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The Sixth Sense film image; man crouching by a young boy

The Sixth Sense

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“I see dead people.” Does ten year old Cole (Haley Joel Osment, a year before Spielberg cast him in AI) have the sixth sense, as he claims — or is this sensitive, unusual child responding to stress, as his mother (Toni Collette) would like to believe? Child psychologist Dr Crowe (Bruce Willis) thinks he can help, but becomes unsettled by his patient’s creepily persuasive testimony…

Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan scored a big hit with this, his third feature, the one that put him on course to become one of the most successful filmmakers of the next decade. It’s a genuinely disturbing ghost story, but it’s also a tricksy film that still treats its characters (and by extension, the audience) with respect.

A film that left an indelible footprint on the popular culture, a film that remains one of my favorite titles of the 1990s in any genre.

Richard Roeper

A poignant study of the searing pain caused by loss, this all-too-human horror film provokes tears as well as fears.

Nigel Floyd, Time Out

 

Media Partner

Director

M. Night Shyamalan

Cast

Haley Joel Osment, Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams

Credits
Country of Origin

USA

Year

1999

Language

English

19+
107 min

Book Tickets

Saturday August 22

6:00 pm
Hearing Assistance
VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
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Sunday August 23

2:30 pm
Hearing Assistance
VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
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Credits

Producer

Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy, Barry Mendel

Screenwriter

M. Night Shyamalan

Cinematography

Tak Fujimoto

Editor

Andrew Mondshein

Original Music

James Newton Howard

Production Design

Larry Fulton

90s, Baby!

Ten years. 11 weeks. 90 films from the 1990s. This summer, 90’s Baby! takes a deep dive into a defining decade of cinema.

Casino

Dir. Martin Scorsese
178 min

Revisiting the wise guy milieu for the third (but not the final) time, Scorsese tells the story of Ace Rothstein and Nicky Santoro (Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci), two New York hoodlums who become major players in the history of Las Vegas.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Heat

Dir. Michael Mann
170 min

Michael Mann's 1995 game of cops and robbers takes genre filmmaking to the level of cinematic artistry. De Niro faces off against Pacino. And Ashley Judd steals away with the movie... This is what a modern classic looks like.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Usual Suspects

Dir. Bryan Singer
106 min

In this devilishly elegant mystery thriller, five criminals are brought together in a police cell because of the one thing they have in common: Keyser Söze, who may or may not exist.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Seven

Dir. David Fincher
130 min

Brad Pitt is the young detective paired with world-weary partner Morgan Freeman to investigate a spate of grisly murders in David Fincher's literally dark neo-noir. Once seen, never forgotten.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Ghost in the Shell

Dir. Mamoru Oshi
83 min

This seminal anime which inspired James Cameron and the Wachowskis, anticipates how AI technology encroaches on the human domain in ways we can scarcely comprehend. "A work of profound and melancholic beauty." Daily Telegraph

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

La Haine

Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz
97 min

This angry French thriller about alienated kids (a skinhead, an Arab, and an African) in the working class outskirts of Paris plays like a cross between Do the Right Thing and Mean Streets. French cops turned their backs on the red carpet at Cannes.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Clueless

Dir. Amy Heckerling
97 min

Riffing on Jane Austen's Emma, Amy Heckerling's satiric portrait of California rich kids has oodles of charm and wit, and a winning performance from Alicia Silverstone as 15-year-old mall rat Cher.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Crash

Dir. David Cronenberg
100 min

Sex drive, David Cronenberg-style. The car-crash fetishists who orbit Cronenberg's metrosexual Toronto (they include James Spader, Holly Hunter, and Deborah Unger) obsessively seek a fusion of metal and flesh... Fender bender as the ultimate orgasm.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Trainspotting

Dir. Danny Boyle
94 min

Danny Boyle's blistering movie was a sensation in 1996: a kick in the teeth of old school British kitchen sink realism, it fearlessly transformed the dire circumstances of Edinburgh heroin addicts into an experience by turns exhilarating and devastating.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Fargo

Dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
100 min

Have the Coen brothers ever made a more satisfying movie than Fargo? This grisly comedy pits one of cinema's most pure-hearted cops (Frances McDormand's pregnant cop, Marge Gunderson) against the machinations of weak and mercenary men.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Lone Star

Dir. John Sayles
135 min

John Sayles's modern day Western is a murder mystery which draws sheriff Chris Cooper to investigate two of his predecessors, the notoriously corrupt Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson), and his own father, Buddy (Matthew McConaughey).

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Set It Off

Dir. F. Gary Gray
120 min

If you love boosters, you'll love Set It Off, in which four Black women (Jada Pinkett, Vivica A. Fox, Queen Latifah, Kimberly Elise) repurpose their office-cleaning operation to clean out a bank.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Secrets & Lies

Dir. Mike Leigh
142 min

Mike Leigh's bittersweet tearjerker won the Palme d'Or in 1996. When a 27 year old adopted child reaches out to her birth mother they're both in for a shock.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
90s Mystery Movie + Trivia Night
old Windows 98 desktop screen

90s Mystery Movie + Trivia Night

135 min

And now for a shot in the dark... We're not announcing the Mystery Movie in advance, so you'll have to take a leap of faith. We can say it was released between January 1990 and January 2000, and it's not already showing elsewhere in this series. As an added enticement we're going to throw in a 90s movie trivia night with your ticket — plus prizes!

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

L.A. Confidential

Dir. Curtis Hanson
138 min

James Ellroy's complex novel about police corruption and sleaze in 1950s Hollywood spawned this modern neo-noir classic featuring career-making performances from Russell Crowe and Guy Pierce.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Princess Mononoke

Dir. Hayao Miyazaki
134 min

A mystical fight between humans and the Animal Gods of the forest. Ashitaka, the last prince of a dying race, struggles to find a way for both sides to co-exist. But the fighting only becomes more and more bloody and all hope seems to be lost…

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Titanic

Dir. James Cameron
197 min

James Cameron's romantic disaster movie spent 17 weeks topping the box office charts on its way to a $2 billion gross and 11 Academy Awards. Not too shabby for such a harrowing experience (and that's just the love scenes).

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Gummo

Dir. Harmony Korine
95 min

Harmony Korine was just 24 when he made Gummo. It's become a cult favourite as much for its singularity as anything else: it's a strange, misshapen beast, a slice of beat poetry translated into experimental film.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Jackie Brown

Dir. Quentin Tarantino
154 min

Take half a dozen characters who know they're in a fix, and give them half a million dollars to fight over. Tarantino's crime movie (his best) transcends genre in large part because in Pam Grier and Robert Forster it gives us people we truly care about.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Big Lebowski

Dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
127 min

The Coens' whacky, warped slacker generation riff on Raymond Chandler, a shaggy dog story which delights in going sideways at every turn. Jeff Bridges is the Dude, and what he really wants is to get his rug back...

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre