Beyond Fest announced today a major retrospective celebrating writer, director, producer, and nightmare maker extraordinaire M. Night Shyamalan.
Spanning 27 years and 12 features, Night Visions: The Shock and Awe of M. Night Shyamalan explores Shyamalan’s wholly singular oeuvre and marks the first West Coast retrospective of his work, with the filmmaker in attendance.
From the supernatural phenomenon The Sixth Sense and the visionary superhero mythology of Unbreakable, through to the nerve-rattling suspense of Trap, few filmmakers have shaped popular cinema culture with the audacity, precision, and unmistakable identity of M. Night Shyamalan. Through sweeping stories of fractured families, superhuman abilities, alien invasions, deadly prophecies, and unseen worlds, Shyamalan has consistently transformed iconic genres to create a genre unto himself.
“M. Night Shyamalan is one of the defining filmmakers of modern cinema—a fearless artist whose precision, conviction, and command of an audience are entirely his own,” said Evrim Ersoy, Head of Programming at Beyond Fest. “For nearly three decades, he has pursued a deeply personal vision on the grandest possible scale, creating films that provoke, terrify, move, and endure. To welcome Night and celebrate the extraordinary body of work he has built with this program is a profound honor.”
Night Visions features twelve of Shyamalan’s most compelling and audacious features, inviting audiences into a meticulously constructed cinematic universe rich with fear, faith, and the unknown. Shyamalan will join in person for four specially curated blocks of programming, sharing insights into his deeply personal filmmaking, exploring the ideas, influences, and creative decisions behind many of modern genre cinema’s most unforgettable worlds.
THE EASTRAIL 177 TRILOGY: UNBREAKABLE, SPLIT and GLASS
Egyptian Theatre. Sunday, September 27th, 11 AM. Post-screening Q&A.
Nearly two decades in the making, The Eastrail 177 Trilogy showcases the brilliance of Shyamalan’s radical reinvention of superhero mythology. Beginning with the restrained, emotionally charged Unbreakable, Eastrail expands through the psychological labyrinth of Split, before culminating in the collision of Glass. A trilogy unlike any other, Eastrail explores belief, identity, trauma, and the dangerous consequences of recognizing the extraordinary within ourselves as only Shyamalan can.
THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH(T): SIGNS and KNOCK AT THE CABIN
Egyptian Theatre. Sunday, September 27th, 7 PM. Q&A between films.
Shyamalan revels in apocalyptic delights as he confronts humanity with the possibility of annihilation in The End of the World Is Nigh(t). Signs places an intimate crisis of faith against the backdrop of an alien invasion, while Knock at the Cabin forces one family to confront an impossible choice with potentially global consequences. Both films firmly place the end of the world within the home, using apocalyptic terror to examine sacrifice, belief, and the fragile bonds that hold us together.
THE POWER OF PARANOIA: THE VISIT and TRAP
Egyptian Theatre. Monday, September 28th, 7 PM. Q&A between films.
The Power of Paranoia pairs two relentlessly escalating thrillers in which apparently familiar spaces become elaborate prisons. The Visit transforms a seemingly idyllic family reunion into a nightmare of suspicion and discovery, while Trap turns the safe space of a pop concert into a tightly engineered cat-and-mouse tale of terror. Together, they showcase Shyamalan’s masterful creation of tension through shifting perspectives, confined environments, and the terrifying realization that nothing is what it initially appears to be.
I SEE (MORE) DEAD PEOPLE: THE SIXTH SENSE
Egyptian Theatre. Tuesday, September 29th, 7 PM. Introduction and post-screening Q&A.
I See (More) Dead People celebrates the iconic film that instantly transformed both Shyamalan’s career and contemporary popular culture. The Sixth Sense expertly explores grief, connection, mortality, and the unseen forces shaping the lives of the living, while simultaneously demonstrating Shyamalan’s extraordinary ability to find profound human emotion within the impossible. A landmark film that is as masterful today as it was when it shattered audiences and box office records alike upon release, The Sixth Sense remains a milestone of cinema that has yet to be challenged.
The celebration extends beyond the festival with additional presentations of The Village, Old, and Lady in the Water at the Los Feliz 3. These films further explore Shyamalan’s preoccupation with isolated communities, environmental terror, collective fear, and the instability of the worlds we construct to make ourselves feel safe.
NIGHT VISIONS: THE SHOCK AND AWE OF M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN
EGYPTIAN THEATRE
The Eastrail 177 Trilogy
UNBREAKABLE
Special Screening
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Country: United States
Runtime: 106 mins
2000
SPLIT
Special Screening
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Country: United States
Runtime: 117 mins
2016
GLASS
Special Screening
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Country: United States
Runtime: 129 mins
Guests: M. Night Shyamalan – Post-Screening Q&A
2019
The End of the World Is Nigh(t) – Apocalyptic Delights
SIGNS
Special Screening
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Country: United States
Runtime: 106 mins
Guests: M. Night Shyamalan – Post-Screening Q&A
2002
KNOCK AT THE CABIN
Special Screening
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Country: United States
Runtime: 100 mins
2023
The Power of Paranoia
THE VISIT
Special Screening
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Country: United States
Runtime: 94 mins
Guests: M. Night Shyamalan – Post-Screening Q&A
2015
TRAP
Special Screening
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Country: United States
Runtime: 105 mins
2024
I See (More) Dead People
THE SIXTH SENSE
Special Screening
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Country: United States
Runtime: 107 mins
Guests: M. Night Shyamalan – Introduction + Q&A
1999
LOS FELIZ 3
THE VILLAGE
Special Screening
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Country: United States
Runtime: 108 mins
2004
OLD
Special Screening
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Country: United States
Runtime: 108 mins
2021
LADY IN THE WATER
Special Screening
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Country: United States
Runtime: 110 mins
2006
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