Sixth Sense (1999)

"...brilliantly evocative visuals...  Marc Savlov, The Austin Chronicle
"Bruce Willis has never been better!  ABC-TV
"...exhilaratingly unexpected ending...  Christine James, Boxoffice Magazine
"The most involving, intelligent psychological thriller I've seen in a long time!  Good Morning America
"Exceptional thriller...Osment is extraordinarily good; the film is sinuous and creepy without being manipulative.  Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide
"An unnerving and astonishing thriller.  Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer
"...keep[s] one's interest engaged all the way through to the exhilaratingly unexpected ending...  Christine James, Box Office Magazine
"The 11-year-old Osment evokes the boy's terror and awful predicament so memorably, you'll never forget him.  Desson Thomson, The Washington Post
"So disarmingly eerie it's virtually guaranteed to rattle the most jaded of cages.  John Anderson, Los Angeles Times
"[Osment] delivers what may be the greatest performance ever by a child actor.  Rod Dreher, New York Post
"I haven't been so captivated, chilled and surprised by a movie in years.  William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Editor's Note In M. Night Shyamalan's THE SIXTH SENSE, Bruce Willis plays Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a successful Philadelphia child psychologist who is haunted by the sudden reappearance and suicide of a former patient. Months later Dr. Crowe encounters Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), a troubled, withdrawn young boy who bears a striking similarity to his earlier patient. Dr. Crowe is compelled to help Cole, not only for the boy's sake, but for his own redemption. As Dr. Crowe struggles to determine what torments Cole, he must also come to terms with his increasingly distant relationship to his wife (Olivia Williams). Meanwhile, Cole is unable to describe the horrible things he sees even to his worried mother (Toni Collette). The scene where Cole finally tells Dr. Crowe about his supernatural secret is one of the 1990s most quoted and well-known cinematic moments. A gripping ghost story with a stunning finale, THE SIXTH SENSE became a surprise blockbuster shortly after its release. The film features Oscar-nominated performances by the startlingly intense Osment and the fiercely maternal Collette, as well as a subtle, subdued turn by Willis. Shyamalan directs his intriguing script with almost clinical precision, using carefully framed visuals to create the film's distinctly chilling atmosphere. On the strength of its pitch-perfect acting and direction, THE SIXTH SENSE has become the most successful thriller of all time.

	Bruce Willis
	Haley Joel Osment
	Olivia Williams
	Toni Collette
	Tak Fujimoto - Cinematographer
	M. Night Shyamalan - Director
	James Newton Howard - Musical Score
	Kathleen Kennedy, et al. - Producer
	M. Night Shyamalan - Writer

Variety
"...Ominous..." p.33-4

Rolling Stone
Ranked #10 in Rolling Stone's "Ten Best Movies of 1999" -- "...Hypnotically acted by Haley Joel Osment, Bruce Willis and Toni Colette..." 01/20/2000 p.63-4

Sight and Sound
"...Exquisite performances..." 11/??/1999 p.55

Total Film
"...This intelligent supernatural thriller confidently ventures into the murky territory of childhood and adult fears..." 06/01/2000 p.99

Box Office
"...[An] exhilaratingly unexpected ending, which effectively breathes new life into all the previous proceedings..." 10/01/1999 p.59

USA Today
"...Osment gives one of the decade's great child-actor performances in a demanding role....The filmmaker keeps upping the ante with surprises until the plot-twist beaut that concludes the picture..." 08/06/1999 p.10E

Los Angeles Times
"...SIXTH SENSE is certainly a nervy film, one that director M Night Shyamalan has made so disarmingly eerie it's virtually guaranteed to rattle the most jaded of cages..." 08/06/1999 p.C10

Chicago Sun-Times
"...THE SIXTH SENSE has a kind of calm, sneaky self-confidence that allows it to take us down a strange path, intriguingly..." 08/06/1999 p.32

Boxoffice Magazine 8 of 10
...Audiences hoping for a bone-chilling horror-thriller will be disappointed by the fact that The Sixth Sense is more a drama with paranormal elements than a fright flick; the film seems to purposely avoid playing up the otherworldly aspects in an attempt to be a more sophisticated genre entry. Given that the protagonist sees ghosts "all the time," writer/director M. Night Shyamalan (Wide Awake) could have taken the opportunity to jam-pack the film with fantastical figures from beyond the grave, each trying to recruit Cole's help in unresolved matters spanning the centuries. But viewers are privy to a scant few of his visions, and none are extremely eerie. However, the story manages to keep one's interest engaged all the way through to the exhilaratingly unexpected ending, which effectively breathes new life into all the previous proceedings. - Christine James

