In 1973, Uri Geller’s supposed psychic abilities moved from television studios into experiments connected to American intelligence research at Stanford Research Institute. The declassified paperwork survives, preserving a remarkable moment when the Cold War made even telepathy look worth investigating.

In November 1998, Jack Kevorkian handed 60 Minutes a videotape that transformed his assisted-dying campaign into prime-time television and effectively dared Michigan prosecutors to charge him with murder. They accepted the invitation, and within months the man who had survived repeated assisted-suicide prosecutions was heading to prison.

The Village looks like a forgotten nineteenth-century settlement discovered somewhere beyond the Pennsylvania woods, but Covington was constructed specifically for the film on open farmland. Its real locations, practical buildings and miserable winter weather helped turn an elaborate fabrication into one of M. Night Shyamalan’s most convincing worlds.