Top 10 Foreshadowing Details in the Background of Movies

“Magnolia” (1999)

Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the most well-regarded directors in Hollywood. Films like “There Will Be Blood” and “The Master” are award-winning masterpieces. In one of his earlier features, “Magnolia,” Anderson uses the motif of the number eighty-two as an extremely subtle foreshadowing tool. It shows up again and again as graffiti, painted on an airplane, and on an apartment door. One audience member of the talk show in the film holds a sign that reads “Exodus 8:2,” making the reference explicitly. The Bible passage describes the plague of frogs that God unleashes on Egypt. At the end of “Magnolia,” several of the characters witness a rain of frogs.

“The World’s End” (2013)

Filmmaker Edgar Wright is well-known for his liberal use of foreshadowing. He loves throwaway lines of dialogue that ultimately tell the whole story before it happens. In “The World’s End,” Wright was a little more subtle. Simon Pegg’s character persuades his erstwhile high school friends to recreate a pub crawl that was the peak of his high school career. Unfortunately, the crawl begins in the middle of an alien apocalypse where humans are replaced with robots. The name of each bar in the crawl foreshadows the events that will occur there. At the Two-Headed Dog, for example, the crew fights twin robots. They come across sirens at the Mermaid. They finish at the World’s End where the world literally comes to an end.

“I Am Legend” (2007)

“I Am Legend” is part action flick, part psychological thriller, and part tragic drama. Will Smith stars as the apparent last man on earth, a survivor of a viral apocalypse. Humans not killed are turned into vampire and zombie-like creatures that haunt the night and the shadows. Smith’s Robert Neville survives with help from his German Shepherd and by following strict rules. At one point in the film, while rummaging through a store, Neville stands next to a newspaper headline: “Infected Dogs Can Come Out at Dusk.” Had he paid more attention, he may have avoided an attack by a pack of infected dogs. His own companion, Sam, saves Neville’s life but gets infected herself.

“Hereditary” (2018)

Ari Aster’s “Hereditary” is a horror flick filled to the brim with shocking twists. Toni Collette stars as Annie, an artist who joins a bereavement group to mourn her mother, and then later her daughter. She befriends Joan, another supposed mourner. In truth, Joan is part of a cult trying to lure in Annie and her family. The paranormal road begins when Joan persuades Annie to join her in a seance meant to reach Joan’s dead grandson. She uses her grandson’s old chalkboard as a medium to connect with him. However, sharp-eyed audience members will notice that, in the scene before the séance, Joan has a brand new chalkboard in her car. It’s a subtle hint that the séance is a ruse and a scam.

“The Shining” (1980)

Stanley Kubrick was a master of visual language, and he used it to great effect in “The Shining.” The film is a masterpiece, and Kubrick uses very tiny details to foreshadow deaths later in the movie. Early on, while wandering in the Overlook hotel, Jack Torrance comes upon his son’s tricycle and teddy bear lying on the floor. The bear is laid out in the same spot where Jack kills later. Likewise, at the beginning of the movie, Jack is in an interview for the job of caretaker at the Overlook. He’s wearing a green, textured tie that closely resembles the hedge maze where he later freezes to death.

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (2009)

Fans of the “Harry Potter” series will remember book and film number six, “The Half-Blood Prince.” Harry works with Dumbledore, plumbing the depths of collected memories to gain intel on Voldemort. Harry learns a great deal about his nemesis. During the first of these flashback memories, Harry witnesses Dumbledore meeting Voldemort for the first time, when he is a young boy named Tom Riddle. Tom is a resident at an orphanage whose darkness puts him at odds with the other orphans. Tom is a collector, who steals items from the other children. Shrewd-eyed viewers will have also noticed a collection of rocks on the windowsill. There are seven of them, reflecting the seven Horcruxes that Harry must destroy.

“Reservoir Dogs” (1992)

Director Quentin Tarantino burst onto the scene in 1992 as Hollywood’s latest “enfant terrible” with his crime caper “Reservoir Dogs.” In the film, a jewelry heist goes awry in part because one of the assembled crew is an undercover cop. Before Tim Roth’s “Mr. Orange” confesses, there are a few subtle visual hints. White, Pink, and Orange arrive at a warehouse after the robbery-gone-wrong. Behind them is a table with pink, white and orange bottles. The orange ones are separate, hinting that one of these men is not like the others. In another scene, Eddie - the man who helped set up the score - talks on the phone about the rat when an orange balloon floats behind his car.

“Back to the Future Part II” (1989) & “Back to the Future Part III” (1990)

Pre-planned sequels present an excellent opportunity to plant seeds in one movie that bloom in the next. That’s exactly what Robert Zemeckis did with “Back to the Future” parts two and three. In the third film, Marty travels back to the old west, and gets tangled up with Biff’s ancestor. Going by “Clint Eastwood,” Marty is roped into a gun duel to save Doc’s life. Unfortunately for Buford, Marty is protected by a piece of metal plating under his poncho. Careful viewers will realize that Marty gets the idea in “Back to the Future Part II.” When he confronts Biff in an alternate 1985, his evil step-father is watching “A Fistful of Dollars.” In that film, the real Clint Eastwood pulls off the same trick.

“Psycho” (1960)

Three years before “The Birds,” director Alfred Hitchcock filled his film “Psycho” with bird-related symbolism: Marion’s last name is Crane; Norman’s last name, Bates, is a verb referring to a hawk beating its wings in an attempt to leave the nest. His home is filled with stuffed birds, from songbirds to raptors, dead animals displayed in a facsimile of life. At one point, Norman even claims that his mother is “as harmless as one of those stuffed birds.” This couldn’t be any more true when we learn that Norman had murdered his mother years ago and placed her mummified corpse in her room like one of his avian trophies. In fact, she’s so harmless, she wouldn’t even harm a fly.

“The Godfather” (1972)

The use of foreshadowing in “The Godfather'' has inspired filmmakers for over half a century. The presence of oranges in a scene means that someone is going to die. Vito Corleone is shopping for oranges when he is shot in the street. He’s also eating an orange when he dies in the garden with his grandson. The sequels carry on the tradition, and tributes to the “Godfather” orange can be seen in shows like “Mad Men,” “The Sopranos,” and “The Wire.” Martin Scorsese did something similar in his film “The Departed.” As an homage to the original “Scarface,” there’s an X in the frame near a character who is about to die.