This post was originally published in 2015. We have updated it to include Trap, Split, Old, and Knock at the Cabin.
A well-executed plot twist is a neat trick, employed by wily directors eager to give an audience that’s seen it all something new. M. Night Shyamalan has made his career on the plot twist. Aside from a few notable exceptions, his body of work is full of gotcha moments, laboring heavily under their own ambitions, trying in vain to surprise a jaded audience, and, more often than not, failing miserably.
You go into a Shyamalan film waiting for the other shoe to drop. If the plot seems straightforward and easy to understand, hold onto your hat because two-thirds of the way through the thing, something you never saw coming is going to emerge from the shadows, hitting you over the head with how clever it is. It’s the movie equivalent of clickbait: You fall for it hard the first time around, but every subsequent iteration leaves you queasy and irritated. Luckily for Shyamalan, his recent films like Old and Knock at the Cabin have put him back in many viewers’ good graces. He might always be known to some as “the twist guy,†but there’s been a renewed appreciation for his talents as a visual storyteller as of late. There’s more to Shyamalan than twists.
And yet, the surprise plot twist is still Shyamalan’s calling card. At best they’re mind-blowing; at worst they’re winking, pedantic, and self-serious. In honor of his new movie Trap, we took a closer look at the twists throughout Shyamalan’s filmography. How twisty are these twists, really? Will anything live up to the standard set by The Sixth Sense? To keep things fair, we eliminated movies that he made that don’t include any kind of surprise ending — or really even the expectation of one. That eliminates his early films Praying With Anger and Wide Awake, the disastrous Avatar: The Last Airbender adaptation, and the Will Smith sci-fi flick After Earth. That still leaves a dozen twisty-turny movies with the release of Trap, and we’ve arranged them in order of least to most twisted.
12.
Split (2017)
The Plot: Three teenage girls are abducted by James McAvoy, who looks like one man but actually contains 24 personalities, including a fashion designer named Barry with a difficult-to-place accent; Patricia, a British woman with a penchant for shawls, paprika, and sensible skirts; and the Beast, a superpowered villain who can’t be killed with bullets. Only Anya Taylor-Joy survives.
The Twist: There’s no big in-your-face twist like in Shyamalan’s past films. (Your mileage may vary on whether the reveal that Taylor-Joy is also a victim of abuse, like McAvoy, leading to her survival, counts as a twist or if it’s just upsetting.) But in the movie’s final scene, you’ll see a very familiar face sitting in a diner — David Dunn, Bruce Willis’s character from Unbreakable. That’s the twist that everybody was talking about after Spilt premiered — this movie is a sequel to Unbreakable. Crazy!
How Twisted Is It?  As a twist should be central to the actual plot, not a nod buried at the end of the movie when half the theater has started to leave, this is barely a twist. A light tangle. Hardly. Not at all.
Rating: As twisty as going to work every morning: The train shows up, it’s not too crowded, but you step in something questionable just before you make it to your building. Oh, well!
11.
The Happening (2008)
The Plot: Something in the air is causing mass suicides around the world, starting in Central Park and spreading rapidly throughout the Northeast. Science teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) and his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) embark on a journey to figure this out. It turns out the enemy — plants! — is all around us.
The Twist: Instead of bioterrorism or anything that makes a modicum of sense, the real enemy here is Mother Nature. The plants are the enemy. Kill the plants before they kill you.
How Twisted Is It? Technically, the fact that the plants are emitting poison into the air with the intent of exacting revenge on humans is a surprise, but it is honestly one of the most hackneyed surprise endings that ever was.
Rating: As twisty as thinking you found money in your winter coat before immediately realizing it’s just a crumpled ATM receipt.
10.
Lady in the Water (2006)
The Plot: Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) is a mopey handyman who discovers a Narf named Story (Bryce Dallas Howard) living in the pool of the apartment complex where he works. It turns out Story is a mystical creature from a bedtime story sent to find the author of the book that will eventually save humanity. That person happens to be Vick Ran (M. Night Shyamalan himself), the author of a book that contains ideas so transformative, they will inspire future leaders to change the world for the better. Also, the residents of the apartment complex are actually part of Story’s story and at the end of the whole thing, she flies off to safety on the wings of a giant eagle.
The Twist: Technically none, unless you count the fact that the marijuana-fueled ramblings of a self-important director who never should have left his dream journal got made into a film.
How Twisted Is It? The plot is, quite frankly, insane. But as nonsensical and trite as it is, it’s pretty straightforward. There’s no surprise ending or sucker punch — it’s just not good, at all.
