The Sixth Sense Trivia
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50 free The Sixth Sense trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The Sixth Sense arrived in August 1999 with a modest budget, a child actor few people had heard of and an ending almost nobody saw coming. It sat at number one for more than a month, earned a clutch of Oscar nominations and turned a three-word whisper into one of the most quoted lines in cinema. These 50 questions cover the people behind it — the stars who nearly played the parts, the crew M. Night Shyamalan kept working with, the studio deal that cost an executive his job — along with the plot beats, the rules the filmmakers set so the twist would hold on a second viewing, and the box-office and awards records that followed. Play it if you have seen the film more than once, host it at a movie night, or use it to settle which friend really does remember how Malcolm Crowe's clothes work.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which future Superbad star auditioned to play Cole Sear in The Sixth Sense?
Michael Cera
Michael Cera, then 10, auditioned for Cole and recalls getting the tone all wrong, playing the scene 'upbeat' rather than in tears; Liam Aiken was offered the part and turned it down.
Q 02Which December 1999 family film, released four months after The Sixth Sense, did M. Night Shyamalan co-write?
Stuart Little
Stuart Little, co-written with Greg Brooker from E. B. White's novel, opened on December 17, 1999 with Michael J. Fox voicing the mouse: a twist-free children's film from the year's master of twists.
Q 03The Sixth Sense opened on August 6, 1999, which was also what milestone for its writer-director?
His 29th birthday
His 29th birthday: born on August 6, 1970, Shyamalan saw the film take nearly $27 million that weekend, where his previous release, Wide Awake, had taken roughly $300,000 in its entire run.
Q 04After Broadway Brawler collapsed, Bruce Willis owed Disney three discounted films: The Sixth Sense, The Kid and which 1998 film?
Armageddon
Armageddon came first of the three: Willis had fired much of Broadway Brawler's crew about 20 days into the shoot, and rather than sue, Disney had him work off the loss at a reduced fee.
Q 05Which awards voted The Sixth Sense Favorite Motion Picture in 2000?
People's Choice Awards
People's Choice Awards voters also named it Favorite Dramatic Motion Picture in January 2000, a public verdict the Academy did not share: all six of its Oscar nominations lost that March.
Q 06Which Muriel's Wedding breakout plays Cole's mother Lynn Sear in The Sixth Sense?
Toni Collette
Toni Collette earned an Oscar nomination as Lynn Sear, having almost not read the script for fear it would be a 'formulaic Hollywood action drama' built around Bruce Willis.
Q 07Which New Kids on the Block singer plays ex-patient Vincent Grey in The Sixth Sense's opening?
Donnie Wahlberg
Donnie Wahlberg, a founding member of the boy band, lost 43 pounds to play the gaunt intruder who shoots Malcolm in the opening scene, out to prove he was serious about acting.
Q 08Which future star of The O.C. plays Kyra Collins, the ghost girl who leads Cole to a videotape?
Mischa Barton
Mischa Barton, later Marissa Cooper on The O.C., delivers one of the film's jolts when Kyra's hand shoots out from under her bed to grab Cole; she also appeared in Notting Hill that year.
Q 09According to Cole, what happens to a room when the dead who visit him get angry?
It gets cold
'It gets cold' when they get mad, Cole says, after describing the prickly feeling on the back of your neck and the hairs on your arms standing up as the sign that they are near.
Q 10Which two-word answer does Cole relay from his grandmother when Lynn asks if she makes her proud?
Every day
'Every day' is the reply, delivered with the proof that the grandmother secretly watched Lynn's childhood dance recital from the back, which finally makes Lynn believe her son.
Q 11Which film beat The Sixth Sense to Best Picture at the Academy Awards ceremony held in March 2000?
American Beauty
American Beauty swept Picture, Director, Actor and Original Screenplay, leaving The Sixth Sense empty-handed despite being the highest earner among the five Best Picture nominees.
Q 12Haley Joel Osment's Golden Globe nomination lost to which actor's self-help guru in Magnolia?
Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise won for playing Frank T.J. Mackey in Magnolia; Osment, 11, went on to an Oscar nomination for the same performance and lost again, this time to Michael Caine in The Cider House Rules.
Q 13Lynn Sear's actress lost the Best Supporting Actress Oscar to which star of Girl, Interrupted?
Angelina Jolie
Q 21On Malcolm Crowe's old tape of a session with Vincent Grey, a pleading voice speaks which language?
Spanish
Spanish: the voice says 'Yo no quiero morir', meaning 'I don't want to die', in a room where Vincent was supposedly alone, which convinces Malcolm that Vincent shared Cole's ability.
