Emotionally broken, child psychologist, Malcolm Crow (Bruce Willis) attempts to help disturbed Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), who is showing symptoms much like those of his greatest failure. Malcolm is shaken when it turns out Cole’s problem is that he sees ghosts all around him.
Quick Review: If you haven’t seen this, and avoided hearing the spoilers, then go buy it and watch it now. I’ll wait.
This is the best ghost story since The Uninvited. The much talked about ending is brilliant filmmaking, but what makes The Six Sense tower above director M. Night Shyamalan’s other twist-ending films is that it is a good story without the twist. I worked out what was going to happen very early in my first viewing, but was so rapped up in the execution of the story that I forgot it, and was as surprised as everyone else. There’s no mistakes, no down side. Bruce Willis and Toni Collette are flawless as the depressed healer and the troubled boy’s mother. As for Haley Joel Osment, it was obvious that this was the beginning of a career of incredible work—which shows that you should never believe the obvious. OK, the boy actor has done little of value since, and Shyamalan has made several of the worst films of recent years, but in 1999 they were fresh and clever and made one of the great all time movies.