20 Horror Movies Everyone Remembers For Just One Scene
8. The Sixth Sense - He's A Ghost
When it comes to The Sixth Sense, to put it bluntly: sod the twist.
Yes, the twist is amazing, but there is so much more to M. Night Shyamalan's breakout film than the ending. By and large, it's a superbly written supernatural drama filled with jolting scares and tremendous performances, and it's still unusual to find a ghost story this heartfelt.
The twist ending - that Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis in one of his greatest performances) is a ghost who was unaware that he's dead - is simply one of many great things in The Sixth Sense, but it's the main one that gets attention, and this is frustrating, as it means that the rest of the movie often doesn't get the credit it deserves.
It's also led to some retrospective backlash against The Sixth Sense, as some viewers have questioned how Malcom didn't work it out when no-one ever talked to him. For the record, that was answered by Cole (Haley Joel Osment), the ghost-seeing child Malcolm is trying to help - "They don't know they're dead... they only see what they want to see."
Furthermore, it didn't have a good effect on Shyamalan's career going forward. He was forever known as the twist guy, and he was always under pressure to throw a twist into his later works, even though those twists often didn't fit the narrative. Essentially, The Sixth Sense is a great example of a movie that's celebrated for the wrong reason.