First Saving Private Ryan is snubbed by the Academy, now The Sixth Sense.

Rating: 9/10 (25 August 2000)

Ah, The Sixth Sense is by far one of the best movies of 1999, in the same class with Fight Club. I have waited a very long time for a movie like this to scare me, and the wait was well worth it. Bruce Willis is excellent as Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a distinguished child psychologist haunted by the painful memory of a disturbed young patient he was unable to help. Willis has had some serious dramatic roles in his long career, but none this extreme. Whoever said `Never work with kids or animals' was right in this case. As great as Willis was in The Sixth Sense, 10 year old Haley Joel Osment stole the show with his riveting performance as Cole Sear, a frightened, confused eight year old with a similar condition as the young boy Willis was ultimately unable to help; the ability to `see dead people.'
M. Night Shyamalan hit the big time in only his second time behind the camera. Never before has a director been able to portray the type of fear and surprise on camera that I felt when watching The Sixth Sense, and I know that everyone who watched it feels the same. This is one of those movies where the director challenges the audience to `figure out' the ending before it gives it away, and since it is like that, everyone will be on the edge of their seats trying to guess what will happen next. I will admit, and I wasn't alone, I never figured it out, and even after the movie was over and for the next few days, I was periodically saying, out loud, `That's why that happened' and `Oh, now I get it.' This is exactly the reason The Sixth Sense gets a perfect 10 stars from me.