Unbreakable is bound to the rules of our own own reality for its duration. When David Dunn (Bruce Willis) ends up being the lone survivor of a horrific train crash, a comic book collector with brittle bone disease (Samuel L. Jackson) becomes obsessed with him, and the two men slowly begin to realise that David is different from everyone else. The movie is slow, anti-climatic and purposely evasive of "superhero movie" conventions - many will find it frustrating as a result. But it's also deep and rewarding, unlike any other movie on the subject, and an intelligent dissection of comic book lore. It's also an underrated gem, totally deserving of your time.