M. Night Shyamalan

M. Night Shyamalan is a polarizing filmmaker often defined by a "peak-and-valley" career

Much like Hitchcock, Shyamalan frequently appears in his own films, often playing characters that serve as pivotal catalysts for the plot. The Turbulent Years and the Great Comeback M. Night Shyamalan

(1999): A child psychologist treats a young boy who claims he can see dead people. He used this goodwill to finally revisit Unbreakable

He used this goodwill to finally revisit Unbreakable with Split (2016). Introducing James McAvoy as Kevin Wendell Crumb, a man with 24 personalities (including the feral “Beast”), the film was a tension masterclass. No one saw the final scene coming: a diner where a waitress watches a news report about the “Oscorp killer” from Unbreakable . David Dunn (Bruce Willis) fills the frame. The audience erupted. Shyamalan had secretly created a shared universe decades before Marvel did it seriously. David Dunn (Bruce Willis) fills the frame

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Yet, Shyamalan did something radical: he went underground. After After Earth (2013), a commercial and critical bomb, he self-financed his next films by mortgaging his own house. This financial independence brought artistic freedom. The Visit (2015), a found-footage horror film, was a lean, mean exercise in tension, showing he could still terrify audiences without a multi-million dollar budget. He followed with Split (2017), a taut thriller featuring James McAvoy’s tour-de-force performance as a man with dissociative identity disorder. The film’s final scene—a cameo by Bruce Willis reprising his Unbreakable role—was a masterstroke, retroactively redefining his two previous films as part of a secret trilogy. This “Eastrail 177 Trilogy” ( Unbreakable , Split , Glass ) demonstrated his long-term planning and his ability to weaponize audience expectation.