M. Night Shyamalan | |
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![]() Shyamalan in 2016
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Born |
Manoj Shyamalan 6 August 1970 Mahé, Puducherry, India |
Residence | Willistown, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
Alma mater | Tisch School of the Arts |
Occupation | Director, screenwriter, producer, actor |
Years active | 1992–present |
Spouse(s) | Bhavna Vaswani (m. 1993) |
Children | 3 |
Manoj "M. Night" Shyamalan (/ˈʃæməlæn/; born 6 August 1970) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots and twist endings. His most praised films include the supernatural horror thriller The Sixth Sense (1999), the superhero drama thriller Unbreakable (2000), the science fiction thriller Signs (2002), the found footage horror film The Visit (2015) and the psychological horror film Split (2016). His other films include The Village (2004), Lady in the Water (2006), The Happening (2008), The Last Airbender (2010), and After Earth (2013). He is also known for producing Devil (2010), as well as being instrumental in the creation of the Fox science fiction series Wayward Pines.
Shyamalan is also known for filming and setting his films in and around Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he was raised, and for including plot twists. Most of his commercially successful films were co-produced and released by the Walt Disney Studios' Touchstone and Hollywood film imprints. In 2008, Shyamalan was awarded the Padma Shri by the government of India.