M. Night Shyamalan names the “best movie ever made”
The cinematic works of M. Night Shyamalan are true originals, with several of them featuring modes of the supernatural and some of the biggest plot twists in the history of modern film. Amongst some of his most revered films are The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable (both starring Bruce Willis) and Signs, starring Mel Gibson in the lead role.
As for Shyamalan’s favourite film, he found it difficult to say in terms of the question itself. When AFI asked the Indian-American director to name his best-loved cinematic offering, he opened up on the distinction between “favourite movie” and “best movie” before naming a Francis Ford Coppola classic in the latter category.
Shyamalan said, “Well, the wording of ‘what’s your favourite movie’ is tricky, you know, because, if you said to me, ‘what’s the best movie ever made?’, I’d say, ‘The Godfather’. You know, definitely, hands down, for me, it’s a perfect movie.”
He added, “Just a perfect movie, tonally perfect. From beginning to end, which almost cannot be said about any movie, you know, because there are always some bumps, some crookedness on the nose, somewhere that makes a face interesting and wonderful.”
Quite a nice analogy for Shyamalan there, drawing note to the fact that imperfections, both in cinema and on the human face, are what makes them all the more interesting and, in turn, beautiful. He then continued to give the highest praise to Coppola’s original Godfather film from 1972.
“You know, for me, The Godfather is just so in control of its tone and what it is,” he said. “I judge the director’s accomplishment by the control of tone. And the control of the tone in that movie was just on another level. So that would be the best movie.”
Shyamalan then noted the other side of the coin by naming his “favourite movie”, admitting that the difference between the two comes down to critical admiration vs personal details, and claiming that a widely-beloved Harrison Ford classic wraps up all the things that make him “smile”.
“My favourite movie, when you say the word ‘favourite’, there’s a little bit of guilty pleasure in that and a little bit of who you are and what makes you smile, that kind of thing,” he said. “That would be Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The 1981 Steven Spielberg film is the first entry in what would eventually become the Indiana Jones franchise and remains close to Shyamalan’s heart even today.
