M. Night Shyamalan

He has also directed the official music video for Grammy nominated singer/songwriter Andra Day's Rise Up [Inspiration Version] which has over 63 million views as of May 2020.

In 2019, he released Glass as a sequel to his 19-year trilogy inclusive of previous films Unbreakable and Split. The movie grossed over $245 million worldwide and received mixed reviews from critics.

In 2016, TNT first announced that Shyamalan would be responsible for a reboot series for Tales from the Crypt. As of June 2017 the series has been cancelled due to a number of legal reasons.

Shyamalan announced in January 2014 that he would be working again with Bruce Willis on a film titled Labor of Love. By November of that year, Universal had picked up rights to a low-budget movie called The Visit that Shyamalan had shot in secret. The movie went on to become a relative critical and financial success, grossing over $98 million worldwide on a budget of $5 million - the fifth-highest grossing thriller film of the year. Universal released the movie on September 11, 2015. In 2017, Shyamalan released the movie Split, which garnered positive reviews and was a huge financial success.

Shyamalan was also instrumental in the creation of the Fox science fiction series Wayward Pines (2015–2016), for which he executive produced and directed the pilot episode. The series became the most-watched show of that summer.

That same year Shyamalan co-wrote the screenplay for Stuart Little with Greg Brooker. In 2013, he revealed he was the ghostwriter for the 1999 film She's All That, a teen comedy starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and Rachel Leigh Cook. However, this statement has come into question as the credited screenwriter for the film, R. Lee Fleming Jr., denied Shyamalan's involvement in a now deleted tweet.

In 2013, Shyamalan directed the film After Earth, based on a script by Gary Whitta and starring Will Smith and Jaden Smith. It was received poorly by critics, with Rotten Tomatoes giving the film a score of 11% based on 180 reviews.

In addition to his directorial work, Shyamalan was a producer for the horror film Devil (2010). Shyamalan was also called in for an uncredited rewrite for the teen film She's All That (1999) and also served as a writer for the film Stuart Little (1999).

Shyamalan is also known for filming and setting his films in and outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Most of his commercially successful films were co-produced and released by Walt Disney Studios' Touchstone and Hollywood film imprints. In 2008, Shyamalan was awarded the Padma Shri by the government of India.

In July 2008, it was announced that Shyamalan had partnered with Media Rights Capital to form a production company called Night Chronicles. Shyamalan would produce, but not direct, one film a year for three years. The first of the three films was Devil, a supernatural thriller directed by siblings John and Drew Dowdle. The script was written by Brian Nelson, based on an original idea from Shyamalan. The movie was about a group of people stuck in an elevator with the devil, and starred Chris Messina. The film was not previewed by critics before its release, eventually receiving mixed reviews. Devil was not a blockbuster hit, but has become a commercial success relative to its budget. The next film in the Night Chronicles series will be called Reincarnate. It will be scripted by Chris Sparling and directed by Daniel Stamm.

In 2008, Shyamalan said it was a common misperception "that all [his] movies have twist endings, or that they're all scary. All [his] movies are spiritual and all have an emotional perspective."

Released in 2006, Lady in the Water performed worse critically and financially than his previous films. The film The Happening (2008) was a financial success but also received negative reviews. In 2010, he directed The Last Airbender, based on the Nickelodeon TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender. It received extremely negative reviews in the United States and won five Razzie Awards, but it made nearly $320 million internationally at the box office.

After the release of The Village, Slate' s Michael Agger noted that Shyamalan was following "an uncomfortable pattern" of "making fragile, sealed-off movies that fell apart when exposed to outside logic." Shyamalan has also won numerous Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Film in 2006 and 2010, while being nominated in 2008 for The Happening and 2013 for After Earth. In 2016 he was also nominated for The Razzie Redeemer Award.

After the release of The Village in 2004, Shyamalan had been planning a film adaptation of Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi with 20th Century Fox, but later backed out so that he could make Lady in the Water. "I love that book. I mean, it's basically [the story of] a kid born in the same city as me [Pondicherry, India] — it almost felt predestined", Shyamalan said. "But I was hesitant because the book has kind of a twist ending. And I was concerned that as soon as you put my name on it, everybody would have a different experience. Whereas if someone else did it, it would be much more satisfying, I think. Expectations, you've got to be aware of them. I'm wishing them all great luck. I hope they make a beautiful movie".

In 2004, Shyamalan was involved in a media hoax with Sci-Fi Channel, which was eventually uncovered by the press. Sci-Fi claimed in its "documentary" special The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan, shot on the set of The Village, that as a child, Shyamalan had been dead for nearly a half hour while drowned in a frozen pond in an accident, and that upon being rescued he had experiences of communicating with spirits, fueling an obsession with the supernatural.

