M. Night used some dastardly tricks-one scene begins with Willis and the kid’s mom sitting together in her house, so you assume they have been having a conversation about him, right? At the restaurant, she appears to glare at him for a second, but it’s actually the raucous people at the table behind him that raises her ire. Already mentioned are things like the clothes issue and how he actually doesn’t talk to anyone other than Cole. If you are very observant you might be able to see through all of that, but alas I didn’t…
I didn’t vote, because there isn’t a “When I saw the trailer.” option. Now, I don’t think I’m a genius for figuring it out. I just jump to conclusions quickly, and was right that time.
Not till the end. I wasn’t consciously trying to figure it out, just watching what I thought was a boring movie.
There was a scene in Cole’s apartment where the three of them were there and Willis didn’t say anything. That made me think that there’s something off, but I brushed it aside and didn’t figure it out until the reveal.
Not until the end, and I admired the filmmaker’s skill when everything snapped into place. He played fair with us throughout, and I recall all the “Oh, that explains why. . .” oddnesses during the story.
Yes. A great twist because for once it’s one that actually makes sense, there are no cheats AFAICT, so it’s one of the most satisfying conclusions to a film.
It’s almost unthinkable that a director could go from that to the remainder of Shymananan’s career.
Another thing people forget, or don’t realize, is in a way the sixth sense has two twists. For the first chunk of the film, Cole is just a disturbed kid; you don’t see or hear the first ghost until about 30 mins in IIRC.
It would have been great to see the film without even knowing that was coming.
I didn’t get it at all. I asked my roommate about it afterwards, and he told me.
I was swept along by the story and wasn’t inclined to start reading into it. I think that’s the sign of a good movie- it didn’t even occur to me to try to think about what I was watching. Pure escapism.
Like Eureka, I need an option for “before I saw it”.
My friend Alan and I were killing time before seeing a different movie (The Haunting remake, I believe–waste of time) and he was telling me a little about TSS, the trailer of which I’d seen. We were walking toward the theater and he said, “You’re not gonna BELIEVE the twist at the end…”
I said, “Lemme guess…Bruce Willis’ character is dead?”
He just stopped in his tracks and looked at me.
Didn’t get it until the end, and I’m the kind of guy who is always looking for the twist. It really was sensationally done.
After so many years, and the downward trend of Shamalayan’s career, it’s easy to forget what a great movie this was. My roommate and I had heard there was a ‘twist’ ending, so we went to see the movie very early before we were accidentally spoiled by anyone. Neither of us saw it coming.
I learned about it having not seen the film. 
So I’ve never watched it, I really wish I had before I knew. I’ll bet it was awesome.
Regarding the clothes, the conceit was that Crowe (Willis) never wore clothes that he wasn’t wearing the day he died. If you recall, he and his wife had just come home from an award ceremony, so he was dressed more formally and then put on a sweatshirt. For the rest of the movie, he’s wearing different things, but he had been wearing all of them that day.
The color red was used as a cue throughout whenever there was spirit activity. In Crowe’s case specifically, it was the doorknob to the cellar room where he was studying his case files; in reality, the door had been blocked, so every time he reached for it, it appeared to be locked, and we see him pat his pockets as if to find a key. There’s other occurrences of red unrelated to Crowe (the balloon at the party where the kids lock Cole in the crawlspace/attic, for instance).
This movie so impressed me upon first seeing it that I watched all of the DVD extras immediately after, then watched the movie again. I hadn’t been spoiled on it despite waiting for the DVD release, and I was completely taken in. A masterful job at storytelling, and a shame Shyamalan has been unable to approach it again.
My brother says he saw this one right away, but was surprised by The Usual Suspects. I saw the ending of TUS a mile away, but not TSS. Weird the way the brain sometimes adds things to come to a conclusion, and at others is totally clueless.
I realized there was something hidden in the plot of the Sixth Sense, but not exactly what until the end.
I was told before I had seen it as well. I spent half the movie going, there’s no way he’s dead. You really should give it a chance, it’s a pretty good movie.
I realized it at the dinner too.
Ha, I’m usually much better than my mother at guessing plot twists but she figured out the twist of The Sixth Sense near the end of the movie while I was totally surprised even though I’d already heard a big hint about what the twist was. But with The Usual Suspects my mother was surprised while I thought very early on
"There’s no way this guy is as dumb and helpless as he seems."which made it pretty easy to guess the twist.
One thing that threw me off about The Sixth Sense was that for some reason I’d recently been thinking about how in movies gunshot wounds are often instantly fatal but in real life people do often survive being shot. There may have been something in the news around that time about someone surviving a shooting. So after the opening scene of The Sixth Sense I thought “Well, this is interesting, someone’s made a movie about a man who does survive being shot and how the experience affects him.” Once I’d made that incorrect assumption, I attributed anything “off” about the Willis character’s behavior or his relationship with his wife to survivor’s guilt/PTSD.
I think The Sixth Sense holds up better upon rewatching than many “big twist” movies, in large part because the twist doesn’t actually make that much difference with regard to the main plot. The Osmet character is still a young boy troubled by visions of ghosts, and the Willis character is still the child psychiatrist who helps him to deal with this. In a lot of cases the big twist reveals that a good chunk of what we’ve seen onscreen never really happened, it was a lie or a delusion or an elaborate con. In The Sixth Sense what we see is true – it’s just not the whole truth.
Been a long time since I have seen this, but there was a scene where Bruce Willis asks something like, “How often do you see dead people?” and the kid finally looked him directly in the eye and said, “Always.” and it hit me.
Unfortunately, the OP doesn’t list enough key points.
E.g., when the kid does the “I see dead people.” speech in the hospital. At that point anyone remotely paying attention will get it. Gee, they don’t know they’re dead and they don’t see each other. I wonder if that could possibly apply to anyone in the movie, especially someone that was seriously shot?
Any of the “conversations” with the widow before that point.
I picked the scene right after the shooting. I only knew the line “I see dead people.” from the ads. I didn’t know it was supposed to have a “twist” (and I still don’t think it does). But that conversation with the kid iced it right away. Even Mrs. FtG knew it at that moment and she doesn’t get into a film like I do.