As M. Night Shyamalan’s latest suspense thriller Trap steers audiences through its many twists and turns, we take a look at how the Letterboxd community ranks the director’s entire filmography from best to worst.
Once touted by Time Magazine as “The Next Spielberg”, it’d be fair to say that M. Night Shyamalan has had a rocky road across his career in terms of how he’s seen by audiences. His third feature, 1999’s The Sixth Sense, is as iconic as any picture there’s ever been, with its immediate “you have to see this!” water cooler response leading to six Oscar nominations and the second highest box-office gross of that landmark year in cinema (falling only behind a little Star Wars thing). A meteoric ascension continued through Unbreakable and Signs before things got a bit wobbly as viewers pushed back against The Village and then Lady in the Water and then hit their breaking point with The Happening and The Last Airbender.
The forecast looked troubling for Shyamalan in this fallow period, but ever the inventive optimist, the filmmaker bounced back in a major way starting in 2015 by doing the unthinkable: when studios began to falter at the idea of giving him funding, he put up his own cash and went back to basics by delivering the low-budget found-footage hit The Visit. Split came soon after, and Shyamalan was in good graces again, propelling him back into a space of rampant excitement, moderate budgets and massive suspense.
His latest, Trap, takes place primarily in a stadium concert for the sensation Lady Raven (played by Shyamalan’s own daughter, Saleka). Attending with his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue), mild-mannered family man Cooper (Josh Hartnett) slowly becomes aware of an unusually heavy police presence and it sends his alarm bells ringing. The concert is a trap, a snare in which to capture the notorious serial murderer The Butcher—and Cooper is The Butcher. Like any Shyamalan picture, to give away more would do a disservice to the roller coaster of thrills the director takes you on during his latest endeavor, a film that’s firmly earned its place on lists like “Claustrophobia: Films Set Mainly in One Location,” “fan behavior” and “Girl Dad Cinematic Universe.”
So, over 40 years since his first film, is M. Night Shyamalan indeed “The Next Spielberg?” No, but he was never trying to be. He’s the first M. Night Shyamalan, a distinctive voice in cinema who brings bravura camerawork, sincere storytelling, and a tender, delicate approach to character that only helps elevate the euphoria that comes from watching a master of suspense weave his web before your eyes.
Here is every film directed by M. Night Shyamalan in order of their Letterboxd average rating from lowest to highest. (I won’t forgive you all for how low Old is.)
“The problem is that all of the scenes that aren’t setting up characters’ baseline motivations or staging the few cool action scenes are just wall-to-wall exposition. And, you know, I get it, Shyamalan and the writers were trying to fit an impossible amount of material into a single movie, but it’s just frustrating because you can feel the seeds of something great rumbling beneath the earth, you can almost see the sapling taking root and beginning to grow, but the desperate need to explain four hundred minutes of content in one hundred minutes of actual runtime tears through this promising growth like a tornado of rushed worldbuilding.” —ScreeningNotes
“It has a bigger heart than most blockbuster fare, that’s probably its best asset, but I just don’t think this man is fit for large scale, populist cinema. He specializes in contained, subtle emotional dynamics and bigger movies call for bigger, more exciting emotions. That inherent contrast just makes the whole thing feel a bit wonky… it unsurprisingly excels most in the intimate character moments but it’s incomplete and almost half-hearted in other ways. There’s also just no rationalizing those accents. Wtf.” —Sydney🚀
“A quintessential good bad oddity that is superbly framed and shot (because duh, it’s Shyamalan) but is also such a misfire in almost all other aspects that you can’t help but be completely entertained by it and its oddness. The opening 10 minutes [are] so eerie and fantastic too but then it just absolutely nosedives into screwy and unintentional (or maybe intentional) hilarity with its dialogue, script, attempts at horror, uneven tone, and especially in its performances (not including Leguizamo, who is good just doing his thing as per usual). Also, acting peaked when Wahlberg told Deschanel the story about him almost buying a completely superfluous bottle of cough syrup. ‘...and I almost bought it😏.’” —Christian Di Leo
“Incredibly visually articulate, narratively quite frail. There’s quite a bit that works really well, and a decent amount that barely works at all. We all experience those moments where suddenly time has slipped past us and we, or the people around us, are suddenly much older. These moments are shocking realizations of our own mortality and how short our time on earth really is. And these moments are often surrounded by ridiculous and inane speculation about how to avoid that demise, or trying to remember that movie with [Brando] and Nicholson. At its best Old taps into this nerve. Old’s horror isn’t on that beach, it’s in our own lives. Unfortunately M. Night doesn’t lean into this metaphor nearly as much as he could have, and instead of profound, the film is merely fun and spooky, occasionally flirting with something more meaningful.” —Thomas Flight
“As debuts go, it’s part and parcel of ’90s independent film, from the specificity of its coming-of-age narrative to the horror of its semi-obligatory violent climax. It’s also dull and dramatically inert, too scattershot and awkwardly-written to find much of an emotional anchor, and the amateur-hour acting does it no favors. Still, the number of nascent thematic and stylistic hallmarks present in Praying with Anger make it an essential curio for Shyamalan heads.” —anna nomaly
“Doubles as both a meta-textual narrative about Shyamlan’s own frustrations and heartaches of the world and a neat little bedtime fairytale and succeeds reasonably well with both! Almost overbearingly convoluted at times but always totally sincere and ultimately loving, Shyamalan is one of the only creators in mainstream American filmmaking work that can be this admittedly difficult to grasp and totally singular that I can’t help but just see some real genuine beauty through even the strangest execution.” —Riley
