The Sixth Sense poster & wallpaper

Bruce Willis, Donnie Wahlberg, Haley Joel Osment

In this chilling psychological thriller, eight-year-old Cole Sear is haunted by a dark secret: He is visited by ghosts. A helpless and reluctant channel, Cole is terrified by threatening visitations f...( read more  read more... )rom those with unresolved problems who appear from the shadows. Confused by his paranormal powers, Cole is too young to understand his purpose and too terrified to tell anyone about his torment, except child psychologist Dr. Malcolm Crowe. As Dr. Crowe tries to uncover the ominous truth about Cole's supernatural abilities, the consequence for client and therapist is a jolt that awakens them both to something harrowing -- and unexplainable.

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87% liked it

950,316 ratings

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85% liked it

126 critics

PG-13, 1 hr. 47 min.

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

Release Date: August 6, 1999

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DVD Release Date: March 28, 2000

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Afraid. Mischa Barton as Kyra Collins in The Sixth Sense (1999) Chills Dr. Malcolm Crowe Bruce Willis Cole Sear Cole Sear Haley Joel Osment as Cole Sear, Bruce Willis as Dr. Malcolm Crowe in The Sixth Sense (1999) Most people don't recognize Mischa Barton in her short but memorable role in ''The Sixth Sense'' Cole Sear and Lynn Sear Mischa as a ghost The Sixth Sense The Sixth Sense M. Night Shyamalan The Sixth Sense The Sixth Sense (1999) The Sixth Sense (1999) Toni Collette
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Flixster Reviews (52,034)

  • SirPant
    September 16, 2009
    SirPant
    A great thriller with a brilliant twist. What's so great about it is that you know exactly what has happened, yet deny it. Very clever and hugely entertaining.
  • phubbs1
    July 19, 2009
    phubbs1
    So...the perfect twist? well probably yes, everyone will have commented the same and yes it is a brilliantly genius twist and surprise which you really dont see coming unless you are a clever boy/girl haha
    With one of the strangest names in Hollywood M. Night Shyamalan springs fo...( read more)rth with a huge blockbuster from nowhere and blows away all competition at the time with this very straight laced, actionless slow burning paranormal ghosty tale that both creeps you out and keeps you glued to the screen throughout.
    Good performances from all and some neat moments without the use of special effects, nothing much exciting happens here, its all just verbal and atmosphere but what atmosphere!

    M. Night Shyamalan went on to be the 'twist' king of the movies, for afew movies anyway.
  • gilbertgumphrey
    June 17, 2009
    gilbertgumphrey
    It's interesting to look at a movie like The Sixth Sense a decade after it first came out. Doesn't feel like it's been that long ago, does it? I'm betting a lot of people who loved the movie when it first came out don't watch it much anymore. Time has tarnished it. We now kno...( read more)w what an asshole the writer/director turned out to be. We're sick to death of a twist ending in the closing minutes of every goddamned horror film. And....holy shit, it's a suspense thriller with almost a full hour devoted to dramatic character development. Yikes. So it's funny, how a movie that felt so fresh and invigorating at the time, now feels damn near old fashioned. But that's a compliment. While I personally feel that M. Night Shamalyan made better films after the Sixth Sense (Unbreakable and Signs, while not as creepy, are much stronger, tighter, more mature films....after that, his career went straight to the shitter), there's no denying the strength and quiet power of this, his first foray into suspense, and the only one that got him some Oscar attention.

    Looking back on it now, it's hard to figure out exactly how Sixth Sense became such a phenomenon. Critics loved it right out of the gate, but it only made 26 million it's opening weekend, so marketing must not have been all that great to lure people into theatres. But then get this - it stayed in theatres for 10 MONTHS. When the smoke had cleared, the flick ran off with nearly 300 million bucks. That's more than Transformers made. Unbelievable. And when was the last time you saw a movie stay in theatres almost a full year? Not even Dark Knight had that much push. But indeed, there was something of an almost cultural aura to seeing the flick. You couldn't talk movies in 1999 without people mentioning two things - Phantom Menace, and The Sixth Sense (usually followed with the hushed "Did you see that ending coming???"). I think if the film had no massive twist ending, people would've saw it, liked it, and forgotten about it. But the ending blew people away...again, something that was more important and played better at the time than now.

    No question, the ending's awesome. But it's hard not to see it coming - I know, I know, it's been lampooned a million times; indeed, Sixth Sense is probably the most spoofed movie of the 90's. But Shamalyan telegraphs the twist, an awful lot, and when you look back on it today after becoming so jaded and cynical towards twist endings, you wonder how it ever fooled you in the first place (his use of red for every instance with a ghost around is especially obvious). But at the time, it worked like gangbusters; and yet, it's oddly become almost unpopular to like the film now....it started as a critical, film student darling, then became a massive audience crowd pleaser, and now strangely it seems to have gone back to the film students (AFI recently put it on it's list of the 100 Greatest Movies Ever, which seems excessive to me, especially since it pulled ahead of Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction, and Fargo). While the stuff that made the film the most famous, like the twist, doesn't exactly remain it's strongest suit, there's a lot of great qualities about Sixth Sense that still make it compulsively watchable.

    What surprised me most, watching it again today for the first time in years, is how little horror/thriller stuff there actually is in the film. I remember watching it in 8th grade and practically shitting my pants, but now, not so much. Shamalyan holds back on having something pop out at us with a loud musical stinger every 5 minutes. There's probably only about, oh, 4 or 5 cases of that happening in the whole film. In fact, there's very little of anything in the way of creepiness for the first 45 minutes of the flick, which seems to be the REAL twist of the film - when we think we're watching a quiet, psychological drama, the screws turn and suddenly we're in Creepy Horror Town. Make no mistake, the ghost stuff is still scary, but not in the modern sense of the word. Shamalyan builds his scares on low key suspense, the kind of stuff Hitchcock would have been proud of. His camera lingers for inordinate amounts of time - my God, there are so many long takes in this film, it almost feels like a Gus Van Sant picture now. The cinematography is never showy or flashy, except all the instances of bright red, the music by James Newton Howard is very subtle, and the acting is so low key it seems like half the dialogue is spoken in whispers. This was interesting at the time, but now, after seeing this play out horribly in his later shittastic films like Lady in the Water, The Village, and The Happening, it can become annoying.

