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Signs

Play trailer 2:26 Poster for Signs PG-13 Released Aug 2, 2002 1h 46m Mystery & Thriller Sci-Fi Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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76% Tomatometer 241 Reviews 67% Popcornmeter 250,000+ Ratings
Everything that farmer Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) assumed about the world is changed when he discovers a message - an intricate pattern of circles and lines - carved into his crops. As he investigates the unfolding mystery, what he finds will forever alter the lives of his brother (Joaquin Phoenix) and children (Rory Culkin), (Abigail Breslin). A unique story that explores the mysterious real-life phenomena of crop signs and the effects they have on one man and his family.
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Signs

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Critics Consensus

With Signs, Shyamalan proves once again an expert at building suspense and giving audiences the chills.

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Critics Reviews

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Joshua Rothkopf In These Times Signs is a tense experience; even the opening credits lunge at your throat with orchestral shrieks. It may one day reveal itself as a minor classic, a new Invasion of the Body Snatchers for the manufactured scare of its day. Mar 16, 2020 Full Review Namrata Joshi Outlook It's the content that's to blame. Signs works on a confused storyboard. What's Shyamalan trying to say anyways? Nothing, or rather a bit too much. Rated: 2/4 Jan 3, 2019 Full Review Chris Stuckmann ChrisStuckmann.com Signs was the film that sparked the desire that led to the purchase of a camera, many short films, and a love of movies that hasn't left me to this day. Rated: A+ Apr 17, 2015 Full Review Jack Walters Loud and Clear Reviews "Shyamalan’s classic sci-fi drama Signs is both a thrilling celebration of the genre and a poignant exploration of the purpose behind life’s random tragedies." Rated: 4.5/5 Jan 18, 2025 Full Review Mike Massie Gone With The Twins The scares are expertly handled; there’s an undeniable cleverness to the idea that a potential alien invasion could re-instill religious ardor just as it terrorizes an unprepared community. Rated: 8/10 Aug 25, 2024 Full Review Akos Peterbencze The Screen Signs is a quiet contemplation on grief and faith that uses aliens as a means to an end. It’s the horror serving the drama and never the other way around. Aug 6, 2024 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Oliver L An ok movie. Definitely not his best Rated 2 out of 5 stars 07/22/25 Full Review M H People loved this movie. They left the theater crying (unfortunately, I originally saw it in person). It has a great Rotten Tomatoes score and, yes, I’m still baffled as to why after all these years. This movie is absolutely mind-numbingly stupid: Aliens, who water burns them like acid, decide to come to earth naked; a planet that is 70% water and has copious water vapor in the atmosphere. Their choice of a landing spot central to the movie? Yes, of course, water-irrigated cornfields (they also had spaceships hovering in the clouds of various major cities, but the story centered on cornfields in rural Pennsylvania). These aliens communicate with each other by making crop circles and with radio transmissions that can be picked up on a cheap baby monitor. The weapon these advanced, galaxy-transversing naked aliens use is a semi-noxious poison farted out of their wrists that’s so mild that a sickly child survives an attack because his asthma prevents enough poison to be breathed in. These aliens are completely confused on how to get in a boarded up house, or out of a locked kitchen pantry. All this is a backdrop to a ridiculous implied narrative of God’s plan of restoring the faith of an apostate preacher-farmer by making the family’s vet fall asleep driving and fatally pinning the mom to a tree with his truck so that, before her death, she can offer advice for the baseball-playing son to “swing away” which he heeds when the aliens enter his family’s farmhouse. He kills the aliens when he fights back by swinging his baseball bat at the naked aliens by (accidentally at first) shattering glasses of water his young sister leaves around the house which saves mankind by giving us humans the key to defeating the aliens: Splashing them with water! And don’t get me started on the part about the family’s German Shepherd attacking the little girl because it “sensed a predator” in the cornfield. That, friends, is not how German Shepherds work. Some fanboys of this ridiculous movie, in an effort to explain away the plot holes and sweeping logical inconsistencies, will try to say the aliens are really just crop-circle-making, spaceship-riding demons (or something else, but not really aliens), but that, somehow, just makes it even worse. Despite a great cast and wonderful cinematography, It’s absolute shite. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 07/17/25 Full Review Alyah M une famille déchirée qui se reforge quand tout semble perdu. Ce film est à voir deux fois, rien n'est laissé au hasard. Des personnages attachants et un réalisateur hors-pair qui réussi à allier tension et attente tout au long du film Rated 4 out of 5 stars 07/09/25 Full Review Alessandro A I wonder who could write such a script. Aliens eat humans that are made 70% of water, but water it toxic to them. Logic. How, how was it possible that someone decided to finance this? Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 06/21/25 Full Review Lloyd S This movie is so good I kept my eyes to the screen the whole time. Highly recommended. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 05/30/25 Full Review AE J This gem makes my top 10, beautiful screenwriting, visually stunning and engrossing. I catch more symbolism each time I see it, there is a great deal of depth to it, humor and sadness. It is so special, Gibson and Phoenix are on their A games I love both performances equally but for different reasons, each are truly dialed in and deliver utterly believably authentic characters. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 05/26/25 Full Review Read all reviews
Signs

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Movie Info

Synopsis Everything that farmer Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) assumed about the world is changed when he discovers a message - an intricate pattern of circles and lines - carved into his crops. As he investigates the unfolding mystery, what he finds will forever alter the lives of his brother (Joaquin Phoenix) and children (Rory Culkin), (Abigail Breslin). A unique story that explores the mysterious real-life phenomena of crop signs and the effects they have on one man and his family.
Director
M. Night Shyamalan
Producer
M. Night Shyamalan, Frank Marshall, Sam Mercer
Screenwriter
M. Night Shyamalan
Distributor
Touchstone Pictures
Production Co
Touchstone Pictures, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, Blinding Edge Pictures
Rating
PG-13 (Some Frightening Moments)
Genre
Mystery & Thriller, Sci-Fi, Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Aug 2, 2002, Wide
Release Date (Streaming)
Aug 11, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA)
$228.0M
Runtime
1h 46m
Sound Mix
Dolby SR, DTS, Dolby Stereo, Surround, SDDS, Dolby A, Dolby Digital
Aspect Ratio
Flat (1.85:1)
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