“An almost existentialist coming-of-age narrative about a child who is grieving after the loss of his beloved grandpa, something that will cause him to question this beloved figure and God among other things. M. Night Shyamalan would explore and flesh out these themes much better in his following feature films, The Sixth Sense and Signs, however he does a reasonably good job playing with them here, even though he still hasn’t found the right tone. What we got in this case was a movie that abruptly shifted from a quirky kids flick to something darker and much more mature. There is a lack of balance in the movie, which makes it feel strange and shaky, ruining what could be a good story. All in all, it offers a lot of interesting ideas, some good camerawork, and good performances, although it always seems to lack potential.” —Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine
“M. Night Shyamalan uses the camera in beautiful ways to direct suspense with lingering shots, slow panning, and tight framing to make you lean forward for more. Although the dialogue does over-explain itself a bit too much, especially at the end. I did wish it left more unsaid. It's still a very entertaining twist on the typical apocalypse movie [with] heartbreaking performances by everyone in the cast.” —trin
“Simultaneously M. Night’s angriest and in his own weird idiosyncratic way, most hopeful movie. A big sincere swing that’s asking people to persist even when the world does its best to stomp on the exceptional. Continue to be astonished at how Jackson takes complete control of this in the back half when up against a performance as captivating as McAvoy. This also just goes up in my estimation on every rewatch. It may not be the conclusion people wanted but Shyamalan made it his way and I wouldn’t ask for anything else.” —Dennis Duffy
“Sure it has its weak script moments and plot conveniences here and there but I found this to be easily M. Night Shyamalan’s most solid outing in a while. Consistently thrilling, keeps you guessing at every turn and has that M. Night wittiness that really makes the humor pop. A visual FEAST too, just so pretty to look at. Josh Hartnett’s darkly comic performance in this is the main highlight for me though. One of my favorite actors working right now.” —popstylefor30
“Pretty fun formal exercise and an absolutely batshit comeback. There’s not much lurking behind the mystery and scares this time but those are so good anyway, I can’t mind it. I also love how Shyamalan is very aware of white children’s obsession with rap music. This is like the third movie he’s done with a kid like this if you count Hedwig from Split as one. Olivia DeLonge ate this!” —Paul
“The camera, the editing, the score, the performers, the characters, all of them reaching out and having faith that they’ll be pulled in the right direction. All guided by imperceptible senses, and appropriately erratic for them. The sad part is that they can never get to the end. Ivy knows the whole truth, but she’ll never know that she does. The only closure is in falsehood. Knowledge is ignorance, and ignorance is bliss. But in the end, Shyamalan is no cynic. He ends on a note of hope, even though we know it’s hope born from a lie. Hope is hope, the film argues. Shyamalan’s said that his entire career.” —esther
“Split is such a marvel. Works in the same way 10 Cloverfield Lane does, as its own contained captive thriller and as a part of a wider, more fantastical universe. Grounded, sincere performances from all involved elevate an impassioned story to even greater heights. The cycles of abuse and trauma and how those experiences often propel people into prolonged isolation is such an interesting focus for the film to take on. Especially when set beside how Shyamalan uses faith and fanaticism here. Might be one of his most interesting uses of faith in how its presence feels so weighty. So much of this plays almost like a haunting, from the firm questioning of ‘who am I speaking with?’ to the power of a name to the warping of religious language/the concept of purity for something violent and hungry.” —claira curtis
“I found comfort in Signs. An odd sense of understanding. I found my memory reliving a past life… one in which I quickly abandoned belief, so broken and foggy. So devoid of optimism. Desperate to find meaning in something I had little understanding of. Time passed and all I carried was fear and a fading sense of hope as the world felt like it was falling apart around me. It's ok to be afraid. Is there logic to suffering? Is there power in faith? Signs is a reminder in the importance of belief… in a time when you’re most afraid. This hit me in places I did not want it to. Swing away, Merrill.” —George Carmi
“I love how uninterested this film is in keeping its symbolism subliminal. Shoot Glass through glass in every scene. Give the everyday superhero an everyday uniform with a big SECURITY logo on the back. Make it a poncho to block water after establishing his weakness as water. Compose your shot like a comic panel and deliver a line like ‘Life doesn’t have to fit into little boxes that were drawn for it’ before moving the camera in a way that becomes a fundamentally cinematic language. What else is there to say? Such raw pining for fulfillment here from everyone, sold on every conceivable level.” —Taylor Williams
“Watching this film knowing what happens in the end is a completely different feeling. It feels more emotional, very sad, very clever and yet very hopeful. The Sixth Sense up until its final moments feels like a devastating film. A man slowly feels like he’s losing his wife, a kid who is traumatized, confused and a mother’s helplessness to understand her child. Shyamalan’s writing here is absolutely masterful, the information he’s showing to us, the audience, is just perfect. It gets us invested in the story and makes us care for the characters. The score was phenomenal. Of course M. Night’s direction was exceptional, it’s meticulous, smart and emotional. The ending is an all timer, no words for it. For those questioning how this is a horror film, there is a scene where a kid is dead and the dad finds out how it happened. That’s horror for me, it shook me to my core.” —Shreesh
‘Trap’ is in theaters now from Warner Bros. Pictures.