Rating: As twisty as the hair of that “mermaid†you see down the beach that, upon closer inspection, ends up being an empty Doritos bag and an abandoned T-shirt.
9.
Glass (2019)
The Plot: The superpowered main characters of Unbreakable and Split — David Dunn (Bruce Willis), Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson ), and “the Horde†(James McAvoy) — have been locked up inside a mental facility where Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) attempts to convince them that their “abilities†are not real but just mental disorders. Are we headed to a super-showdown between heroes and villains, or is all this just in their heads?
The Twist: They do have abilities, but all three end up dead because Dr. Staple is part of a covert group that’s been trying to hide the existence of superpowers from the world for a long, long time. When she couldn’t convince them that they were just suffering from delusions of grandeur, they had to die. Unfortunately for them, Elijah managed to leak evidence of their superhuman exploits so now everybody knows anyway.
How Twisted Is It? On paper, this is actually a pretty good twist. Dr. Staple wasn’t ignorant, she had an active agenda to suppress superhumans. The issue is that this twist results in three major characters meeting quiet, ignominious ends rather than the big showdown the film seems like it’s been building to. Rather than ratchet things up, as a good twist does, Glass’ reveal lets the air out.
Rating: As twisted as the MCU timeline these days. Maybe it’s a was good thing that this would-be superhero shared universe ended with Glass.
8.
Old (2021)
The Plot: A bunch of people go on vacation and visit a beach that makes you old.
The Twist: Why does the beach make you old and prevent you from escaping? It’s never explained, but everybody dies except for two kids who are now middle-aged-ass adults. Turns out a pharmaceutical company was luring tourists with medical conditions to the Beach That Makes You Oldᵀᴹ, using it to study the effects of experimental drugs by doing trials that would normally take a lifetime in just a day.
How Twisted Is It? “It was a pharmaceutical company doing tests and also the beach just does that idk,†is not the reveal that anybody was expecting, so by that measure, Old’s ending sure is a twist. It’s just not necessarily a very good one. At worst, it’s a distraction from an otherwise oddly sentimental movie about aging that features some top-notch body horror.
Rating: As twisty as dealing with the American medical system! Folks.
7.
The Village (2004)
The Plot: Once upon a time, in what seems to be the 19th century, there lived a group of villagers so terrified of the “monsters†in the forest just beyond their borders, they go full Voldemort. The Elders of the town, who keep their secrets locked in black boxes under their beds, forbid their children from speaking of the evil spirits and entering the forest at all costs. But after one of the villagers, Lucius (Joaquin Phoenix), is injured, the blind daughter of the chief village Elder (Bryce Dallas Howard) is permitted to seek help in “the towns†by passing through the forest, where she learns the secret of where she actually lives.
The Twist: It’s not the 19th century, and the villagers are being held captive as part of some weird social experiment by the chief Elder, who’s actually an American history professor. The only “monster†that’s beyond the walls is modern society, huzzah!
How Twisted Is It? Even a casual viewer of Shyamalan’s body of work could see this coming a mile away. If you think about it, this is not only pretty dumb, but The Truman Show did something sort of similar in a much more poignant way.
Rating: As twisty as the tangled chain of a necklace you’ve been working on for three hours, with no end in sight (just abandon it).
6.
Trap (2024)
The Plot: Josh Hartnett plays a #GirlDad who takes his daughter to a Taylor Swift–esque pop concert only to discover that the entire show is a sting operation aimed at arresting a serial killer known as “the Butcher†who the authorities believe will be in attendance. This is an issue for Hartnett’s character because … he is the Butcher (!), and he’ll need to do everything he can to escape without being found out.
The Twist: What, our main character being a serial killer isn’t enough of a twist for you? There’s a much smaller twist at the end when it’s revealed that his wife (Alison Pill) was the one who tipped off the police that her murderous husband would be at the concert.
How Twisted Is It? This one is tricky. The central premise of Trap is an incredible twist. However, the very first trailer for the movie gave it away, so unless you managed to go in totally blind it doesn’t really count as a twist. The rest of the developments in the movie aren’t especially shocking. Let’s slot Trap right in the middle of the pack.
Rating: As twisty as Ticketmaster’s maze of hidden fees.
5.
Unbreakable (2000)
The Plot: David Dunn (Bruce Willis) is a brooding security guard with the ability to evade bodily harm, and the unique ability to see bad things that people do just by physically touching them. Samuel L. Jackson is Elijah, a shadowy figure cursed with fragile bird bones that shatter at any moment. As you can imagine, this does not end well.
