Some movies use this technique right at the beginning of movies. It’s almost like the first scene of the movies reveals the ending, but we never noticed it. So, for those of you who missed these little hidden treats, we have a list of 15 instances of foreshadowing: 

1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

This is the story of a banker, Andy Dufresne, wrongly convicted to life imprisonment for murder.

The Clue: Prison-mate Red shoots down Andy’s hopes to escape by saying, “I don’t think you should be doing this to yourself, Andy. It’s just shitty pipe dreams. I mean, Mexico is way the hell down there, and you’re in here.”

The Result: A shitty pipe is exactly how Andy manages to crawl out of prison. Managing to dig a hole from his cell into the septic refuse pipe that he eventually has to crawl through to make it to fresh waters on the outside.

2. Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Reservoir Dogs revolves around a heist for which a group of unfamiliar criminals are banded together to pull it off.

The Clue: There are several instances in the movie which continually draw out Mr Orange as separate from the pack. For example, in the scene when Mr Pink and Mr White are trying to figure out who the rat is, there are a set of bottles with white and pink coloured fluid set together, with a group of bottles with an orange coloured liquid set apart. 

The Result: This seemingly simple placement foreshadows Mr Orange being the undercover cop right in the beginning of the movie. Along with the fact that he also rats on Mr Pink in the opening restaurant scene, when Joe asks which one of them didn’t throw a tip in. 

3. Fight Club (1999)

Fight Club is the story of a troubled office worker who finds an outlet for his frustration when he makes a new friend.

The Clue: Apart from the the fact that Tyler Durden is littered in single frame shots across the movie, there are other instances that point out oddly towards the character. There are a series of breadcrumbs spread across the movie, like the fact that Tyler calls the ‘narrator’ on a payphone that does not accept incoming calls.

The Result: Tyler Durden is actually a figment of the narrator’s imagination and points to a split in the characters personality.

4. The Dark Knight (2008)

The second instalment to Christopher Nolan’s Batman franchise saw Heath Ledger portraying the memorable performance as Joker.

The Clue: Harvey Dent, in a conversation with Bruce Wayne, says, “You either die a hero. Or, you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

The Result: This is pretty much the unfolding of both, Dent and Batman’s fate, as one ends up surviving his death only to suffer the great loss of his fiancée which outrages him toward evil. While Batman has to take up the mantle as the universally despised man, framed with Dent’s murder.

5. Skyfall (2012)

The recent James Bond movie Skyfall foreshadowed the death of one of the primary characters in the opening credits of the movie.

The Clue: During the opening credits of the movie, the visuals are dark and pan across a desolate piece of land to a point where M’s (Judi Dench) credits seem superimposed on top of a gravestone.

The Result: Well, if you don’t want this spoiler, leave. Because this is a big one. M dies.

6. Total Recall (1990)

Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as Douglas Quaid, the movie shows the protagonist wishing to leave behind his routine life for a simulated dream which is much more exciting.

The Clue: One of the company workers at Rekall makes an off handed remark when he notices part of Quaid’s dream saying, “Blue sky on Mars, never seen that one before.”

The Result: The seemingly innocuous comment is foreshadowing of the movie’s climax when Quaid terraforms Mars into a habitable planet with blue skies, intending that the climax is still actually a dream.

7. The Usual Suspects (1995)

Bryan Singer’s crime thriller featured one of the most mind blowing plot twists in cinematic history and is what had audiences raving about this movie.

The Clue: The very name of the criminal mastermind, Keyser Soze, was the biggest giveaway of the movie. Soze in Turkish meaning, “talks too much” or “verbal.”

The Result: As the name would suggest, the quiet protagonist, Verbal, who had been narrating the story was in fact the criminal mastermind the movie is fixated with.

8. The Shining (1980)

Considered one of Stanley Kubrick’s best works, the film adaptation of the Stephen King novel is a carnival of hidden treats for every viewer. This is but one of the many subliminal messages throughout the movie.

The Clue: One of the movie’s characters has his death foreshadowed quite early in the movie, when you notice a black teddy bear wearing a red jumper lying on the floor in one of the earlier scenes shown in the image below.