    But that's half the fun of watching the flick now - it's so in the old school vein of suspense filmmaking, it almost feels like watching an old Hitchcock movie, certainly more so than compared to the torture/splatter fests that are what horror movies today seem to always be. If the film doesn't make you jump out of your seat anymore, it still has the power to quietly unnerve you, and make you think twice before turning off the light in a basement by yourself. Thanks to M. Night's strong direction and writing, and thanks to his ego not yet being the size of a blimp, The Sixth Sense is still a very good, if not perfect, motion picture, and if you haven't watched it in a long time, I'd recommend checking it out again. It will probably work for you, as a filmgoer, in different ways than you remember.
  • 76Majikat
    May 4, 2009
    76Majikat
    One of the greatest twists ever! Just remembering back to when I watched this for the very first time ? the ending was brilliant and everything suddenly makes sense. Even as a re-watch, knowing what?s to come, the film was created in such a way that almost every angle was cover...( read more)ed. If you look hard enough and analyse everything you will come up with some flaws, but it?s such an enjoyable and clever film, the flaws are just not important.
  • lewiskendell
    January 6, 2009
    lewiskendell
    I feel cheated. The Sixth Sense would probably have been one of my favorite movies ever, if I had only seen it back in 1999. But unfortunately I haven't seen it until now, when its plot has become a well known part of pop culture and twist endings have been done to death. Ugh. Oh...( read more) well.

    Anyway, it's clear that Shyamalan's mojo was really working during the making of The Sixth Sense. There's a subdued sense of dread threaded throughout the film that is the hallmark of a Shyamalan movie. Well, a GOOD Shyamalan movie.

    The pacing is perfect, the acting is beautifully done (except at the very end, when the sappiness is slapped on a little thick, in my opinion), and the ghosts are all are genuinely disturbing. And the twist actually makes sense! How many times have you been able to say that about a thriller, lately?

    Even though I already knew what the conclusion of the movie would be, The Sixth Sense was still very enjoyable. Any other people who haven't seen it because they think that they think that it's been talked about too much to be enjoyed fully....well, you're right. But see it anyway, it is still worth your time!
  • bluem00n94
    November 22, 2009
    bluem00n94
    scrubs ruins the ending
    heads up
  • pinkvolleyball123
    November 21, 2009
    pinkvolleyball123
    Is ok I wish it was scary.
  • theonlyshorty
    November 20, 2009
    theonlyshorty
    that was a scary movie and sad
  • sofyanbzize
    November 15, 2009
    sofyanbzize
    this is brety spoooooooooooky flike a love it
  • dungeonmaster49
    November 12, 2009
    dungeonmaster49
    Oh so this one is a sleeper whew, kind of a twisted ending

View All The Sixth Sense Reviews

Critic Reviews

January 1, 2000
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

The Sixth Sense has a kind of calm, sneaky self-confidence that allows it to take us down a strange path. full review

January 1, 2000
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

But just as scary, or at least as unsettling, is the film's presentation of human existence as an endless series of tragedies and agonies, relieved only by foolish distraction. full review

View more The Sixth Sense reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

Comments

  • mariefuller80
    May 19, 2008
    mariefuller80
    This thriller is distinguished by the moving performance of Haley Joel Osment. It's a quiet, slow movie that builds its scares gradually, leading to a wallop of a surprise ending.
  • Dancerchick971
    May 10, 2008
    Dancerchick971
    i loved this movie to me it wasnt that scary but its a great movie.
  • karthu1993
    March 31, 2008
    karthu1993
    I heard many reviews stating that this is a great movie.
    After so many delays i saw it. The reviews were right. It was incredible.
    Night Shyamalan's best movie. We cannot expect the ending. The writers are clever.
  • deliku
    March 27, 2008
    deliku
    u are never second, ever!
  • tblake361
    December 12, 2007
    tblake361
    Ok tell me the truth, did anyone figure out that the Bruce Willis's character was dead the whole time? man I was blown away by that fact. I honestly didn't see it coming. I watched it over again and then I was like "Duh, the clues were there the whole time!!" Good movie, very suspensful.
  • jablonski624
    November 1, 2007
    jablonski624
    amazing amazing AMAZING!!!!! SO well written. oh my god. absolutely amazing.whoa. really really amazing. bruce willis is really good, and that is just an amazing movie. wow. wow... and it was scary too...i see people.
  • vioricavoa
    November 1, 2007
    vioricavoa
    i love the movie, too.
    even i saw it 3 times, i wish i can see it again...
    i love bruce willis and the way he plays his caracter (sorry for my english)
  • roro126
    August 31, 2007
    roro126
    creepy movie i love it
  • darkdragon1528
    June 29, 2007
    darkdragon1528
    I love this Movie!!!!!!!!
  • wildalaskabear
    April 22, 2007
    wildalaskabear
    this wasn't THAT bad, i cried though
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The Sixth Sense Trivia

  • Which movie had Haley Joel Osment playing a boy suffering from being one of few that can see the dead?  Answer »
  • In this movie, Bruce Willis plays a psychiatrist trying to help a child who believes he sees the souls of the departed.  Answer »
  • "The Sixth Sense" and "The Others" generaly have the same ending, which is....  Answer »
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