50 Times Movies Slipped In Easter Eggs And Hidden Details

I love watching films, but I have to admit that my memory is not the greatest. To catch these tiny details, I would probably have to view these films several times and have some caffeine by my side so I can pay close attention. But it is amazing that directors and designers put so much thought and effort into even background images, costumes and sets, so I am glad someone is capable of sleuthing out these details. Their genius creative decisions should not go unrecognized!

There are clearly many people interested in these fun facts about movies as well. The Film Easter Eggs & Details Twitter account was started in November of 2017, and it already has over 375k followers. The page, which credits the Movie Details subreddit for all of their ideas, shares details about Oscar winning films like Interstellar and even less critically acclaimed movies like The Bee Movie. Pretentious film snobs might ignore movies that have a primarily young audience, but every director and designer pours their heart and soul into their work. Why shouldn’t they be recognized for their cheeky little details in a children’s film?  

We all know what Easter eggs are in reference to the colorful ones we hide in our gardens in the spring time for excited children to search for, but the way that the term found a place in the film industry is an interesting story. David Crow explains the origins of the phrase in a piece he wrote for Den of Geek, where he first notes that the term came from video game history. In 1980, Steve Wright, the director of software development for the Atari Consumer Division, coined the term in reference to hidden details that were included in the game Adventure.

Adventure was an Atari 2600 game released in 1980 that allowed players to become fantasy heroes who wandered through a world of dungeons and dragons to save a magical chalice and return it to the Golden Castle. Hidden within one of the game’s caverns, however, is the first documented Easter egg. On a wall that players do not necessarily need to pass by to complete the game’s objective reads “Created by Warren Robinett”, a credit to the game’s programmer. Thus the term Easter egg was created, as finding this little credit was to gamers what finding a literal Easter egg during a scavenger hunt is to children.   

This event was not quite mainstream knowledge until the release of Ernest Cline’s 2011 novel Ready Player One. It is only briefly mentioned in the book, but the novel popularized the term among gamers as the story revolves around hunting for an “all-powerful egg”. Today, the term is used in films, TV shows, and even popular albums. Taylor Swift, in particular, is famous for utilizing Easter eggs on social media posts, in music videos and in song lyrics to tease what is coming next or confirm fan suspicions about rumors.

When it comes to why directors and designers include sneaky Easter eggs in their projects, it can be for a number of reasons. First of all, it can just be fun for them to make nods to previous projects or their own favorite directors. For example, in Captain America: Winter Soldier, Colonel Nick Fury’s tombstone reads “The path of the righteous man…” This is a reference to another character Samuel L. Jackson played in Quentin Tarantino’s cult classic Pulp Fiction. Jackson’s character in that film, hitman Jules Winnfield, would repeat a monologue beginning with the same phrase before killing characters.