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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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66
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79
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64
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You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Signs

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 36 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 149 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Suspense/Thriller
Written by: M. Night Shyamalan
Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Release Date:
Theatrical: August 2, 2002
DVD: January 7, 2003
Running Time: 120 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for some frightening moments
Starring Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin, Cherry Jones, Patricia Kalember, and Jose L. Rodriguez
Everything that farmer Graham Hess (Gibson) assumed about the world is changed when he discovers a message - an intricate pattern of circles and lines - carved into his crops. (Touchstone Pictures)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Lady in the Water The Happening The Sixth Sense The Village Unbreakable
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The work of a born filmmaker, able to summon apprehension out of thin air.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
If "The Sixth Sense" was Shyamalan's take on ghost stories and "Unbreakable" his ode to comic books, then Signs is the evil cousin to Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
One of the things that makes Signs such a refreshing summer movie is that it goes against almost all the grains of contemporary Hollywood razzle-dazzle filmmaking -- as did The Sixth Sense.
New Times (L.A.) Robert Wilonsky
Signs blessedly displays a sense of giddy dark humor absent from Shyamalan's previous outings. It appears for much of the film he's merely having fun with the genre, goofing on its paranoid roots.
Film Threat Clint Morris
Shyamalans film blends together elements of humanity, faith, drama, tears, tension, terror, humour and the supernatural and succeeds in being one of the sharpest and most exciting films of the year.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Hank Sartin
Borrowing heavily from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," Shyamalan tries to lighten his trademark gloomy tone -- and almost kills the suspense he's working so hard to achieve.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Nancy deWolf Smith
Mr. Shyamalan is a new national treasure, as attuned to our sensibilities and everyday life as Steven Spielberg.
Washington Post Ann Hornaday
For filmgoers whose idea of a good time is getting the stuffing scared out of them (who are you guys, anyway?), Signs should prove to be time well spent.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Follow Shyamalan's Signs. It will take a piece out of you.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Signs -- though Shyamalan's most visually beautiful work -- seems thinner, barely more than a sketch for a movie, with characters trapped in formulas. Beautifully trapped perhaps -- but paralyzed nonetheless.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Its quirks are exactly what make Signs interesting, entertaining, and good.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
By limiting the number of special effects shots and treating the film more like a horror movie than a science fiction spectacle, Shyamalan creates a claustrophobic atmosphere and keeps the tension level high. There were times during this film when I was strongly reminded of "Panic Room."
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
A beautifully crafted, white-knuckle, roller-coaster ride of old-school filmmaking -- the kind that believes that the less you show, the better.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Signs is about God and family, too, but it's also about scaring the bejesus out of you -- and on that level it works like a miracle.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
Shyamalan often tries too hard, but nobody else can conjure such a sudden flood of worry, or summon so unmistakable a stink of evil, and you come out of Signs, as you did from "The Sixth Sense," in severe need of loud music, bad jokes, and drinks with cherries and umbrellas in them -- anything to waft away the fug of unease. [12 August 2002, p. 82]
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
For a big-budget Hollywood feature, the film places an unusually high amount of stock in the audience's imagination; not since "The Others" or "The Blair Witch Project" have so many shocks been indirect or kept teasingly out of view.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Hazel-Dawn Dumpert
Even if Signs suffers a little from uneven pacing and mismatched tones of reverent homage (to "The Birds" and "War of the Worlds"), soul-searching and silly comedy, the jokes are clever, the tension continual and expertly calibrated, and the performances -- are both deep and moving.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
It's a high-octane doomsday vision built almost entirely around our sense of anticipation, and that's both its strength and its weakness.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Parcels out information like a triage medic doling out morphine; every tiny bit is carefully considered and then rationed out as though he were terrified he might exhaust his supply before the closing credits.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
The problem with Signs is not that the movie is pretentious -- or ambitious -- enough to try to combine "The Book of Job" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." The problem is that Signs manages to be both so terribly serious and so unimportant at the same time.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
