Well, here's a twist: The Sixth Sense came out 25 years ago. Countless imitators later, the M. Night Shyamalan -directed thriller starring Haley Joel Osment and Bruce Willis remains the gold standard when it comes to jaw-dropping endings (spoilers ahead, but, to be fair, you've had a quarter of a century to catch up).
Though even once you know, the actors' pitch-perfect performances and the unsettling vibe that permeates the entire film have made the 1999 blockbuster an enduring rewatch. "There was something magical about his audition," Shyamalan said in 2019 of Osment, who wasn't a newcomer but gave a zero-to-100 breakout performance as dead-people-seeing Cole Sears. As he recalled to The Hollywood Reporter , "When I left the room I told the casting director, 'I don’t know if I want to make the movie if it’s not with that kid.
" The Sixth Sense turned Osment into the child star at the age of 10, and it became the top-grossing movie of Willis' stacked career . (In fact, the film's $294 million haul in the U.S.
and $673 million global box office was topped only by Star Wars: Episode 1—The Phantom Menace that year.) Also critically acclaimed, it was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Osment, Best Supporting Actress for Toni Collette for her turn as Cole's understandably concerned mom Lynn, and Best Director and Original Screenplay for Shyamalan. The filmmaker—whose cat-and-mouse thriller Trap , starring Josh Hartnett , is in theaters now—s.