When watching your favorite movies , finding small details that are clever nods to other films or to the characters is always exciting.
Movie creators often love to slip things in the background for devoted fans to discover, and even if you’ve seen the film over and over you might miss them.
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Here are 10+ little details fans definitely missed in these famous movies.
This *Mean Girls* reference to the wild nature of high school.
At one point in Mean Girls , the character of Cady Heron mentions that high school is just like the African Savannah with the animals all attacking each other.
Then, in the assembly scene, you can see that the school’s mascot is the lions and there’s even a saying painted on the wall that says “Lion Country.”
The name of this character from *Knives Out.*
Knives Out was a clever, fun, and intense mystery with many comedic elements that fans loved.
However, there are also many nods to other mystery and adventure films and books! This included the fact that Harlan Thrombey appears to be named after an adventure book called Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey?
A t-shirt in the background of *Jurassic World.*
Fans were excited to get even more dinosaurs when the franchised returned, and there are actually many Easter eggs to the previous films if you watch closely.
One of these scenes is when, during a close-up on the character of Gray, there is a t-shirt in the background with a cartoon T-Rex next to the words “I’m back.”
A hilarious callback in the *Fight Club* credits.
In a scene from Fight Club when the narrator loses to his opponent, the opponent asks if they should fight again next week. The narrator replies, “how about next month?”
Then in the credits , the actor playing the opponent, Robby Robinson, is listed as “Next Month’s Opponent.”
*Moana* references a special magic carpet.
Even big fans might have missed this connection.
When Moana is singing while walking around the island, some of the inhabitants lay down a carpet in the background.
This carpet has the same pattern as the flying carpet from Aladdin ! Just the colors are different.
This nod to a CharlIe Chaplin film in *The Joker.*
In the movie, there is a poster and a short clip of the Chaplin film, Modern Times.
Reddit user joshpetersen39 pointed out that the two stories are similar, saying, “This film shares a similar theme to Joker where Chaplin’s iconic Little Tramp character struggles to survive in the modern, industrialized world much like Arthur.”
Baymax makes a background appearance in *Frozen 2.*
Pixar and Disney often like to include background objects that show characters from their other films.
In the opening scene of Frozen 2 , Anna and Elsa are playing and Elsa makes small snowman figures of various animals. If you look closely, you can see one of the things she creates is Baymax from Big Hero Six.
A background elf in *The Santa Clause.*
In the 1994 Christmas film , there is a scene where Charlie is in school and sitting at his desk.
Behind him, you can see an elf. While the boy appears to just be one of Charlie’s classmates, he has pointed ears. It’s proof that the elves were keeping tabs on the family throughout the year.
Bruce Banner is pictured in Peter Parker’s classroom.
In the 2017 Spider-Man film, there’s a scene that shows Peter Parker in his physics classroom.
This classroom has a wall of portraits of famous scientists. One of the pictures is of Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk, who is played by Mark Ruffalo.
Oranges are a bad omen in *The Godfather.*
Many fans have pointed out that oranges are a symbol that death is coming from this classic film.
In many scenes of the movie, before someone dies, you’ll see oranges somewhere in the shot. They are definitely not a good omen.
The canyons in the background of *Cars.*
Pixar is known for including many Easter eggs that connect their movies together in subtle but clever ways. Fans love to find these connections.
One that many might have missed is that the canyons in Cars are often in the shape of retro cars.
*Zootopia* has a nod to a Keanu Reeves photograph.
One of the scenes from the film shows a map with photos on it, and one of these is a picture of a sad wolf eating a sandwich on a park bench.
This picture looks to be a parody of a photograph of Keanu Reeves who was captured by paparazzi eating a sandwich while sitting at the park.
This mistake from *The Gladiator.*
While often filmmakers include deliberate things in the background of clever moments for fans to find, sometimes they make mistakes during production.
One of these is from a scene in The Gladiator where a man on the set wearing jeans ends up in the shot and tries to get out of it as quickly as possible.
The Mad Hatter gets upset for a very good reason.
In the 2010 film Alice in Wonderland , the Mad Hatter, played by Johnny Depp, gets mad because hatmakers would work with mercury.
This is understandable anger because as Reddit user Christiannadile says, “This metal can kill neurons giving you a chronic intoxication, which manifests with behavioral alterations, tremor and erethism. It can also make your healthy teeth fall out and vomit.”
