Any time I watch M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable, I remember Quentin Tarantino listing it as one of his favorite films, and concisely pitching it as a Superman story where Superman doesn’t know he’s Superman yet — a perfect description. And yet, Unbreakable, released in 2000, just missed Hollywood’s superhero boom, where it could have shaped the culture around it.
Although Shyamalan was able to circle back in 2017 with the release of Split and later Glass (we don’t talk about Glass), the films are often left out of discussions of some of the best superhero movies or cinematic universes. That’s mostly because Unbreakable was ahead of its time, Glass was terrible, and it doesn’t revolve around DC or Marvel characters. With its unconventional riff on the Superman template, Unbreakable deserves recognition alongside the strongest superhero stories from Sony, Fox, Warner Bros., and even Marvel Studios.
Unbreakable follows David Dunn (Bruce Willis), a meek, seemingly ordinary man, who miraculously survives a catastrophic train crash without a single injury, prompting comic-book art dealer Elijah Price (Samual L. Jackson), whose brittle-bone condition makes him David’s physical opposite, to suggest that David may be a real-life superhero. As David reluctantly tests the limits of his abilities, Shyamalan carefully unravels a grounded mystery about identity, destiny, and the fine line between hero and villain.
Unbreakable is a superhero story despite being marketed and playing out like a psychological thriller. Because of The Sixth Sense‘s success, the film unfolds slowly, saving its mystery until the very end. Since it’s directed by M. Night Shyamalan at the height of his career, Unbreakable has to have a twist ending. Even the son, Joseph, played by Spencer Treat Clark, looks like Haley Joel Osment. It seems like studios pushed the film in these directions, according to Shyamalan. “Disney felt that we couldn’t sell it as a comic-book movie because they felt that nobody would come to a comic book film,” he told Joe.ie. “They felt that this is not a subject matter that you would get a wide audience for. (Comic book films are) for weird people at conventions and things like that. After the success of The Sixth Sense, they wanted to just sell (Unbreakable) as a thriller. I was like ‘OK, but I think this is a cool idea that would really ground it.’ It might be a dismissible subject, but treating it as an embellished version of the truth is where the real appeal for it lies,” he said. Based on the quote, Shyamalan seemed more focused on defining his vision of the superhero genre than forcing his usual Shyamalan touches into the story, and it’s those superhero elements that stand out the most.
The film opens with a factoid about being a comic book collector, then shows the birth of the film’s brittle-boned villain, juxtaposing it with Willis discovering his invincibility. The film is really a tale of two people, the yin to the other’s yang, as an examination of the fated relationship between heroes and arch nemesis, like Batman and the Joker. You can’t have one without the other. The film depicts Price as a friend to Dunn, trying to get him to see his potential, with the surprise twist that Price is actually Dunn’s self-imposed nemesis, revealed only at the very end.
It’s compelling how Price, later known as Glass, used comic books as a childhood refuge from his fragile reality. He grew up identifying with villains and eventually became a meticulous, almost elitist comic dealer who treats the medium with reverence. To Glass, comics are modern hieroglyphs, “an ancient way of passing on history,” proof that real titans walk the earth and that their exploits were recorded long before corporations turned the medium into spectacle. In a way, he embodies a critique of the superfan who clings to fictional worlds because they once offered protection from an unforgiving life.
There is some great camerawork in the film, shot by the late Portuguese cinematographer Eduardo Serra, including iconic shots of David, silhouetted in a raincoat that would become his patrol outfit as a hero. It functions like his cape and spandex later in the franchise, and it is striking to see that idea take root as early as 2000. In retrospect, it is also tough and harrowing to watch Bruce Willis as a de facto Superman, given his vulnerabilities today. Since David wears his vulnerabilities on his sleeve, it is hard not to make the connections between Bruce today and his character here.
These moments make his son’s reaction to realizing his father has superpowers feel even more profound. You cannot be a hero without inspiring someone, and the fact that the person he inspires is his son hits home for me every time. The scene where Joseph watches David bench press an outlandish amount of weights is sold entirely through his look of astonishment. It is the moment when Joseph and the audience understand that David has powers, and Joseph’s surrogate reaction perfectly captures how I feel watching it. He is scared, astonished, and unshakably proud. David’s strength comes from his growing self-confidence, and as he finds his footing in this scene, our pride in him rises with it.
Beyond superhuman strength, David can sense others’ evil intent, and he uses this power to go on patrol for the first time. He finds a creepy janitor has invaded a family home, killed the father, and is now holding the mother and two children captive. The rescuing isn’t flashy. It doesn’t contain CGI or a barrage of fight choreography. Actually, David is a bit sloppy in his execution, needing the children’s help to overcome his weakness to being submerged. But when David chokes the creep out in an attempt to save the mother, the triumphant horns audiences associate with superheroism still cue, to great effect, and you remember all it takes to be a hero is to be there for someone when no one else is.
Shyamalan understood and iterated on the superhero genre before Hollywood got its hands on it. The story of Unbreakable is as grounded as it can possibly get: a bare-bones Superman story with little action, no CGI, and no overly fantastical feats. The genre’s rules and tropes aren’t mere surface decorations; they’re woven into the narrative to reinforce the film’s themes. They even help deliver the final twist, which would’ve been a great reveal on its own, and it remains effective, reminding you why audiences once fell in love with Shyamalan’s early work. And in an era crowded with grim, subversive takes on the Superman archetype, Unbreakable offers a refreshing version of the myth that honors its inspirations while still forging its own distinct path.
Without relying on an existing IP or familiar characters, Shyamalan crafted a complete and cohesive superhero story in under 2 hours. For nearly two decades, it stood alone, until a post-credit scene (a nod to superhero movies) in Split revealed that the film exists within the Unbreakable universe, with Bruce Willis returning as David Dunn and quietly sizing up James McAvoy’s Beast as his next adversary. At the time, not even the Infinity War stinger could match the shock of that reveal. No major IP had ever pulled off a twist like that, and it is hard to imagine another franchise doing so again, unless James Gunn decides to revisit Super in a new movie, with Rainn Wilson stepping back into the role of Frank.
Even if Glass closed the trilogy on a sour note, audiences have watched entire cinematic universes collapse by now. It feels like the right moment to forgive Glass — if only to preserve the well-earned admiration for Unbreakable and the universe it strived to create.