The Austin Chronicle 9 of 10
It's all too easy to pigeonhole Bruce Willis into one of the many cookie-cutter action roles in which he made his name, but that precludes the fact that muscles or no muscles, this is a male Hollywood star who can act up a storm (and one who first came to prominence doing a darn good job of just that way back in his Moonlighting salad days)... The Sixth Sense has the pleasant feel of Willis once again stretching his acting chops and taking a powder from the more traditional slam-bang shoot-'em-ups. Of course, it's not all that pleasant, seeing as how the film deals with the restless spirits of the dead, and, on a broader emotional plane, human loss... The Sixth Sense is, above all, a ghost story (in a summer movie season seemingly filled with them), but it remains a cut above by virtue of Shyamalan's quiet, stately direction and cinematographer Tak Fujimoto's brilliantly evocative visuals, which turn modern-day Philadelphia into a bleak, funereal wasteland. There's also a powerful, hackle-raising twist that Shyamalan tosses out at film's end that will have viewers re-evaluating everything that has come before, but at the heart of it, The Sixth Sense works best when it works its mournful magic alone, without fanfare, using only the flickering fear in Cole's gaze as it meets the compassion in Crowe's. - Marc Savlov

Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide 8 of 10
Exceptional thriller about a dedicated child psychologist who faces his greatest challenge in reaching and understanding a young boy who spends his life paralyzed by fear, because he lives in a world of ghosts. Young Osment is extraordinarily good; the film is sinuous and creepy without being manipulative.

ReelViews 5 of 10
With his third feature effort, writer/director M. Night Shyamalan has taken a huge step in the wrong direction. After showing great strides of maturity between his ineffective debut, Praying with Anger, and 1998's appealing Wide Awake, Shyamalan has backslided alarmingly with The Sixth Sense. While this picture shares many qualities with Wide Awake (a child protagonist, a central spiritual theme, and being set in Shyamalan's home city of Philadelphia), it's an inferior product. It is not well written, well acted, or well directed...The Sixth Sense is obviously an attempt by Bruce Willis to broaden his range. The actor, best known for action roles in films like Die Hard, has effectively explored a few dramatic parts in the past (most notably in In Country), but this may be the first time he has consciously attempted to essay a low-key persona. It doesn't work...There are undoubtedly those who will enjoy The Sixth Sense simply because of the spiritual angle, which tries to say something about the connection between this world and the next one. Today's society has an undeniable fascination with supernatural/pseudo-religious issues...But, unlike in movies such as What Dreams May Come, this motion picture is saddled with a murky, unimaginative vision. At its best, it's merely competent; at it's worst, it has a movie making-by-the-numbers feel. - James Berardinelli

Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
"The Sixth Sense" isn't a thriller in the modern sense, but more of a ghost story of the sort that flourished years ago, when ordinary people glimpsed hidden dimensions...Bruce Willis often finds himself in fantasies and science fiction films. Perhaps he fits easily into them because he is so down to earth. He rarely seems ridiculous, even when everything else in the screen is absurd (see "Armageddon"), because he never over-reaches; he usually plays his characters flat and matter of fact. Here there is a poignancy in his bewilderment...Haley Joel Osment, his young co-star, is a very good actor in a film where his character possibly has more lines than anyone else. He's in most of the scenes, and he has to act in them--this isn't a role for a cute kid who can stand there and look solemn in reaction shots. There are fairly involved dialogue passages between Willis and Osment that require good timing, reactions and the ability to listen. Osment is more than equal to them. And although the tendency is to notice how good he is, not every adult actor can play heavy dramatic scenes with a kid and not seem to condescend (or, even worse, to be subtly coaching and leading him). Willis can. Those scenes give the movie its weight and make it as convincing as, under the circumstances, it can possibly be..."The Sixth Sense" has a kind of calm, sneaky self-confidence that allows it to take us down a strange path, intriguingly. - Roger Ebert