The movie keeps you watching and, at times, even gripped for more than an hour. But, at the end, it leaves us feeling detached and underwhelmed.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Shyamalan's great gift is the creation of atmosphere, the conjuring of spooky, unseen menace. When he gets around to doing this in Signs, all is well, but it's a tossup as to whether the film offers enough of a payoff considering how long it takes to get where it's going.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
All smoke and mirrors. With his third straight excursion into the supernatural, M. Night Shyamalan has begun revealing the hand that works his spooky tricks so much that the lack of substance is plainly seen.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
Shyamalan wants to be the metaphysical poet of movies, but he's dangerously close to becoming its O. Henry. The best surprise ending he could give us in his next movie would be no surprise ending at all.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
A deeply weird film, accomplished, gripping, disorienting, icily adept and barking mad at once. It makes for invigorating viewing.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
Once again, the filmmaker gets incredibly wobbly at the end of his story, and his resolution of both the alien incursion and of Graham's crisis of faith feels more like a cheap trick than the product of a genuine belief in anything at all.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Shyamalan has learned from his idol (Spielberg) how to manipulate audience emotion through the intimacy of an ordinary family that is "contacted." But he is even more shameless about it.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
Shyamalan has learned the lessons that so many horror directors ignore: Suggestion is scarier than revelation.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Even though he shows some master touches throughout the movie, Shyamalan flits a little too lightly across the surface, like a pond skater.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
As a scare picture, Signs is good enough. As a religious parable, it's scarier -- and I don't mean that as a compliment.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
Mr. Shyamalan never gives us anything to believe in, other than his own power to solve problems of his own posing, and his command of a narrative logic is as circular -- and as empty -- as those bare patches out in the cornfield.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The film's underlying themes dovetail efficiently with the action but don't generate the emotional gut punch the movie needs; overall it feels padded and logy.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Shyamalan plows the same old ground of juiced-up surprise endings.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
It's encouraging to see Hollywood tackle themes of faith and religion, but here, too, Shyamalan is timid, reducing them to fuzzy New Age clichés. Add wooden acting, stilted dialogue, and a faux-arty style, and you have a thudding disappointment.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Promised to be the season's thoughtful action picture, turns out to have few thoughts and no thrills.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Jessica Winter
Sitting through the last reel is significantly less charming than listening to a four-year-old with a taste for exaggeration recount his Halloween trip to the Haunted House.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.8 (out of 10) based on 149 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Alex Z. gave it a10:
This is a movie about hope. It's tagline for me is "Can it be there are no coincidents?". Some people think that it advocates religion and faith. I think the return of Graham at the end to religion is a plot device and a necessary parabol for everyone else, as we all have hopes and faith, each at different grounds. I felt deeply emotional by the end of this film. A miracle is the final ring of a chain which start from us. Among the most humanist film I've seen.
Ryan M gave it a0:
Horrible Movie. Cheesy and unrealistic. It advertised that it is going to follow the mythology of Earth's encounters with extra-terrestrials. Instead you get a completely shallow suspense film with an unoriginal story. If you want good science fiction you will be terribly disappointed.
Mack gave it an8:
Yes the statement that the director is trying to make is silly and heavy handed. However, his ability to make the events seem like they could really happen and the reactions of the characters play out very realistically before they collapse at the end. The build up is definitely worth putting up with some dissapointment at the end.
[Anonymous] gave it a3:
Brilliant imagery and good directing. However, the plot is so damn atrocious it is hard to believe. Even if you like religious films, it would be hard not to find the ending preposterous. Shayamaylan created a very clever ending to the Sixth Sense and thought he could achieve it again in Signs and The Villiage. He was wrong... 'Swing it!'
David S gave it a10:
A thoroughly under-rated masterpiece. After watching the trailers for this movie, I can see why some people were disapointed. The trailers seemed to have been geared to attract the 'War of the Worlds' fans. However, a lot of peop-le seemed to have missed the raw craft and style with which 'Signs' is executed. To begin with, M.Night Shalamyn's movies scare me the most out of any other movies I have seen. His use of manipulative camera angles, building music, and slow development create some truly memorable moments. On top of this, the back-story is extremely believable, the acting is unique and top-notch, and the musical score is brilliant. It is a very subtle movie, however, so only people who actually like HORROR should watch it, and watch it alone. All you guys who just want to see blood and boobs should watch Hostel or some other piece of garbage with your friends.
Dana C gave it a3:
A tacky morality play packaged in a lackluster retelling of War of the Worlds, delivered with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
Damian A gave it a10:
These reviews are indeed surprising. This film is a work of genius from the mind of M. Night Shamylan, but it still dissapoints me that his newer works don't have the same gripping, terrifying and awe-inspiring feel.