Robert McIlhinney, a Pennsylvanian screenwriter, sued Shyamalan in 2003, alleging similarities between Signs and his unpublished script Lord of the Barrens: The Jersey Devil. In 2004, Margaret Peterson Haddix claimed that The Village has numerous similarities to her young adult novel Running Out of Time (1996), prompting discussions with publisher Simon & Schuster about filing a lawsuit. In response to both allegations, Disney and Shyamalan's production company Blinding Edge issued statements calling the claims "meritless".

His 2002 film Signs, where he also played Ray Reddy, gained both critical and financial success. His next movie The Village (2004) received mixed reviews from the critics, but turned out to be a financial success.

Shyamalan's name was linked with the 2001 film Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, but it conflicted with the production of Unbreakable. In July 2006, while doing press tours for Lady in the Water, Shyamalan had said he was still interested in directing one of the last two Harry Potter films: "The themes that run through it...the empowering of children, a positive outlook...you name it, it falls in line with my beliefs", Shyamalan said. "I enjoy the humor in it. When I read the first Harry Potter and was thinking about making it, I had a whole different vibe in my head of it".

Shyamalan cofounded the M. Night Shyamalan Foundation with his wife, Dr. Bhavna Shyamalan, in 2001. The M. Night Shyamalan Foundation supports grassroots work by identifying and empowering emerging leaders in their communities removing the barriers created by poverty and inequality in their communities.

In July 2000, on The Howard Stern Show, Shyamalan said he had met with Steven Spielberg and was in early talks to write the script for the fourth Indiana Jones film. This would have given Shyamalan a chance to work with his longtime idol. After the film fell through, Shyamalan later said it was too "tricky" to arrange and "not the right thing" for him to do.

Shyamalan followed The Sixth Sense by writing and directing Unbreakable, released in 2000, which received positive reviews and commercial success.

Shyamalan made his first film, the semi-autobiographical drama Praying with Anger, while still a student at NYU, using money borrowed from family and friends. He wrote and directed his second movie, Wide Awake. His parents were the film's associate producers. The drama dealt with a ten-year-old Catholic schoolboy (Joseph Cross) who, after the death of his grandfather (Robert Loggia), searches for God. The film's supporting cast included Dana Delany and Denis Leary as the boy's parents, as well as Rosie O'Donnell, Julia Stiles, and Camryn Manheim. Wide Awake was filmed in a school Shyamalan attended as a child and earned 1999 Young Artist Award nominations for Best Drama, and, for Cross, Best Performance. Only in limited release, the film grossed $305,704 in theaters, against a $6 million budget.

Shyamalan gained international recognition when he wrote and directed 1999's The Sixth Sense, which was a commercial success, becoming the second-highest grossing horror movie of all time. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

He made his directorial debut in 1992 with his first movie Praying with Anger. His second movie was the comedy-drama film Wide Awake (1998). His most well-received films include the supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense (1999), the superhero thriller Unbreakable (2000), the science fiction thriller Signs (2002) and the period-piece thriller The Village (2004). For The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director and the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Afterward, Shyamalan released a series of poorly received but sometimes financially successful movies, including the dark fantasy Lady in the Water (2006), the eco-thriller The Happening (2008), The Last Airbender (2010) (an adaptation of the animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender), and the science fiction film After Earth (2013). Following the financial failure of After Earth, Shyamalan's career was revived with the release of the found footage horror film The Visit (2015), the psychological thriller Split (2016), and continued with the superhero thriller Glass (2019), with these three made for a combined total of $34 million, while earning a combined box office of $625 million. Glass is the third and final chapter of his Unbreakable film series.

Shyamalan's parents emigrated to the United States when he was six weeks old. Shyamalan was raised in his hometown of Penn Valley, Pennsylvania. Shyamalan was raised Hindu. He attended the private Roman Catholic grammar school Waldron Mercy Academy, followed by the Episcopal Academy, a private Episcopal high school located at the time in Merion Station, Pennsylvania. Shyamalan earned the New York University Merit Scholarship in 1988. Shyamalan is an alumnus of New York University Tisch School of the Arts in Manhattan, graduating in 1992. It was while studying there that he adopted "Night" as his second name.

Manoj Nelliyattu "M. Night" Shyamalan (/ˈ ʃ ɑː m ə l ɑː n / SHAH -mə-lahn; born August 6, 1970) is an American filmmaker and actor. He is known for making films with contemporary supernatural plots and twist endings. He was born in Mahé, Pondicherry, India, and raised in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania. The cumulative gross of his films exceeds $3 billion globally.