The Sixth Sense

This one follows a child psychologist trying to help a young boy who insists he can see spirits, and that they speak to him. It's a quiet, careful film, more interested in dread than gore, and it lets that unease build slowly rather than throwing jump scares at you.

The fear here is the psychological kind: shadows at the edge of a room, a child who knows things he shouldn't. It sits somewhere between ghost story and character study, and it's properly frightening in the way that follows you upstairs after the credits roll.

This is one for a night when you want the lights low and the sofa to yourself, nobody talking over the quiet bits. Haley Joel Osment's performance as the boy carries most of it, wide eyed and utterly convincing.

It's the sort of film that rewards patience, the kind you sit with afterwards rather than shake off straight away.