Unbreakable is a 2000 American superhero thriller film written, produced, and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, and starring Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, and Robin Wright.

In Unbreakable, David Dunn (Willis) survives a train crash with no injuries, leading to the realization that he harbors superhuman abilities.

As he begins to grapple with this discovery, he comes to the attention of disabled comic book store owner Elijah Price (Jackson), who manipulates David to understand him.

It received generally positive reviews,[2] with praise for Shyamalan's direction, screenplay, its aesthetics, the performances, the emotional weight of the story, cinematography, and the score by James Newton Howard.

[8][9][10] In 1961 Philadelphia, baby Elijah Price is born with Type I osteogenesis imperfecta, a rare disease that renders his bones extremely fragile and prone to fracture.

In the present day, former star quarterback and security guard David Dunn is returning home to Philadelphia after a job interview in New York when his train, Eastrail 177, suddenly speeds up.

After attending a memorial service for the victims, David finds a note on his car asking how long it has been since he has been ill and inviting him to "Limited Edition", an art gallery operated by the now-adult Elijah Price.

Under Elijah's influence, David realizes that his intuition for picking out dangerous people in his work as a security guard is actually extrasensory perception.

Consciously honing this ability, David discovers that touch contact with people brings him visions of criminal acts they have committed.

He finds one he can act on: a sadistic janitor who has invaded a family home, killed the father, and is now holding the mother and two children captive.

David meets Elijah's elderly mother, who explains the difference between villains who fight heroes with physical strength and those who use their intelligence.

[11] When M. Night Shyamalan conceived the idea for Unbreakable, the outline had a comic book's traditional three-part structure (the superhero's "birth", his struggles against general evil-doers, and the hero's ultimate battle against the "archenemy").

[12] With Willis and Samuel L. Jackson specifically in mind for the two leading characters, Shyamalan began to write Unbreakable as a spec script[13] during post-production on The Sixth Sense.

[15] With the financial and critical success of The Sixth Sense in August 1999, Shyamalan gave Walt Disney Studios a first-look deal for Unbreakable.

[16] Julianne Moore was cast as Audrey, David's wife, in January 2000,[17] but dropped out in March 2000, to take on the role of Clarice Starling in Hannibal.

[12] As he does in his other films, Shyamalan makes a cameo appearance; he plays a man David suspects of dealing drugs inside the stadium.

Shyamalan said that he wanted to market Unbreakable as a comic book movie, but Disney—which had not yet bought Marvel Comics—preferred to advertise it as a supernatural thriller like The Sixth Sense.

Howard and Shyamalan chose to simplify the score, and minimized the number of instruments (strings, trumpets and piano), with limited orchestrations.

[12] Unbreakable was released in the United States on November 22, 2000, in 2,708 theaters and grossed $30.3 million in its opening weekend, finishing second at the box office behind How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Ebert believed that Willis's "subtle acting" was positively different from the actor's usual work in "brainless action movies".

[27] Richard Corliss of Time opined that Unbreakable continued Shyamalan's previous approach of "balancing sophistication and horror in all of his movies".

[28] Desson Thomson from The Washington Post wrote that "just as he did in The Sixth Sense, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan leads you into a fascinating labyrinth, an alternative universe that lurks right under our noses.

In this case, it's the mythological world and, in these modern times, the secret design to that labyrinth, the key to the path, is contained in comic books.

He wanted to promote Unbreakable as a comic book movie, but Touchstone insisted on portraying it as a psychological thriller, similar to The Sixth Sense.

[35] The DVD version is a THX certified two-disc set that features a DTS audio track, behind-the-scenes footage, deleted scenes and other bonus material.

[46] In a September 2008 article, Shyamalan and Samuel L. Jackson said there was some discussion of a sequel when the film was being made, but that it mostly died with the disappointing box office.

[48] In September 2010, Shyamalan revealed that an additional villain had been omitted from Unbreakable in anticipation of their inclusion in a sequel, but that the character had instead been used for a forthcoming film he was writing for and producing.

Additionally, Shyamalan has stated the orange-suited villain portrayed by Chance Kelly in Unbreakable was initially going to be the character "The Horde".

The film, titled Glass, was released on January 18, 2019, and features Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Anya Taylor-Joy, and James McAvoy returning to their respective roles in the series.