The Result: Dick Halloran, the friendly African-American caretaker of the hotel is later murdered in the same spot. The black teddy bear symbolizing him, and its red jumper symbolizing blood. Kubrick, I say!

9. Psycho (1960)

One of the most famous works of horror out of the Alfred Hitchcock front, Psycho paved the way for the horror genre over five decades ago.

The Clue: Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) mentions to Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) in a dinner conversation that his mother is “as harmless as one of those stuffed birds,” suggestive of taxidermy-preserved animals in the parlour.

The Result: She almost literally is exactly like those stuffed animals, considering Bates’s psychopathic fascination with his mother that has pushed him into preserving her rotting dead body.

10. The Sixth Sense (1999)

One of the greatest plot twists in cinematic history, Manoj Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense is the story of a young boy who can “see dead people.” 

The Clue: Throughout the movie, it rarely strikes the viewer as much as it should: the fact that Dr Crowe (Bruce Willis) has any interaction with other human beings apart from Cole. And is mostly ignored in other conversations.

The Result: You know this one. It’s because he is actually a ghost, and these subtle hints of awkward interactions that he has (or doesn’t have) with people is because he doesn’t really exist. Something that makes much more sense once you sit down for a second viewing. 

11. Jurassic Park (1993)

Meant to be a park of genetically engineered dinosaurs (all female) for observation, all hell breaks when the dinosaurs evolve to be able to reproduce.

The Clue: In a short take, while sitting in the helicopter Alan Grant (Sam Neill) has to deal with a faulty seat belt, which has both ends of the same kind (female buckles). So, he ends up having to tie the belt around his waist to work around it.

The Result: The dinosaurs in the movie were created all female to keep them from reproducing, which because of a certain genetic mutation, some of them turn into males and mate. Much like the two ‘female ends’ of the seat belt being tied together.

12. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)

The comedy ventures of an animal loving detective, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is one of Jim Carrey’s most famous movies, where Ventura is on a case looking for a kidnapped dolphin.

The Clue: In one of the interactions between Ventura and Lt Einhorn, shown in the image below, you might notice a very conspicuous placement of a banana between two apples. Suggestive of a penis maybe?

The Result: Surely enough, by the end of the movie you realise that Lt Einhorn is in fact – wait for it – a man. With a penis. Brilliant.

13. Shaun Of The Dead (2004)

A dry comedy movie based on a zombie apocalypse, Shaun Of The Dead is a zombie invasion movie where a band of friends have to survive the apocalypse.

The Clue: In a conversation between the two in the beginning, Ed (Nick Frost) tells Shaun (Simon Pegg) when he seems depressed, as a pick me up, “A bloody Mary first thing, a bite at the King’s Head, couple at The Little Princess, stagger back here and bang… back at the bar for shots.”

The Result: And, that is exactly how they deal with the zombie raid. Their first zombie kill was a lady named Mary, before they move on to save Shaun’s step-father who a zombie bites in the head, followed by the meeting with the couple that join the band, after which Shaun gets back together with his ex-girlfriend (the little princess), all to end with the whole group heading back to the bar for the final stand or “shots.”

14. The Avengers (2012)

The popular superhero movie from the Marvel franchise, The Avengers had all of the popular heroes band together to save earth.

The Clue: The movie features a comic scene where in Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) points out that one of the engineers on board the ship was playing the video game Galaga. 

The Result: Most people would never pay much attention, but Galaga is basically a game where you defend Earth from a shower of alien ships that barge in from above. Much like the final fight that the Avengers put up against a ‘shower’ of aliens raining down from the sky.

15. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Another one of cinema’s great plot twists comes from the Star Wars series; every geek’s Holy Bible.

The Clue: In a sequence where Luke Skywalker is being trained by Yoda to become a Jedi, he duels with a vision of Darth Vader in the Dark Side Cave. The fight ends with Luke the victor, only to realise that it is his face under the helmet.

The Result: One of the biggest twists in recent history, when Luke eventually finds out about Vader’s connection with him: that Darth Vader is actually Luke Skywalker’s father. 

It all makes perfect sense now.

Masthead Source: collider.com