The Scene Drift

Beyond Fest, the premier genre film festival in the United States, has officially unveiled its latest headline programming event: Night Visions: The Shock and Awe of M. Night Shyamalan. Presented in partnership with the American Cinematheque and MUBI, the sweeping retrospective will honor the prolific filmmaker with a 12-feature showcase across Los Angeles, marking his first West Coast retrospective featuring the director in person.

Spanning 27 years of cinematic suspense, supernatural dread, and grounded superhuman mythologies, the program puts Shyamalan’s singular voice center stage, from his breakout masterwork The Sixth Sense to his recent arena-set cat-and-mouse thriller Trap.

Honoring Nearly Three Decades of Cinematic Mastery

Few contemporary directors boast a signature style as instantly recognizable as M. Night Shyamalan. Whether exploring familial grief, alien paranoia, or comic book realism, his career has continually challenged genre boundaries while pulling massive global audiences into theater seats.

"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."

Curated Double Bills, Marathons, and Live Q&As

The heart of the retrospective unfolds across four high-profile programming blocks at Hollywood's historic Egyptian Theatre, each paired with direct appearances from Shyamalan:

• The Eastrail 177 Trilogy (Sunday, September 27 at 11:00 AM): A back-to-back marathon of Unbreakable (2000), Split (2016), and Glass (2019), concluding with a live post-screening Q&A examining his subversive deconstruction of modern superhero cinema.
• The End of the World Is Nigh(t) (Sunday, September 27 at 7:00 PM): A domestic-apocalyptic double feature pairing Signs (2002) with Knock at the Cabin (2023), complete with an on-stage discussion between screenings.
• The Power of Paranoia (Monday, September 28 at 7:00 PM): A showcase in escalating dread pairing found-footage shocker The Visit (2015) with the relentless pop-concert trap of Trap (2024), featuring a live Q&A between titles.
• I See (More) Dead People (Tuesday, September 29 at 7:00 PM): A dedicated celebration of the global pop-culture phenomenon The Sixth Sense (1999), presented with both an introduction and an extensive post-screening retrospective Q&A.

In addition to the Egyptian Theatre events, the retrospective extends to the Los Feliz 3 with standalone screenings of The Village (2004), Lady in the Water (2006), and Old (2021), highlighting Shyamalan’s recurring fascination with environmental isolation and fractured realities.

Ticket Information

Tickets for Night Visions: The Shock and Awe of M. Night Shyamalan are available directly through the American Cinematheque and Beyond Fest official websites. Press credential applications for Beyond Fest 2026 are currently open.