This article contains references to domestic violence, abuse, murder, and death.
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M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense has 9-year-old medium Cole Sear see several ghosts throughout the movie, but their stories aren’t always made completely clear. Considered one of M. Night Shyamalan’s best movies to this day, The Sixth Sense follows child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), seeking redemption after failing a client by helping 9-year-old Cole. Malcolm realizes that he’s taken on more than he bargained for when Cole reveals that he can see and talk to dead people, but through embracing this ability, Malcolm and Cole help each other fix their problems and find new meaning in life.
Much is made of The Sixth Sense’s famous twist ending, but in reality, this is a small aspect of the movie compared to Cole’s interactions with ghosts. Throughout The Sixth Sense, Cole comes into contact with many dead people, which has a major effect on his ability to communicate with and relate to the living. However, with the help of Malcolm, Cole eventually overcomes his fear of the ghosts that visit him and is able to help them find closure, culminating with Cole helping Malcolm come to terms with his own death as well.
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7 The Lady In The Pink Robe
Cause Of Death: Apparent Abuse
The first physical ghost that Cole sees in The Sixth Sense is a lady wearing a pink bathrobe (she appears in Cole’s house). She is first seen walking down the hallway while Cole is using the bathroom, which piques Cole’s interest and leads him to follow her downstairs. Cole initially thinks that the lady is his mother, but when she turns around, it’s clear that she is not his mother at all, but instead a ghost.
When the lady turns around and begins speaking, she’s not addressing Cole, but instead someone she calls “Neddy,” who, based on context, was likely her husband whom she believes she’s arguing with. Angrily, she informs him that “dinner is not ready,” and a close-up of her face reveals that she has fading bruises over her eye, which seems to suggest that “Neddy” was abusing her.
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She then states that her husband can’t hurt her anymore, and she reveals several injuries on her wrists that were hidden under her sleeves. This visual scares Cole and prompts him to run away to hide in his tent, ending the encounter.
6 The Boy With The Head Injury
Cause Of Death: Gunshot
Not long after Cole’s encounter with the ghost wearing the pink bathrobe, he sees another specter in his house. After a fight with his mother, Cole sees the ghost of a boy a little older than him wearing 1970s-era clothing standing in a doorway at the end of the hallway. The boy whispers to Cole that he’ll show Cole where his “dad keeps his gun.” When the boy turns around, it’s revealed that he has a massive head injury, which is undoubtedly the cause of his death. Terrified, Cole leaves to go seek comfort from his mom, Lynn.
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5 Kyra Collins
Cause Of Death: Poisoning
Kyra Collins is the first ghost that Cole sees after Malcolm suggests that Cole should attempt to help the ghosts he sees rather than being afraid of them. She first appears in Cole’s tent with him, spewing vomit. Though initially scared, Cole eventually approaches Kyra, and she tells him “I feel a lot better now.” The scene ends with Cole asking if Kyra has something to tell him, but unlike the previous ghosts in The Sixth Sense, this is not Cole’s final encounter with Kyra.
In Kyra’s bedroom, Cole encounters her spirit once again, where she gives him a box to give to her father.
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Later, Cole and Malcolm attend Kyra’s funeral, where it’s revealed that Kyra had been ill and bedridden for the past two years. In Kyra’s bedroom, Cole encounters her spirit once again, where she gives him a box to give to her father. Inside the box is a videotape that inadvertently captured that Kyra wasn’t really sick, but had Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy brought on by her mother poisoning Kyra’s food.
After helping Mr. Collins get closure, Cole also does the same for Kyra’s younger sister. Kyra Collins is ultimately one of The Sixth Sense’s most important ghosts, as she helps Cole not be afraid of his abilities anymore.
4 The Burned Lady In The Theater
Cause Of Death: Fire
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Before Cole takes the stage in his class production of King Arthur, he is seen conversing with a middle-aged woman. When his teacher, Mr. Cunningham, comes to fetch Cole for the play, the lady tells Cole they “have to hurry” before getting up from her chair and leaving. As the lady turns back to look at Cole one more time, the movie reveals that the lady has a severe burn on half of her face. Confused, Mr. Cunningham inquires who Cole was talking to, but Cole lies and says he was running his lines.
As they make their way to the stage, Mr. Cunningham tells Cole that there was once a massive fire in that section of the theater. Because of the fire, according to Mr. Cunningham, the whole theater had to be rebuilt, which Cole says he already knew. Mr. Cunningham’s anecdote about the theater fire implies that the ghost Cole had been talking to was likely a teacher at the school who had been a victim of the fire, but The Sixth Sense doesn’t explicitly confirm this.
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The lady in the theater is another significant ghost for Cole, as she’s the first one that he doesn’t seem afraid of at all.
3 The Car Accident Victim
Cause Of Death: Car Accident
Towards the end of The Sixth Sense, Cole and his mother are stuck in traffic because of a car accident. Cole takes the opportunity to reveal his ability to see and interact with ghosts to his mom, using the car crash as an example. In response to his mother’s earlier hopes that no one was hurt in the accident, Cole informs her that this wasn’t true and that he could see her standing outside the passenger-side window.
