I was completely suckered by the Sixth Sense. In my defense, however, I had no idea there was even going to BE a twist. I knew almost nothing about the movie going into it. And I hate scary movies in general, so I wasn’t really focused on piecing together clues and whatnot.
The “people trapped in the elevator” movie, which I thought was pretty good but can’t remember the name. 
Devil, but it’s not actually an MNS movie. He only produced it.
Or like people complaining on video game fora that the game was too easy and the maker is pandering to noobs. It’s the perfect situation for inserting a stealth brag.
Well, as of right now, I’m adding “The Others” to my “well known enough that I don’t have to spoiler out” list. 
The Others was a little different in that the plot was set up at the start to give a reason why the mother and kids were so isolated. Even if you didn’t get the twist, you always knew that the house was a weird place. Sixth sense had Malcolm going on what looks like a date with his wife, and appearing in a bunch of public places – a lot more deliberate misdirection about the normalcy of his life.
This. I can’t believe anyone didn’t get it by halfway through.
What are you talking about?
IMDB says the Writer’s Guild gave him a script credit.
I am in this boat too. I have no problems admitting it.
I went in to Usual Suspects knowing there WAS a twist, but nothing else. I thought the eventual reveal was so telegraphed that I was genuinely surprised when it WAS the twist – I thought it was intentional misdirection. Maybe if I hadn’t heard that it had a big twist, it woulda snuck up on me.
As was I. I even attributed some of the odd behavior to being just the way dialogue and situations are contrived in motion pictures. i.e. When Dr. Crowe firsts meets Cole it’s outside without the mother being there. It seemed odd to me that this would be how they were introduced to one another but I just let it go as one of those silly things that happens in movies.
And one of the reasons I thought The Sixth Sense was such a great movie was because the clues were there. When the twist was revealed it was something you could look back at and say, “Ah, ha! That makes sense!”
I didn’t see it coming and other people I’ve seen the movie with didn’t see it coming. That’s really all I can say. And thank-god!
a) i would consider the revelation that water was acidic to Aliens to be a twist. A horrible, illogical, sad excuse for a twist but a twist nonetheless. There wasn’t a watershed moment where the action directly affected the outcome. Casey taking whacks at aliens didn’t drive them away, the water did. Kind of. It was either a twist or a horrific nonsequitor that mercifully ended a terrible film. The acidy water may have been deus ex machina but it’s so contrarian that I have to reconcile that it was his attempt at a twist rather than pulling the screenwriting equivalent of ripping the n64 cartridge out of the system and going home.
b) The village’s twist had everything to do with the grand scheme. It went from supernatural thriller to (twist) deep seeded conspiracy to (twist) minor cult.
c) Otherwise, I kind of agree that the twist isn’t as prevalent as it’s made out to be. The Happening’s “twist” is more of a reveal. However, it still stands that between 1999-2004 came 4 movies consecutively each with massive twist endings. It’s how Copala and Scorsese are “mafia” directors even if not every movie is a mafia movie.
It makes sense as a filmmaking conceit - as a “let’s play this trick on the audience” setup, and I think it was well-done in that respect. (I also do not recall anything about a plot twist and was caught off-guard by the reveal.) However, it is fucking unbelievable and outlandish in context of the film. We have to believe that this married child psychologist manages to have a “life” that passes for what he could accept as a real one, a merely recently-cold relationship with his wife, and that he speaks directly and interactively with no one except one little boy.
It’s not as ridiculous as it sounds (leaving aside the whole idea of ghosts). Think of being dead as like being in a dream. Bizarre things are happening around you and to you but you just accept them without question. It’s not until you wake up that you wonder why you didn’t think it was unusual that everyone at work was naked, your wife had turned into a kangaroo, and Barack Obama lived next door - these things all just seemed normal in your dream.
Same thing with Malcolm Crowe. It was very unusual that nobody other than one little boy was talking to him. And he normally would have noticed this and wondered why it was happening. But he wasn’t in his normal state - he was dead. And part of being dead was that he didn’t think about how unusual his situation was.
Keep in mind also that almost any film character could look remote, detached and even mentally ill if we judge them ONLY on their actions and interactions we see in the film. What makes Sixth Sense work, and could be used to “deconstruct” any film performance, is the imagined matrix of other actions, events, etc. we envision around the characters.
How many film characters do we actually see using a toilet? Does that mean the ones we don’t know… must be robots? Ditto for eating, sleeping, having sex… we see these things, in context, but not for every character.
So there was nothing odd about how we saw Malcolm except in retrospect.
ETA: Too bad MNS only had the one brilliant idea.
Two - I don’t think Unbreakable gets enough credit.
It’s pretty well established in the movie that the dead people Cole sees aren’t behaving rationally. He even says “They don’t see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don’t know they’re dead.” If you accept that, then you have to accept that Malcolm doesn’t notice all the inconsistencies in his own existence.
That’s the problem. If you know there’s a twist ending, then the twist has already been ruined for you, because you’ll be looking for the twist the whole time. I saw The Usual suspects years after it came out, but nobody had ever told me about the twist ending, so I was completely floored by it.
I agree with that, in part. I think the idea of some schmo being a superhero and not knowing it was a pretty good one – and entirely plausible if you consider how rarely people get into situations where superpowers would become apparent.
I think the “comic book mysticism” was just dumb, though, and a sign of the start of MNS’s descent into dumbnitudery.
I remember when The Sixth Sense came out on video, Blockbuster was running a series of radio ads called something like “Ten Second Movies”. They had one for The Sixth Sense that went:
“What’s wrong with you kid?”
“People say I’m sick”
“Why”
“I see dead people”
“But you can see me”
“…”
It boggled me that someone thought spoiling the movie was a good way to sell movie rentals. Of course, you know… Blockbuster. How are they doing these days?
For whatever it might be worth:
I saw No Way Out early in its release, and was floored by the ending. Saw it again soon after with my wife- she too was gobsmacked.
In the 26 years since, I’ve never met anyone who hadn’t “seen it coming a mile away.” And I believe them.