The Sixth Sense was a psychological thriller released in 1999, directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The film, which was nominated for 6 Academy Awards, starred Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment. It was the second-highest-grossing film of the year, only behind Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
In 2024, during the 25th anniversary of the film, Osment spoke about the creation of the movie with NPR. “One of the best things my dad said to me when I was, you know, rehearsing for the audition was saying, this is a movie about communication, not a movie about ghosts,” he said. “And that’s where I think the real horror and emotion comes from, is there’s no greater fear than not being able to communicate with the people you love.”
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Osment also spoke about the atmosphere when shooting, explaining that it helped make his acting feel more authentic. “It was a great kind of haunted house environment shooting,” he said. “There were these repeated scenes where we draped the set in tarps and then pump in cold air so that you could see our breath. This was not a time when people were using CGI for that effect. It was really a freezing temperature. And so something like that, with great material and having, you know, spent a lot of time rehearsing it, it really – a lot of these decisions really came naturally.”
During his interview, he also spoke about the most famous line in the film: I see dead people. “I’m still shocked at how many times I see the line out there,” he said. “This was a while ago. I remember Tiger Woods rolling down the window of a Buick van in a commercial and saying the line while I was watching golf on TV. That was a surprise. I remember seeing Yasiel Puig say it on the big screen at Dodger Stadium for some player movie quiz that they did in between innings. I mean, the fact that it’s on – I believe it’s on the AFI list of quotes right behind Peter Finch’s I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore, that’s – it’s a big honor to be attached to something like that.”
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Collider recently ranked The Sixth Sense as one of the thriller movies with the best plot twists ever. Some other movies included on the list were The Prestige, Gone Girl, The Handmaiden, The Game, Fight Club, and The Invisible Guest.
