Signs/YMMV

• Completely Missing the Point - Basically there are a lot of complaints about the "invasion" not making sense, the aliens being "stupid", due to all the tropes associated with alien invasion movies teaching people they should expect lots of exposition at regular intervals. The movie is meant to be from the perspective of a single family just trying to hunker down and survive... not knowing or understanding what's happening is a large part of the story's point, because such people wouldn't be able to receive a convenient scientist's infodump.
• Crowning Moment of Awesome - Merill Hess with a baseball bat vs. an alien. "Swing away."
• Crowning Moment of Funny - Anytime the children are wearing their little psychic repelling hats.
  • Made even better when Merill dons one.
  • And, of course, that scene with Graham and Merril. You know the one...

"I'm insane with anger!"

• Crowning Music of Awesome - James Newton Howard's score. PERIOD. "Hand of Fate" in particular.
• Easily-Thwarted Alien Invasion - Well, there was a Shout-Out to War of the Worlds. Justified in-universe by the theory that this was merely a raid, and thus not an actual invasion at all.
• Hell Is That Noise - That clicking, almost-but-not-quite normal sound coming from the baby monitor? It's the aliens.
  • Also used in a non-audio context. In the basement, the father shines a flashlight on the son, and all seems well... until the alien's hand starts moving.
• Hilarious in Hindsight - The scene where Graham finds it hard to cuss and scare intruders off his farm was already funny in the first place. Post Mel Gibson's widely publicized, coarsely worded fits? Hysterical!
• It Was His Sled - Even those who have not seen the movie are often aware of the twist.
  • Shyamalan movies in general are vulnerable to this. They probably rank somewhere just after "Snape kills Dumbledore" for people gleefully ruining the twist for others.
• Moral Event Horizon: The alien that stays behind does so because he wants revenge on Graham for cutting off his fingers. All right, that's understandable...wait, he's going to get revenge on Graham by attacking, with murderous intent, Graham's son? Dick move.
• Retroactive Recognition: Little Rock saves the world, by being really, uh, OCD?
• Tear Jerker - Say what you will about Shyamalan's anvils and sense of logic, but he still has the ability to make several scenes effortlessly heartbreaking.
  • The "Tell him to swing away" scene puts a lump in This Troper's throat every time.
  • The scene where Graham discovers that Morgan killed one of their dogs, Houdini, in self-defence.
    • Even worse, the scene where they realize they forgot to bring the other dog in. You then hear the dog bark for a moment, yelp, and all becomes silent...
  • Graham telling his children the stories of their births, especially Morgan's. *sniffle*
  • The dinner scene. Give Mel Gibson credit, how many other actors do you know that can act emotional while eating?
• What an Idiot!: The aliens, as noted by the Fridge Logic explained on the main page. What were aliens vulnerable to water thinking in invading Earth?
  • They probably weren't, and part of the point is that we don't know.