Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan (born 6 August 1970), known as M. Night Shyamalan, is an Indian-American film director, screenwriter and producer. He made his name with The Sixth Sense (1999), one of the most successful thrillers ever made, and is known for stories of the supernatural that end in an unexpected twist. Nearly all his films are set and shot around Philadelphia, where he lives.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan |
| Born | 6 August 1970, Mahe, Puducherry, India |
| Age | 56 |
| Nationality | American (born Indian) |
| Education | Episcopal Academy, Pennsylvania; New York University, Tisch School of the Arts (1992) |
| Occupation | Film director, screenwriter, producer |
| Notable films | The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, The Village, Split, Old, Knock at the Cabin, Trap |
| Awards | Padma Shri (2008); two Academy Award nominations |
| Spouse | Bhavna Vaswani (m. 1993) |
| Children | 3 |
Early Life
He was born at Mahe, the small former French enclave on the Kerala coast, while his mother was visiting her family. Both his parents were doctors: his father, Nelliyattu C. Shyamalan, a Malayali, was a neurologist, and his mother, Jayalakshmi, a Tamil, an obstetrician. He was taken to the United States at six weeks old and grew up in Penn Valley, a suburb of Philadelphia.
He was given a Super 8 camera at about eight and, inspired by Steven Spielberg, had made some forty-five home movies by the time he was seventeen. He adopted the middle name Night as a student.
Education
He turned down places to study medicine and went to film school at New York University, graduating in 1992.
Career
First films
His first feature, Praying with Anger (1992), in which he played an American student visiting India, was shot in Chennai with money borrowed from family. Wide Awake (1998) was a failure.
The Sixth Sense
The Sixth Sense (1999), in which Bruce Willis plays a psychologist treating a boy who says he sees dead people, took more than 670 million US dollars around the world and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including best picture, director and original screenplay. He was twenty-nine. Unbreakable (2000), Signs (2002) and The Village (2004) followed, and a magazine cover asked whether he was “the next Spielberg”.
The lean years
Lady in the Water (2006), The Happening (2008), The Last Airbender (2010) and After Earth (2013) were poorly received, and his reputation collapsed.
Comeback
He mortgaged his house to pay for The Visit (2015), a low-budget horror film that made many times its cost. Split (2016), with James McAvoy as a man with two dozen personalities, was a large hit, and Glass (2019) completed the trilogy begun with Unbreakable. He has since financed his own films: Old (2021), Knock at the Cabin (2023) and Trap (2024). His next film, Remain, developed with the novelist Nicholas Sparks and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, is due for release in 2027.
He also produced the television series Servant and Wayward Pines. Like Alfred Hitchcock, he appears briefly in most of his films.
Recognition
India awarded him the Padma Shri in 2008.
Personal Life
He married Bhavna Vaswani, a psychologist whom he met at university, in 1993. They have three daughters. Saleka is a singer and songwriter who appeared in Trap; Ishana is a film director, whose first feature, The Watchers, was released in 2024; the youngest is Shivani. The couple run a foundation supporting grass-roots leaders working against poverty.
Featured image: M. Night Shyamalan at San Diego Comic-Con, July 2018. Photo by Gage Skidmore, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