Briefly, a woman wearing a bicyclist’s clothing is seen outside of Cole’s window, blood dripping down her face, thus corroborating Cole’s claims to the audience.
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2 Cole’s Grandma
Cause Of Death: Unknown
One of The Sixth Sense’s most significant ghosts is one that never actually appears on-screen. A source of tension between Cole and his mother throughout the movie is the fact that she keeps finding a bee pendant that belonged to Cole’s grandma in Cole’s bureau. Lynn assumes that Cole has been stealing the pendant and tries to prompt him to confess, but Cole is adamant that he didn’t take it. Despite this scene taking place about halfway through The Sixth Sense, the real reason that the bee pendant keeps disappearing isn’t revealed until the end.
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While Cole is trying to tell his mom about his abilities, she doesn’t believe that he can see ghosts at first, so he switches tactics and tries to tell her that he has seen his grandma. This initially angers Lynn, who thinks that Cole is lying, but once Cole tells her details about an incident from her childhood that he would have no way of knowing, she finally believes him.
The two Sears tearfully embrace, bringing a touching conclusion to their arc.
Cole reveals his grandmother was the one who kept taking the pendant “because she liked it,” and that Cole’s grandmother is proud of Lynn. The two Sears tearfully embrace, bringing a touching conclusion to their arc.
1 Malcolm Crowe
Cause Of Death: Gunshot
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Although Bruce Willis’ Malcolm Crowe is technically the first physical ghost that Cole sees in The Sixth Sense, he is the last to be revealed. After first meeting in a church, Malcolm takes an extreme interest in Cole’s case, as he sees Cole as an opportunity to rectify his failure with Vincent Grey (The Sixth Sense director cast Donnie Wahlberg in the role).
Over the course of the movie, Malcolm helps Cole not see himself as a “freak” and learn how to use his ghostly gifts for good, as he did with Kyra Collins’ family. Cole and Malcolm last see each other after Cole’s King Arthur play, where Cole suggests Malcolm try talking to his wife while she’s sleeping.
Malcolm takes Cole’s suggestion and has a heart-to-heart with his wife, Anna, but when she drops his wedding band, Malcolm finally puts the pieces together and realizes that he has been dead for the majority of The Sixth Sense. This epiphany helps Malcolm finally find peace and get closure with his wife and about his work, and the movie’s ending implies that Malcolm makes the transition to the afterlife.
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Though Malcolm comes to the realization that he’s a ghost on his own, Cole helps lead him to that point, showing that Cole helped Malcolm just as much as Malcolm helped Cole throughout The Sixth Sense.
How The Sixth Sense Portrayed Ghosts Compared To Other Movies
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The Sixth Sense holds a place as one of the greatest ghost movies of all time. While the creepy atmosphere and iconic twist can certainly be seen as adding to that reputation, it is also the effectiveness of how the movie presents ghosts. This has been an element that has been in horror movies for decades, going back to the earliest movies ever made and there are a variety of ways ghosts have been depicted so it can be difficult to find a new take.
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While some movies occasionally reuse the tried and true version of the white spectral entity with quavering voices, such as are seen in some of the earlier versions of A Christmas Carol, this type of ghost has largely grown out of fashion. It is clear that it would never have worked for The Sixth Sense as the movie relies on the audience not being able to recognize a ghost right away just by looking at it. Instead, The Sixth Sense‘s version of ghosts feels like something that sits directly in the real world.
However, also important to the twists,
The Sixth Sense
makes it clear that most of these ghosts don’t even know they are dead, tragically hanging onto the lives they had.
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Another element that the movie uses is that these ghosts maintain the injuries that resulted in their deaths. This is something that was also used in Beetlejuice, albeit in an over-the-top and comedic way. The Sixth Sense uses it to add to the terror of Cole witnessing these gruesome beings. However, also important to the twists, The Sixth Sense makes it clear that most of these ghosts don’t even know they are dead, tragically hanging onto the lives they had.
This tragic element of the ghosts highlights the most unique thing about The Sixth Sense‘s ghosts, which is that the movie humanizes them. Similar to Patrick Swayze in Ghost, Malcolm is a character in the movie who has something he needs to do. He is not haunting people but simply going about life as he once did, trying to fix something he left undone. A Ghost Story is another movie that ties into this approach, depicting the journey of a ghost watching the world change around him after his death as he is left as an observer.
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While ghosts have been easy features in horror movies to spook audiences, finding a way to make the audience care about a ghost character and give him a true arc is one of the underrated elements of The Sixth Sense.
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8/10 7.3/10 The Sixth Sense PG-13
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, The Sixth Sense is a psychological thriller about a young boy who can see and communicate with ghosts. Bruce Willis as Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist who tries to help Cole, played by Haley Joel Osment, while grappling with his own personal demons. The movie features a twist ending that has become iconic in pop culture.
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*Availability in US Director M. Night Shyamalan Release Date August 6, 1999 Cast Bruce Willis , Toni Collette , Haley Joel Osment , Olivia Williams , Donnie Wahlberg