15+ Times Directors Tested Viewers' Attention With Hidden Easter Eggs

Jimmy Henton
Mar 02, 2023
Mar 02, 2023

Movie buffs will be well aware that the cinema world contains a treasure trove of ‘Easter Eggs’, knowing nods and cryptic secrets, hidden in plain sight on-screen. Filmmakers have been placing canny references, in-jokes, and visual gags into their movies. They are all tiny details that not every attentive viewer can find out.
There’re a lot of communities on social media, where people talk about the movie details. Interestingly, when people reveal the secrets in movies, we start wondering how we could actually miss them before. And we probably need a rewatch to check them out.
Today, we’ve compiled a list of 15+ Easter Eggs that movie creators added to their films that really challenged even the most attentive viewers.

#1 Miss Congeniality’s talent show dress

Easter Eggs Source: © Miss Congeniality / Castle Rock Entertainment

No one could forget the colorful dress worn by the protagonist of Mis Congeniality. Just because it looked totally hilarious on agent Gracie Hart. However, very few viewers could notice how they came up with the idea to dress an FBI agent like this. The character had too little to think about an interesting costume idea, so they just reused the dress from the girl who was giving out the leaflets at the entrance.

#2 Margot’s suit and earrings in The Menu

Easter Eggs Source: © The Menu / Searchlight Pictures

We can get a hint bout Margot’s fate from the very beginning of the movie thanks to her suit. The leather jacket and black rugged boots she puts on eventually show her pursuit to be strong and stand firmly on her two feet. Still, when Margot takes off her jacket in the restaurant, her lilac silk dress conveys a sense of vulnerability.
And the essential detail that disclosed Margo’s fate is her Englis in-shaped earrings. Symbolically, they indicate that she will the only character who manages to escape from the island.

#3 Eyebrows of Pandora’s inhabitants

Easter Eggs Source: © Avatar / Twentieth Century Fox

James Cameron is famous for making both Avatar and Titanic, which has become one of his most successful movies. Viewers were assumed to go to the planet Pandora, where giant blue creatures, named Na’vi, live. To make the expedition look like these creatures, the people had avatars, which are bodies that can be controlled.
Still, even when all the blue characters resembled, there were just 2 differences between the real creatures of Pandora and those with avatars. The film crew made avatars with 5 fingers, while Na’vi has only 4. Also, real Na’vi doesn’t have eyebrows. They actually have stripes on their skin that look like eyebrows, but they have no hair. When it comes to the second film, it remains true.

Easter Eggs Source: © Avatar: The Way of Water / 20th Century Studios

#4 The license plate in Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Easter Eggs Source: © Spider-Man: No Way Home / Marvel Studios

According to Marvel fans, there are lots of Easter eggs on license plates in Marvel movies. For instance, this license plate is a reference to “The Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #3” in which Doctor Octopus makes his first appearance.

#5 Forrest Gump’s laces

Easter Eggs Source: © Forrest Gump / Paramount Pictures

Only an attentive viewer can notice that, in the scene where Forrest Gump is sitting at a bus stop, his sneakers are so dirty, but his shoelaces are totally white. According to the fans of the flick, the character wants to demonstrate that he is trying his best to preserve the gift from his special woman. Gump has been putting on these shoes for all years long and has done everything to keep them going.
There is another theory as to why the character performed this way. This time, viewers recall the words of Forrest’s friend, Lieutenant Dan, who told him to always take care of his feet.

#6 The award for The Matrix video game

Easter Eggs Source: © The Matrix Resurrections / Warner Bros.

Only when you pause the movie, you can notice another detail of the prize on Neo's desk. In the 4th film of the franchise, we can see the camera go along the desk and show the award.
It was given for The Matrix video game, created by Deus Machina, a company that Keanu Reeves owns. It was given in 1999 when the first movie premiered. So, the creators pose the question of what is real in this movie and what is not.

#7 Hector’s bare feet in Coco

Easter Eggs Source: © Coco / Pixar Animation Studios

#8 Black Widow’s emblem in Peter Parker’s drawings

Easter Eggs Source: © Spider-Man / Columbia Pictures, © The Avengers / Marvel Studios

In the 2002 Spider-Man, the character portrayed by Tobey Maguire explores ideas for what his outfit will look like and what symbol he will utilize. One of the options that Peter Parker refused was the Black Widow’s emblem, another Marvel Comics character: the red hourglass, slightly modified in the films but still recognizable.
By the way, fans have a theory as to why Spider-Man’s costume is red. The superhero chose this color because it is associated with his favorite girl, Mary Jane, who has red hair.

#9 The human outline in Life of Pi

Easter Eggs Source: © Life of Pi / Fox 2000 Pictures

Life of Pi is considered full of a sense of unity between humans and nature. Both scientists and ordinary people agree on that. Some photos in this movie are even more symbolic than they seem. Movie buffs found a human outline in the green mountains and hills.

#10 The newspaper in The Polar Express

Source: © The Polar Express / Castle Rock Entertainment, © Back to the Future / Universal Pictures

In one of the first shots of The Polar Express, we see a newspaper with the name of a mall: “Lone Pine Mall.” If you feel you’ve seen this name before, you’re right. It was actually the name of the mall in the 1985 film Back to the Future.
We even have an explanation for this coincidence: The Polar Express is set in 1956, on Christmas, and Back to the Future - is in 1955. So, the character of both flicks lived at the same time and would have been able to visit the same mall.

#11 The characters’ clothes in Encanto

Source: © Encanto / Walt Disney Animation Studios

The costume of the characters in the animated movie Encanto reveals who they are. For instance, Luisa, the strongest character in the movie, is putting on a dress that has dumbbell designs, Dolores has sound waves depicted on her skirt (she has an ability of super hearing), and Pepa has weather symbols because the weather in the city depends on her mood. And if you look closer look, you can find something in each character’s clothes that tells about them.

#12 Nick Fury and Jules Winnfield are one person

Another never-ending source of secret messages is Marvel films. Some viewers think that Nick Fury from the Marvel universe and Jules Winnfield from Pulp Fiction are the same guys. Both characters were portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson, and the words Jules says at the end of Tarantino’s movie are written on Nick’s tombstone.

#13 Peeta Mellark’s collar

In The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1, Peeta communicates with Katniss via the TV. Everyone standing in front of the screen is listening to the winner of The Hunger Games and his partner understands that he is forced to give this speech. And the creators made the collar look like it’s a threat to Peeta.

#14 The bookshelf of president Orlean in Don’t Look Up

In Don’t Look Up, we usually see a book, written by the character of Meryl Streep, president Orlean. And we can find that the biggest number of these books is seen in her own office! People believed it was a way to convey her arrogance by way of narcissistic behavior.

#15 Nike logo on a knight’s armor

In A Knight’s Tale, people saw a logo we all know very well — Nike.
The founder of Nike supported the idea of using the logo in the movie. He is Phil Knight. His last name is the same as the word in the movie’s title.

#16 The shoe in Inside Out

Pixar Studios adores leaving Easter eggs in their animated movies. The Oscar-winning film Inside Out was no exception.
Attentive viewers found an object in the movie that they were already familiar with. We suppose the boot that is among other things in the head of the movie’s protagonist. This same boot can be seen in an earlier studio movie, WALL-E. It was in this boot that the small robot grew a plant.

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