About the Series

Visionary, provocative, and forever one step ahead of expectations, M. Night Shyamalan has spent more than 25 years reinventing what a genre film can be. His breakthrough, The Sixth Sense, turned him into a household name and the twist ending into his signature, but that reputation often eclipsed the bolder strategies of his storytelling.

With the precision of a classicist and the instincts of a born mythmaker, Shyamalan has shaped blockbusters into parables, mysteries into moral puzzles, and thrillers into explorations of fear, faith, and systems that tether us to belief and paranoia. His films move fluidly across ghost stories, fairy tales, superhero myths, and apocalyptic fables, yet remain bound by a singular moral imagination. And whether working within studio-backed productions or financing his own, he has sustained a precise and evolving vision to remain unmistakably himself: an artist, at times misread by his own moment, who reshapes pop forms into something stranger, more elusive, and ultimately more personal.

This series celebrates the incomparable filmmaker with 12 of his features presented in 2-for-1 double bills with films of his own choosing. The pairings—spanning cult horror, studio thrillers, and canonical wild cards—reflect the broader cinematic traditions with which Shyamalan’s work is in conversation, tracing lines of homage through formal and thematic parallels. By staging these films as 2-for-1 double bills, FLC not only highlights Shyamalan’s sustained engagement with genre history, but also revives an endangered exhibition model: one that’s as accessible and communal as it is rich with opportunities for comparison, connection, and rediscovery. This series provides audiences the opportunity to see Shyamalan’s films—and the works he’s chosen to screen alongside them—through a new lens.

Organized by Tyler Wilson, Senior Programmer, Film at Lincoln Center, in collaboration with M. Night Shyamalan.