M. Night Shyamalan (born Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan, on August 6, 1970 in Pondicherry, India) is a screen writer and director. He is best known for his work on the movies The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, and The Village.

Hallmarks of Shyamalan's films include unexpected plot twists, realistic treatment of horror or science fiction themes, camera shots taken at unique angles, and a cameo appearance by Shyamalan himself in each film. His movies are also noted for their sharp screen play, effective background score, and film editing. The movie The Sixth Sense, which tells about a boy's interaction with spirits, hardly used computer animation or a loud background score. On each of Shyamalan's DVDs is also a short home movie made when he was a youngster, which are often as humorous as they are intriguing.

Shyamalan was raised in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania, United States a suburb of Philadelphia after his doctor parents emigrated to the United States. Shyamalan attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. It was here that he made up his middle name, Night. Shyamalan is married to Bhavna.

A recent "documentary" about his life, aired on the Sci-Fi Channel, claimed that Shyamalan was legally dead for nearly a half hour while drowned in a frozen pond in a childhood accident, and that upon being rescued he has had experiences of communicating with spirits. The Sci-Fi Channel also claimed that Shyamalan had grown angry when he had discovered that the documentary would reveal certain personal secrets, and had therefore withdrawn from participating. The Sci-Fi Channel later admitted that both the "documentary" itself and Shyamalan's objections to it were part of a hoax, perpetrated with Shyamalan's participation.

With the exception of his first film Praying with Anger (1992) which was filmed in Chennai, all of Shyamalan's movies have been filmed either in Philadelphia or elsewhere in the state of Pennsylvania. (via mnight.com)