Is Trap M. Night Shyamalan’s best movie? All the director’s films ranked
M. Night Shyamalan returns to cinemas this week, so we’ve set up a Trap for his fans: a ranking of all of his major movies, from those unforgivable blunders to his masterpiece(s).
Many moons ago, Newsweek hailed Shyamalan as the next “Spielberg,” a claim that’s aged like the beach that makes you old. It was unfair and wrong to begin with: his oeuvre can’t and shouldn’t be whittled down to such a palatable brag, even with his extraordinary commercial success.
He’s one of the weirdest, most unpredictable (both in story and quality) directors working today; a for-better-or-worse filmmaker who always swings away. Like Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino, he’s one of the few honest-to-god auteurs recognized by your everyday person, at the very least in name.
Trap has been billed as a “new M. Night Shyamalan experience,” perhaps the aptest promotion of any movie in his career; everything he produces is a singular, must-see event (well, mostly) that speaks to something. That’s someone worth believing in – let’s keep that in mind as we cast our minds back to the worst of the worst.
14. The Last Airbender (2010)
Paramount PicturesCast: Noah Ringer, Dev Patel, Nicola Peltz, Cliff Curtis
What it’s about: A century after the Fire Nation declared war on the planet’s three nations (Air, Water, and Earth), its savior emerges: Aang, a young Avatar with extraordinary “bending” abilities who may be able to master the elements and restore world peace.
What we think: The Last Airbender is the nadir of Shyamalan’s career; a catastrophic bastardization of a key pop culture text that’s somehow even worse than its whiffy reputation. Nothing works: the performances are bad, the effects are sludgy, and it attempts to condense 20 episodes of elegant storytelling into 100 minutes of hair-tearing pain. Never to be remembered; unable to be forgotten.
RT score: 5%
13. After Earth (2013)
Sony PicturesCast: Will Smith, Jaden Smith
What it’s about: Thousands of years in the future, the Ranger Corps hunt down the S’krell, an alien race capable of sensing fear. Before his retirement, Cypher takes his son Kitai on his final mission – and they crash-land on a long-abandoned world: Earth.
What we think: Smith once called After Earth “the most painful failure of a career” – a small price to pay for producing such an insufferable, nepo-powered dud. Shyamalan has admitted this was his “hired gun” phase, and the proof is in the stale pudding: it’s one of the most generic sci-fi movies ever made, barren of ingenuity or emotional resonance. I love Shyamalan, but even I was selling my stocks at this point.
RT score: 12%
12. Lady in the Water (2006)
Warner Bros.Cast: Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jeffrey Wright, Sarita Choudhury, Jared Harris
What it’s about: When a stuttering apartment complex superintendent encounters a young woman in his pool, it becomes clear she’s not of this world: she’s a fictional character come to life, alongside the vicious creatures trying to kill her.
What we think: Shyamalan casting himself as a literary messiah was the perfect omen for Lady in the Water. This is a balls-to-the-wall mess that borders on unwatchable; yawningly, hilariously self-indulgent, and still after several watches completely incomprehensible. Yet, it’s impossible to fully hate; underneath… *gestures wildly at the screen*, there’s a wealth of craft to appreciate. Easily his worst film without any shackles, though.
RT score: 25%
11. The Happening (2008)
20th Century StudiosCast: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Betty Buckley
What it’s about: The US is hit with a grim, seemingly unavoidable epidemic: mass suicide, with people taking their own lives in cities across the country. A couple flees to the countryside, where they uncover the reason behind the outbreak.
What we think: Here’s the thing: The Happening is a farce, like a distant cousin of The Room, masquerading as a prescient, upsetting vision of our impending climate doom (with a touch of divine retribution; humans are destroying God’s creation, so he’s making them commit a grave sin). Just like its killer breeze, it’s “an act of nature and we’ll never fully understand it.”
RT score: 18%
10. Glass (2019)
Universal PicturesCast: Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy
What it’s about: David Dunn, moonlighting as “The Overseer,” tracks down the Horde after he abducts a group of teenage girls. However, the pair are placed in a psychiatric hospital with Elijah Price and studied by a doctor specializing in a “very particular illusion of grandeur… those who believe they’re superheroes.”
What we think: When I first watched Glass, I hated it; this was a trilogy-capper nearly two decades in the making that ends like a flatline, desperately and depressingly reweaving the fabric of superhero movies. With some distance, I see its merits; a wonderful performance by McAvoy, a score that worthily succeeds James Newton Howard, and its metatextual layers are clever… just a little too clever.
RT score: 37%
9. Old (2021)
Universal PicturesCast: Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Alex Wolff, Thomasin McKenzie
What it’s about: Two families take a trip to a gorgeous cove where people age in a single day, leaving rot and bones in their wake. There’s no way out, either; all they can do is feel and witness the grim, inescapable passage of time.
What we think: Old is a hot Shyamalan summer; a dizzying, often nightmarish reminder of our own mortality – in all its grace, madness, and horror. Its shores aren’t pure: they’re perishable, mystifying, and cruel, with thumping drums, crashing waves, and the constant stench of death in the air. Its ending aside (crap!), this is vintage Shyamalan, in sickness, health, and everything in between. Like Ferris said, life moves pretty fast.
RT score: 50%
8. Knock at the Cabin (2023)
Universal PicturesCast: Dave Bautista, Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Kristen Cui, Abby Quinn, Rupert Grint
What it’s about: It’s the end of the world, as we know it… according to four strangers who show up at a family’s remote cabin, and there’s only one way to prevent it: one of them has to sacrifice themselves to save the human race.
