Although the point of every movie scene is to focus on the characters in the foreground, many filmmakers have used the background to either add details that foreshadow a character’s fate, creepy characters that are important to the story, or humorous moments that make the scene even more entertaining. It’s not uncommon for a background character to steal the spotlight in one scene thanks to the actor’s performance, physical appearance, or how they interact with their surroundings and other characters, adding an extra touch to the scene and, in many cases, making it the most memorable part of the movie.
In many other cases, the stuff happening in the background is added for extra laughs and sometimes connects to other parts of the story, while others are just there for more entertainment. Other movies have added stuff to the background of a scene to further add to the unsettling vibe of the movie, as happens in various horror movies. These details can go from creepy characters to ghostly appearances or subtle but disturbing moments of foreshadowing, and most of these are caught during rewatches. Whatever the reason and the purpose of these cool moments in the background of movie scenes, they are proof that the audience should always pay attention to everything.
10 The Drunk Nun In Dogma
The Nun took her new life very seriously.
Kevin Smith’s Dogma follows Loki (Matt Damon) and Bartleby (Ben Affleck), two fallen angels who come up with a plan based on a loophole in Catholic dogma so they can return to Heaven – but if they succeed, they will undo all creation. In one scene, Loki has a conversation with a nun in the airport and convinces her to abandon her faith. Shortly after, as Loki and Bartleby are talking, the nun can be seen in the background, stumbling out of a bar, completely drunk, with a drink in her hand. The nun either decided to live her life to the fullest or she found a way to cope with her new existential crisis.
9 A Sneaky Photo In Avengers: Age of Ultron
Everyone wants a photo with Tony Stark.
In Avengers: Age of Ultron, the rise of the artificial intelligence/defense program Ultron triggers a series of conflicts for the Avengers. Ultron attempts to get the United States nuclear codes, so Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) travels to the NEXUS Internet Hub in Oslo to stop it. As Tony explains what he’s about to do, two young employees seize the moment to take a photo with Stark while his back is turned and he’s busy. Although this doesn’t add to or take from the movie’s story, it’s a fun addition to show how popular Tony Stark was.
8 Hearts & Xs In Scott Pilgrim vs The World
Ramona & Scott’s conversation hints at what comes later.
Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs The World follows Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), a 22-year-old slacker musician who falls in love with the mysterious Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) – however, to be with her, Scott has to fight and defeat Ramona’s seven evil exes. Ramona explains all this to Scott on the bus and the bokeh behind her takes the shape of small, colorful Xs, symbolizing the evil exes. However, when Scott asks if all this means they are now dating and Ramona confirms it, the bokeh takes the form of hearts, marking the beginning of Scott and Ramona’s relationship.
7 The Roadside Interrogation In Men In Black
Agent K didn’t care that Agent J was struggling.
Men In Black follows Kevin Brown a.k.a. Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) and James Darrell Edwards III a.k.a. Agent J (Will Smith) as they investigate a series of criminal incidents linked to extraterrestrial lifeforms secretly living on Earth. In one scene, Agent K is interrogating an alien on the highway while Agent J attends to the alien’s wife, who is about to give birth in the back of the car. As Agent K talks to the alien, in the background, the wife gives birth to a tentacled monster alien that grabs Agent J, shaking him up and down. It’s not just Agent J’s struggle and terror as he doesn’t know what to do, but also Agent K not really caring about what’s going on with his partner that makes this scene so funny.
6 Annie Crawling On The Ceiling In Hereditary
Peter wasn’t alone.
Ari Aster’s Hereditary tells the story of the Graham family, who are tormented by a demonic entity after the death of Annie’s (Toni Colette) mother and her daughter, Charlie (Milly Shapiro). It all gets more chaotic and disturbing in the third act, especially after Annie becomes possessed after burning the sketchbook that makes her husband, Steve (Gabriel Byrne), burst into flames. Their son, Peter (Alex Wolff), wakes up after dark and the camera cuts to a long shot of his bedroom, revealing a possessed Annie in the corner of the ceiling, staring at her son, and later crawling out of the room behind Peter. Minutes later, it’s revealed that it’s not just Annie lurking in the shadows, but also the members of the coven her mother was the leader of.
5 The Satellite Crash In Cloverfield
Cloverfield subtly showed how everything started.
Matt Reeves’ Cloverfield follows six New York City residents as they try to find a safe place after a massive monster attacks the city. Unfortunately, all of them have a tragic ending, but Cloverfield ends with footage of Rob (Michael Stahl-David) and Beth’s (Odette Yustman) trip to Coney Island a month before the attack. When the camera pans to the ocean, in the far distance, an object falls from the sky and into the ocean.
This object was initially said to be the ChimpanzIII satellite, which was included as a nod to those who followed Cloverfield’s viral marketing campaign, but Reeves later said it was the meteor carrying the monster, meaning that Rob and Beth accidentally filmed the beginning of their end.
4 The Whiteboard Descriptions In Hot Fuzz
Tony Fisher was everything the whiteboard said.
Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz follows high-achieving police officer Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) who is reassigned to a small rural town where he’s teamed up with Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), an immature police officer who loves buddy cop films. Nicholas and the audience are later introduced to the rest of the team, among them Sergeant Tony Fisher (Kevin Eldon), who is sitting in front of a whiteboard with a concept map of “what makes a bad policeman”, with unflattering words around it such as “indecisive”, “rude”, and “disloyal”. When the camera focuses on Tony, all those words point at him, and as Hot Fuzz progresses, all those descriptions turn out to fit Tony quite well.
3 Felix’s Doppelgänger In Saltburn
The breakfast scene foreshadowed Felix’s fate.
Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn follows Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) a scholarship student at the University of Oxford who befriends wealthy student Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), who invites him to spend the summer at his family’s estate. Once there, Oliver sets his plans into motion, and the first one to fall is Felix, whose fate was hinted at earlier.
During the first breakfast at Saltburn, Venetia (Alison Oliver) tells the story of how Percy Shelley’s housekeeper saw the writer’s doppelgänger at his home shortly before he died, far away from his home. While she’s telling this, Felix’s doppelgänger walks past the window behind her, while the real Felix is sitting next to her, hinting at his death days later.
2 The Count’s Shadow In Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Dracula’s shadow came to life.
Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula brought the famous Count to life, and there’s one scene that added to how terrifying he could be. When Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) arrives at Count Dracula’s (Gary Oldman) castle and is being shown around by the Count, Dracula’s shadow isn’t synchronized with him, and it reveals the vampire’s real intentions by approaching Jonathan while Dracula keeps being a good host. The fact that Dracula’s shadow could act independently made the famous vampire even more terrifying, unsettling, and unpredictable.
1 The Librarian In It
It was literally everywhere.
Andy Muschietti’s adaptation of Stephen King’s It changed the setting from the 1950s to 1989, and also changed the way some of the Losers first encountered the title evil shapeshifting entity. One of the most disturbing first encounters was Ben’s (Jeremy Ray Taylor), who was at the library reading about Derry’s past when he started noticing some strange things around him, such as the presence of a red balloon. However, before he fully encounters the creature, the elder librarian who was, at first, very nice to Ben, is seen in the background turning towards him and staring at him, with an unsettling evil grin.
