M. Night Shyamalan, Filmmaker

Born in India but raised in the posh suburban Penn Valley area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, M. Night Shyamalan is the son of two doctors. He is well known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots that usually end with a twist ending. His passion for filmmaking began when he was given a Super-8 camera at age eight, and even at that young age began to model his career on that of his idol, Steven Spielberg.

Shyamalan's first film, Praying with Anger (1992), was based somewhat on his own trip back to visit the India of his birth. He raised all the funds for this project, in addition to directing, producing and starring in it. Wide Awake (released 1998), his second film, he wrote and directed, was Shyamalan's first major feature film. and shot it in the Philadelphia-area Catholic school he once attended—even though his family was of a different religion, they sent him to that school because of its strict discipline. Shyamalan achieved commercial success in 1999 when he wrote and directed The Sixth Sense, a supernatural drama about a psychologist (Bruce Willis) who blames himself for a patient's suicide and his own broken marriage. It a was nominated for six Academy Awards.

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