What we think: I’m an Old defender, but even I can admit that Knock to the Cabin was a return to the sort of form that made Shyamalan a household name. Its nail-biting Biblical premise is a nightmare drawn with shades of frightening delusion and empathy, best conveyed through Bautista’s career-best performance as Leonard, a sorrowful giant at odds with the terror he’s forced to inflict.
RT score: 67%
7. Trap (2024)
Warner Bros.Cast: Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Hayley Mills, Alison Pill
What it’s about: Silence of the Lambs meets Taylor Swift in this thriller about father-daughter duo Cooper and Riley, who head to the sold-out concert of singer Lady Raven. By the time Cooper discovers the show is a ruse setup by the feds to capture a serial killer named “The Butcher,” it’s already too late – but can he make it out before they uncover his sinister secret?
What we think: Shyamalan is so back with Trap. It feels like he’s listened to the complaints of his fandom, doing away with convoluted plots and baffling twists, and replacing them with a simple yet truly effective premise. It’s a fun, heart-thumping cat-and-mouse thriller with Hitchcockian levels of tension, accelerated by Hartnett’s tour de force performance as the antagonist you can’t help but empathize with. Set against the backdrop of a Swift-esque concert, Trap is well worth seeing on the big screen for this reason alone.
RT score: 47%
Words by Daisy Phillipson (who got to see it before me)
6. The Village (2004)
DisneyCast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, and Brendan Gleeson
What it’s about: The residents of an isolated village daren’t walk into the woods where monsters lurk. However, as people’s beliefs and fears are tested by increasingly strange events, one woman dares to venture beyond the boundary – and it changes everything.
What we think: Forget the twists; they’re glaringly obvious and eye-twitchingly baffling if you give them a second’s thought. They became The Village’s cross to bear, when its depth lies in the smaller details; romantic tension in glances (or lack thereof), gestures played with heart-stirring grandeur, Roger Deakins’ cinematography, and its ever-present, suffocating sense of unease. Just don’t talk about Adrien Brody.
RT score: 44%
5. The Visit (2015)
Universal PicturesCast: Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, Kathryn Hahn
What it’s about: While their mom goes on a cruise with her boyfriend, two teenagers stay at their grandparents for the first time. It’s exactly what you’d expect… until night falls, when they become suspicious and scared of their behavior.
What we think: The Visit is secretly Shyamalan’s nastiest movie: a stripped-down, found-footage horror picture played for genuine laughs (bar some willfully ‘young’ dialogue) and side-eyeing heebie-jeebies that has one hell of a twist. It’s not a story-upending, mind-blowing reveal: it just rationalizes all of its anxieties and creepy goings-on in the most simple, horrifying way possible.
RT score: 68%
4. Split (2016)
Universal PicturesCast: James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy
What it’s about: Kevin, a man with dissociative identity disorder, kidnaps three teenagers. As he pivots between his personas, he warns that a 24th personality is about to surface: the Beast, and he’s hungry for “sacred food.”
What we think: Split is the best cinematic experience of my life. It still breaks my heart, a true credit to McAvoy’s century-defining performance that we still manage to feel fear for a man who, deep down, knows his brain is in disarray. But it had an ace up its sleeve: the reveal that it was a stealth sequel to Unbreakable, with Bruce Willis returning just before the credits rolled. Endgame schmendgame, this was as good as it’ll ever get.
RT score: 78%
3. The Sixth Sense (1999)
DisneyCast: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Haley Joel Osment
What it’s about: Months after a traumatic event, a child psychologist meets a new patient: a young boy who believes he can see dead people. Some of these spirits are friendly, oblivious to their grisly fates; others are the source of unimaginable fear.
What we think: This is the twist of Shyamalan’s career, and arguably his most iconic film – with good reason. It’s a masterpiece, plain and simple; as heart-achingly emotional as it is scary (Cole getting locked in the church cupboard made me cry as a little boy), with one of the greatest child performances of all time from Osment, and delicate, dazzling turns from Collette and Willis. It’s more than its ending: a ghost story beyond what bumps in the night.
RT score: 86%
2. Signs (2002)
DisneyCast: Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin
What it’s about: After mysterious crop circles appear on a former priest’s farm in rural Pennsylvania, the same phenomenon starts happening across the world. It becomes clear that these are close encounters with extraterrestrial life; the question is, is it an invasion?
What we think: Masterpiece #2 (and not just because it boasts the scariest scene of the 2000s and Mel Gibson at his absolute best). Signs has an eerie, wistful tone, like a post-9/11 Field of Dreams; with no life left to build, something still comes. It’s only after many frights (and a jaw-dropping ending that’s great, actually) that its outlook awakens anew: a reclamation of faith (not religion), and the belief that belief isn’t futile.
RT score: 75%
1. Unbreakable (2000)
DisneyCast: Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Robin Wright
What it’s about: David Dunn is the sole survivor of a train crash; is it luck… or something more? In the eyes of Elijah Price, a cane-walking comic book obsessive, he may possess incredible strength and invulnerability — but with great power comes great responsibility, and what’s the price of superpowers in the real world?
What we think: Unbreakable isn’t just M. Night Shyamalan’s greatest film; it’s a quiet, no-less breathtaking twist on the superhero mythos that deconstructed the genre’s tropes on the precipice of its pop culture-redefining boom. Willis and Jackson turn in dazzling, emotionally fraught performances, every shot of Eduardo Serra’s cinematography is like a photograph, and James Newton Howard’s spine-tingling theme is one for the ages. Its legacy is in the title.
RT score: 70%
After you watch Trap, make sure you check out our ranking of the best horror movies, best action movies, and best sci-fi movies of all time.