The Twist: David is (maybe) a superhero and Elijah is his arch-nemesis, a man who perpetrated terrible crimes — including the train accident that helped David realize what he was — in order to bring them together.
How Twisted Is It? It’s less of a plot twist and more of a reveal that makes you sit back and go “…huh,†really. Riding on the fumes of The Sixth Sense’s smash success probably didn’t help its case, either.
Rating: As twisty as thinking you’re going somewhere fancy for dinner and ending up at Jack in the Box. :/
4.
Signs (2002)
The Plot: Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) is a preacher who loses his faith in God and lives on a farm plagued by crop circles, dead animals, and shadowy figures generally running amok. Before you know it, the crop circles are taking over the world, and Graham’s neighbor has an alien — green, evil, afraid of water — trapped in his basement. Also, there are literal tinfoil hats.
The Twist: Unlike some of the patterns in the titular crop circle, Signs is not that twisty. It’s your standard crop-circle-alien-invasion narrative. What could count as a twist is the reveal that everything has been leading up to Graham’s final confrontation with an invader, allowing him to save his son because the aliens are weak to water.
How Twisted Is It? Some people complained about the reveal that the aliens are weak to H2O and said it was dumb that they would invade a planet that’s three-quarters water. But those haters are wrong because maybe the real twist in Signs is that it’s actually a story about one man regaining his faith rather than being about, you know, aliens. Â
Rating: As twisty as the path you take to the bathroom when you really, really have to go.
3.
Knock at the Cabin (2023)
The Plot: A gay couple is vacationing with their daughter at a cabin when they hear a knock (hence the title). Dave Bautista and three other strangers arrive and take the family hostage, explaining that they don’t want to cause them harm but that they’ve all received visions telling them that this family must willingly sacrifice one of their own otherwise the world will end. The family must try to escape while also considering whether or not these four crazy individuals are actually telling the truth.
The Twist: Turns out they very much were telling the truth! Everything eventually goes to hell as planes start falling out of the sky before Pappa Jonathan Groff allows himself to be killed so that his husband and daughter can still have a world to live in. There’s no real explanation for why any of this happened.
How Twisted Is It? Knock at the Cabin is strikingly effective because it’s an anti-twist, in effect. Audiences who think they know Shamaylan’s whole game watch the movie assuming there must be more to it than Bautista & Co. claim. But nope! The world is ending unless one member of this seemingly arbitrary family dies. A twist ending would’ve been a relief; by playing it straight, we’re forced to endure the results and implications.
Rating: As twisty as when you’re almost positive you failed that test but some small part of you hopes that you might’ve gotten a passing grade against all odds. Then the teacher hands back your paper and it is indeed an F.
2.
The Visit (2015)
The Plot: Tyler and Becca are two precocious city kids who go visit their estranged grandparents while their mom lives it up on a cruise with her new boyfriend. Everything seems fine and dandy until nightfall, when Nana spends her evenings crawling around on her hands and knees and moaning. Pop Pop keeps used adult diapers in the garden shed and cleans his shotgun by sticking it in his mouth. Something’s not quite right here, and if you haven’t figured it out yet, hold onto your butts. It’s a doozy.
The Twist: Nana and Pop Pop are actually not Becca and Tyler’s grandparents; they’re really escapees from a nearby mental institution who killed the real grandparents with a hammer and buried them in the basement.
How Twisted Is It? Genuinely very twisted! What could have been a ham-fisted demonic-possession story line ended up being a fun turn on the standard home-invasion plot, packaged with a nice lesson about not holding grudges.
Rating: As twisty as taking a bite of a brownie at a cocktail party and finding out only after you’ve eaten it that it’s a special brownie. You know, with pot.Â
1.
The Sixth Sense (1999)
The Plot: Bruce Willis is a frowny-faced child psychologist working his magic on a fresh-faced Haley Joel Osment, who, as we all know by now, sees dead people, all of whom are apparently shackled to this earth, unaware that they’re dead.
The Twist: Surprise, Bruce Willis! You’re actually dead! That’s why your wife is ignoring you. Haley Joel Osment, somehow, is actually right.
How Twisted Is It? Pretty twisted! This movie set the standard for what would become Shyamalan’s calling card — the surprise-ending gut-punch — and in the original iteration, truly caught people off guard. Also, Haley Joel Osment’s wide-eyed and whispery delivery of the line that will haunt the rest of his life is arguably one of our earliest memes.
Rating: As twisty as your insides after late-night street meat, your modest dinner following waaaay too many happy hour drinks.