[22] Shyamalan made his first film, the semi-autobiographical drama Praying with Anger, while still a student at NYU, using money borrowed from family and friends.

The drama dealt with a ten-year-old Catholic schoolboy (Joseph Cross) who, after the death of his grandfather (Robert Loggia), searches for God.

The film's supporting cast included Dana Delany and Denis Leary as the boy's parents, as well as Rosie O'Donnell, Julia Stiles, and Camryn Manheim.

Wide Awake was filmed in a school Shyamalan attended as a child[24] and earned 1999 Young Artist Award nominations for Best Drama, and, for Cross, Best Performance.

[28] Shyamalan gained international recognition when he wrote and directed 1999's The Sixth Sense, starring Bruce Willis, and which became the second-highest grossing horror movie of all time.

[30] In July 2000, on The Howard Stern Show, Shyamalan said he had met with Spielberg and was in early talks to write the script for the fourth Indiana Jones film.

[32] Shyamalan followed The Sixth Sense by writing and directing Unbreakable (2000), again starring Willis, a stealth superhero film within a thriller, which was both critically and financially successful.

[36] After the release of The Village in 2004, Shyamalan had been planning a film adaptation of Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi with 20th Century Fox, but later backed out so that he could make Lady in the Water.

Next was the film The Happening, a science fiction thriller about an inexplicable natural disaster causing mass suicides, featuring a teacher and his wife fleeing from contaminated cities into the countryside.

[38][39] In July 2008, it was announced that Shyamalan had partnered with Media Rights Capital to form a production company called Night Chronicles.

[49][48] His next film, Old, a thriller about tourists who begin aging rapidly on a mysterious beach, was shot in the Dominican Republic[50] and released on July 23, 2021.

The film stars Gael Garcia Bernal, Eliza Scanlen, Thomasin McKenzie, Aaron Pierre, Alex Wolff, Abbey Lee, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Ken Leung, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Embeth Davidtz, Alexa Swinton, Nolan River, and Emun Elliott.

[60] Shyamalan was also instrumental in the creation of the Fox science fiction series Wayward Pines (2015–2016), for which he executive produced and directed the pilot episode.

[65] Blinding Edge has produced Servant, Wayward Pines, Devil, The Happening, Lady in the Water, The Village, Signs, Unbreakable, The Last Airbender, After Earth, The Visit, Split, Glass and Old.

He hired doctoral student James Richardson to do most of the background research and as a result published I Got Schooled: The Unlikely Story of How a Moonlighting Movie Maker Learned the Five Keys to Closing America's Education Gap through Simon and Schuster in 2013.

[68] John Willol of NPR reviewed the book by stating "I Got Schooled is a breezily written, research driven call to change America's approach to education.

[74] In 2023, Shyamalan bought a 218-acre (88 ha) estate from the Rockefeller family in Willistown Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, which has five historic houses and two barns for $24 million.

[75] Rolling Stone wrote that The Sixth Sense gave Shyamalan the reputation of "the guy who makes the scary movies with a twist".

"After the release of The Village, Slate's Michael Agger noted that Shyamalan was following "an uncomfortable pattern" of "making fragile, sealed-off movies that fell apart when exposed to outside logic".

[77] Shyamalan has also been nominated for, and in some cases won, numerous Golden Raspberry Awards for Lady in the Water in 2006, The Happening in 2008, The Last Airbender in 2010, and After Earth in 2013.

[82] The Village, Lady in the Water, Split and Trap have been included in Cahiers du Cinéma annual top ten lists.

[83][84][85][86] Most of his early commercially successful films were co-produced and released by Walt Disney Studios' Touchstone and Hollywood Pictures imprints.

"[97] Robert McIlhinney, a Pennsylvanian screenwriter, sued Shyamalan in 2003, alleging similarities between Signs and his unpublished script Lord of the Barrens: The Jersey Devil.

[98][99] In 2004, Margaret Peterson Haddix claimed that The Village has numerous similarities to her young adult novel Running Out of Time, prompting discussions with publisher Simon & Schuster about filing a lawsuit.

[98][99][100] In response to both allegations, Disney and Shyamalan's production company Blinding Edge issued statements calling the claims "meritless".

[100] Orson Scott Card has claimed that many elements of The Sixth Sense were plagiarized from his novel Lost Boys, although he has said that enough had been changed that there was no point in suing.

[101] After the release of The Happening, The Guardian's Kim Newman questioned, "Can it be a kind of racism that the Indian-born, Philadelphia-raised auteur is hammered for his apparent character (or funny name) rather more than, say, Quentin Tarantino or Spike Lee?

They question whether his strong statements of self-assurance coupled with the remarkable success of The Sixth Sense set up a fall from grace which was soon realized when a run of very successful films (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs and The Village) seemingly collapsed with a string of critical failures (Lady in the Water, The Happening, The Last Airbender, and After Earth).

[103] In 2019, Tim Greiving of The Washington Post said that "his confidence was interpreted as arrogance by some, especially after he cast himself in Lady in the Water as a brilliant writer whose book is prophesied as a world-saver."

Greiving continued, "Howard, who expressed pride in him for forging ahead despite his turn among critics, noted how rare it was for such a young filmmaker to write, direct and produce original material.