This detail was a nod to the creator of *Ultron* from Marvel comics.
In Avengers: Age of Ultron , there is a scene where Captain America is in a dream induced by Scarlet Witch messing with his mind.
There is a band playing in the background and the drums show they are named The Roy Thomas Players. This made-up band is a nod to Roy Thomas who originally created Vision and Ultron.
There’s a callback to *Jaws* in *Deep Blue Sea*.
In Jaws there’s a scene where Hooper and Chief Brody are dissecting a tiger shark. One of the items they pull from its belly is a Louisiana license plate; number 007981.
Near the beginning of Deep Blue Sea , shark wrangler Carter Blake retrieves the identical plate from the same type of shark.
Will Smith walks past the real Chris Gardner at the end of *The Pursuit Of Happyness*.
Most people are well aware that The Pursuit of Happyness is a biopic about the life of Chris Gardner .
Chris makes a cameo in the final moments of the film, walking right past Will and Jaden Smith.
There’s clearly a camera reflecting in the doorknob in *The Matrix*.
I’m not sure what’s funnier about this: that it’s so obvious to spot or the fact that the camera appears to be wearing a leather jacket.
Did they think we wouldn’t notice?
Carl from *Up* is a total square.
Everything that Carl owns is rigid and square-shaped. Conversely, Ellie is much more versatile and easy-going, so all of her belongings are rounded.
You can even see it reflected in the style of glasses they wear.
There was no CGI used for this one memorable scene from *Spider-Man*.
Do you remember when Mary-Jane slips and falls in the cafeteria? At the last minute, she’s saved by Peter Parker who also manages to catch every item of her falling lunch.
Tobey did that himself, and it only took 156 tries.
*The Incredibles* make a cameo appearance in *CoCo*.
Pay attention during the scene where Miguel enters the world of the dead and you’ll be able to spot The Incredibles .
They’re even depicted as skeletons, which makes it an even more enjoyable Easter egg.
Viggo Mortensen’s red shirt is a throwback to one of his most famous roles.
Viggo’s breakout role was playing Frank Roberts in The Indian Runner , a crime drama written and directed by fellow actor Sean Penn.
The red shirt he wears in Captain Fantastic is the exact same one Frank used to wear.
All the shelves are empty in *The Quiet Place*, except for one thing.
OK I get it, potato chips are too loud and the sound attracts the monsters, hence no one bothers removing them.
But what happens when somebody burps or farts? Answer me that.
Dwayne Johnson is actually signing his name in *Rampage*.
Not his character name, Davis, I’m talking about his real name — The Rock! That’s the ASL sign for “Rock” that Dwayne is doing in the image above.
I wonder what the sign for “jabroni” would be?
The pen is blue in *Liar Liar*.
After attempting to write the word red, Fletcher Reid ends up with “blue” all over his face. Look closely and you’ll see that B.B. King is written along his jawline.
B.B. King is widely considered to be the king of the Blues.
There’s a reason why Black Panther’s claws were able to damage Captain America’s shield in *Captain America: Civil War*.
Captain America’s shield is made from Vibranium, the most powerful substance in the MCU (actually it’s Adamantium , but we don’t have time to get into that right now).
Vibranium comes from Wakanda, the homeland of T’Chala aka The Black Panther. His claws are made from a Vibranium alloy.
Tyler Durden’s address is a clue to the film’s twist ending.
A paper street is a term used in city planning . Basically, it’s a street that appears on a map but one which hasn’t been built yet.
Meaning that it doesn’t actually exist, just like Tyler.
There’s a Binford Tools box on top of Woody in *Toy Story*.
Before signing on to play Buzz Lightyear, Tim Allen was primarily known for his work on Home Improvement .
Binford was the name of the fictional tool company that his character, Tim Taylor, worked for.
Paul Rudd is wearing a t-shirt with a picture of himself in *The 40-Year-old Virgin*.
You might not recognize him at first, especially with the big thick beard. But David is most definitely wearing a picture of Paul (himself).
I wonder if this was planned or if Paul just did it to see if anyone would notice?
Morgan Freeman’s nametag in *Evan Almighty* is a clever play on words.
If you look at the nametag, you’ll see that Morgan’s (God’s) nametag reads “Al Mighty.”
This is a clever play on Almighty, a popular slang term ascribed to God.
