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Signs
Touchstone Pictures

Signs reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 59 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
5.8 out of 10
based on 36 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 139 votes
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Rate this movie

MPAA 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)


GENRE(S): Suspense/Thriller  
WRITTEN BY: M. Night Shyamalan  
DIRECTED BY: M. Night Shyamalan  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: January 7, 2003 
Video: January 7, 2003 
Theatrical: August 2, 2002 
RUNNING TIME: 120 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

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...

100
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The work of a born filmmaker, able to summon apprehension out of thin air.
Read Full Review
88
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."
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80
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.”
80
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.
80
Film Threat Clint Morris
Shyamalan’s 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.
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80
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.
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80
Wall Street Journal Nancy deWolf Smith
Mr. Shyamalan is a new national treasure, as attuned to our sensibilities and everyday life as Steven Spielberg.
80
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.
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80
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Follow Shyamalan's Signs. It will take a piece out of you.
Read Full Review
75
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
75
Boston Globe Ty Burr
Its quirks are exactly what make Signs interesting, entertaining, and good.
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75
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."
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75
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.
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75
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
70
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]
70
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.
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70
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
67
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
67
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.
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63
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.
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63
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.
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60
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.
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60
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
60
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
58
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
50
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.
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50
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.
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50
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
Shyamalan has learned the lessons that so many horror directors ignore: Suggestion is scarier than revelation.
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50
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.
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50
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
50
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.
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40
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.
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38
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Shyamalan plows the same old ground of juiced-up surprise endings.
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25
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.
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25
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Promised to be the season's thoughtful action picture, turns out to have few thoughts and no thrills.
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10
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

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 5.8 (out of 10) based on 139 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Justin gave it a10:
I'm surprised by the mediocre reviews! I love this movie. I think people get mad because it is not the horror movie they expected. Signs is clever; funny, scary, and just entertaining!

Andy gave it a7:
Entertaining but lacking orginiality and reasonability.

Nick A. gave it a3:
Once again Mr. Shyamalan makes another film that seriously dents what reputation he had left as a director and writer. He manages to take some interesting themes and then cheats the viewer with a simplistic and cop-out ending which left me wanting to put my foot through the TV screen! Regardless of how good a movie is, what directors need to remember is the viewers lasting impression of a film is how the strands are brought together at the end. After two good first efforts Mr. Shyamalan is hurtling into meltdown.

J. Reb gave it a2:
this is a horror movie....I thought it was a comedy. If this is actually suppost to fit into the horror genre then ill give it mark that is due but as a comedy its a 4 because it there were too many boring parts between the funny bits. By the way, no im not smoking anything to all the people who liked this movie, when I watched this the whole theater burst out laughing in some scenes.

Randy M. gave it a9:
Signs is exactly what the horror genre needed-a jolt of originality to the seemingly repetitive horror settings. This movie drips with originality, and it keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time. M Night Shyamalan-I salute you.

Bill S. gave it an8:
This is the best alien invasion movie I have seen. The tension that is created draws you in and the reactions of the characters to the situation presented is very believable. This guy is a great director!

Joe M gave it a1:
While I guess it was enjoyable at times, the movie is an insult to the intelligence of everyone that watches it.

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