Q 22What childhood nickname does Cole blurt out at his teacher Mr. Cunningham in front of the class?
Stuttering Stanley
'Stuttering Stanley' is a taunt Cole could only have learned from the dead, and it breaks the teacher's composure; the part is played by Bruce Norris, who later won a Pulitzer Prize for his play Clybourne Park.
Q 23Cole tells Mr. Cunningham their school, once a courthouse, was used for what grim purpose?
Hangings
Angelina Jolie won for playing Lisa Rowe in Girl, Interrupted; The Sixth Sense's nominations that night ran from Best Picture to film editing, and it went home with nothing.
Q 14Andrew Mondshein's Best Film Editing nomination for The Sixth Sense lost to which other 1999 film?
The Matrix
The Matrix took Best Film Editing for Zach Staenberg; Mondshein had got The Sixth Sense after cutting Shyamalan's previous film, Wide Awake, during whose long post-production the new script was written.
Q 15Which science-fiction writers' prize voted The Sixth Sense the Best Script of 1999?
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award for Best Script went to a ghost story rather than to science fiction: the finalists it beat included Brad Bird's The Iron Giant, about a giant robot from outer space.
Q 16Which composer wrote The Sixth Sense's score, the first of eight straight Shyamalan films he scored?
James Newton Howard
James Newton Howard got the job after the producers replaced another composer; the score, released by Varèse Sarabande, earned him an ASCAP award, and he scored every Shyamalan film through After Earth in 2013.
Q 17Which Jonathan Demme regular was The Sixth Sense's cinematographer?
Tak Fujimoto
Tak Fujimoto had shot The Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia for Demme, the second in the very city where The Sixth Sense is set, and returned for Shyamalan's Signs and The Happening.
Q 18Which Sixth Sense producer, sharing its Best Picture nomination, went on to run a major film studio?
Kathleen Kennedy
Kathleen Kennedy produced it with Frank Marshall and Barry Mendel; in 2012 George Lucas named her co-chair of Lucasfilm and his chosen successor.
Q 19Which Shyamalan film, his follow-up to The Sixth Sense, cast Bruce Willis as a stadium security guard?
Unbreakable
Unbreakable's David Dunn walks away from a train crash without a scratch, and a comic-book dealer played by Samuel L. Jackson pushes him to accept that he has superhuman powers.
Q 20Haley Joel Osment's first film role, five years before The Sixth Sense, was as whose son?
Forrest Gump
Forrest Gump's son, Forrest Jr., came his way after the film's casting director spotted him in a Pizza Hut commercial; he later voiced Sora in the Kingdom Hearts games.
Hangings: 'They used to hang people here', Cole says, and when Mr. Cunningham insists the building was a courthouse full of lawmakers, the boy answers that they were the ones who hanged everybody.
Q 24Malcolm Crowe describes which exercise to Cole as putting pencil to paper and starting to write?
Free association writing
Free association writing is something Cole says he has already tried, producing what he calls 'upset words'; Malcolm asks whether any of them came before his father left.
Q 25What makes Malcolm Crowe finally realise he never survived Vincent's attack?
The ring dropping from Anna's hand
The ring dropping from Anna's hand shows Malcolm his own finger is bare; remembering Cole's words that the dead see only what they want to see, he finds the gunshot wound and understands.
Q 26How does Cole suggest Malcolm Crowe finally get through to his distant wife Anna?
Speak to her as she sleeps
Speak to her as she sleeps, Cole suggests, so Anna can hear Malcolm's thoughts and feelings; Malcolm finds her dozing by their wedding video, murmuring 'Why did you leave me?'.
Q 27What does Kyra Collins's videotape reveal to her father at her funeral reception?
Her mother had been poisoning her
Her mother had been poisoning her food, which explains the 'long illness' and saves Kyra's younger sister; Cole had worked out who the ghost was after finding her being sick one night.
Q 28Cole ends The Sixth Sense as the lead in his school play, cast as which legendary hero?
King Arthur
King Arthur: Cole draws the sword from the stone while his tormentor Tommy Tammisimo is reduced to playing the village idiot, and Malcolm watches from the audience.
Q 29At a birthday party, where do bullies lock Cole after noticing that it frightens him?
A cupboard
A cupboard: once shut inside, Cole screams as though someone were in there with him, and he faints when he is let out; soon afterwards he tells Malcolm his secret.
Q 30Which actress, fresh from Rushmore, plays Malcolm Crowe's wife Anna in The Sixth Sense?
Olivia Williams
Olivia Williams plays Anna, who seems to freeze Malcolm out after the shooting; the finale recasts her silences as a widow's grief, since he has been dead all along.