Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder You Know That Show... Trope Launch Pad Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy
Go Ad-Free
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Shout Out / Live-Action Films
aka: Films

Go To

This page lists Shout-Out seen in Films. Any movie beginning with "A..." or "The..." has been placed under the letter of the next word in the title. Any sequels are under the title of the original.

Films with their own subpages:

Other Films:

    open/close all folders 

    # 
  • Arnold Schwarzenegger's The 6th Day has a probable shoutout to Replicant (as well as referencing Freud): The holo-psychiatrist's first sanity-test question in the event that a person thinks they've been cloned is the first question in the Replicant test, but with two turtles.

    A 

    B 
  • Bad Apples:
  • Batman (1989):
    • Those Little Shop of Horrors dentist tools sure get around a lot, since last appearing in Dead Ringers.
    • The Corto Maltese War, mentioned here as being Vicki's last big photography project, is the name of the conflict Superman puts an end to in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns (which was, in turn, a shout out to the Corto Maltese comic book).
    • The Joker's "I'm Melting!" from The Wizard of Oz after Vicki Vale throws water on him.
    • In addition to the general architecture of Gotham, the Climbing Climax bears a striking resemblance to the cathedral fight in Metropolis.
    • The Climbing Climax with the shots of the stairwell looking downward as well as elements of first scene strongly resemble Vertigo.
    • The cartoon of the Joker's face on his helicopters looks like the classic comic book Joker.
  • Batman Forever:
    • To the 1960s TV series in the scene when Batman and Robin first land on Two-Face's and the Riddler's base.
    • "That circus must be halfway to Metropolis by now."
  • Batman Returns:
    • Walken's character was named after Max Schreck, who portrayed Count Orlok in the silent film Nosferatu.
    • The masked ball at Shreck's department store features a replica of the "Red Death" costume from The Phantom of the Opera (1925).
    • The Penguin's appearance has clearly been influenced by Dr. Caligari.
    • The Penguin's "Batarang-ploy" is referenced in the video game Batman: Vengeance—Harley Quinn hurls a Batarang at Commissioner Gordon, and Batman is immediately suspected of throwing it.
    • To kick off his plans in the third act, the Penguin inverts the famous quote from David Lynch's The Elephant Man.
  • Batman & Robin:
    • In one scene, you can see gang members who wear the same outfits as the main characters from A Clockwork Orange.
    • A more subtle (if that's the word) Kubrick homage in the same scene has a gang dressed in foppish attire. One of them has an eye patch and powdered wig like the Chevalier in Barry Lyndon.
    • The scene of Ivy debuting at the charity ball, first by hiding among the performers in an ape costume and slowly taking it off seemed to have been a homage to Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus where she performs a musical number entitled "Hot Voodoo", which starts off with her in an ape costume.
    • Alfred channels Max Headroom when addressing Barbara in the Batcave.
  • Batman: The Movie
    • After the United Underworld kidnap the United World Security Council and escape to their submarine, Robin says that they'll escape via Short Island Sound (AKA Long Island Sound).
    • After the British United World delegate has been mixed with the Soviet, he uses his shoe to pound angrily on the desk during his rant—as Nikita Khruschev had notoriously done at the UN.
    • The Penguin's muttered line while piloting the submarine: "Run silent, run deep", a reference to the famous WWII submarine film Run Silent, Run Deep.
  • Tracy's mechanical body in Blood Machines gives her a startling resemblance to The Machine Man from Metropolis.
  • The Dark Knight Trilogy:
  • Batman Begins:
  • The Dark Knight:
    • "Will the real Batman please stand up?"
    • Possibly also a reference to that musical they never made.
    • William Fichtner as the banker with the shotgun in the opening heist was an intentional Casting Gag by Nolan, who built the sequence as an homage to Heat.
    • The Joker's goons don clown masks during the opening scene as a reference to Stanley Kubrick's heist film The Killing. Joker's mask is also the same as the one the character uses in The Joker's Wild, his very first appearance in the 60's series. It and the other somber clown masks, all worn by the Joker's thugs with otherwise normal street clothes, invoke the image his henchman from the Animated Series episode The Last Laugh.
    • The Shawshank Redemption: The detonator found on the prisoners' ship is concealed in a box resembling a book.
    • Naturally, since Nolan is a card-carrying Bond fan, the blade at the tip of the Joker's shoe is From Russia with Love. The film also makes use of an Action Prologue, just like the Bond films.
    • Kind of a weird one, but the Bat-Cycle emerges from the Batmobile.... "Batmobile lost a wheel". And then after that, "Joker got away."
    • The Joker's clown mask in the bank robbery at the start of the film is very similar to the clown mask worn by Cesar Romero in the Joker's first appearance◊.
  • The Dark Knight Rises:
    • Gordon reads the ending of A Tale of Two Cities. Bane's Gotham Revolution mirrors that of the French Revolution as depicted in the novel. Bane's second-in-command is John Barsad, and there is a Corrupt Corporate Executive named Phillip Stryver, both named after characters from that book.
    • Also, Wayne Enterprises's people hide in Tellson's Bank, according to the script.
    • Bane knitting in the courtroom is probably a nod to Madame Defarge and the "knitting ladies", and "The fire rises", which he says to the henchman on the plane that he orders to stay behind and die, is the name of a chapter in it as well.
    • The speculations by the maids about Bruce Wayne's mental health at the start of the film call to mind Howard Hughes, especially the bit where Daggett comments how he must be growing out his fingernails and peeing in mason jars in the isolation of his private wing.
    • Bruce discovering Miranda/Talia's betrayal at the moment she stabs him is a couple thousand years old.
    • While in his reclusive period, Bruce becomes a socially conscious billionaire with a Van Dyke goatee who takes up archery!
    • Nolan's use of the Pittsburgh Steelers to guest-star as the Gotham Rogues, besides the practical fact that they were filming in Pittsburgh, is also a tribute to their Batman fandom. During the 1966 season, when the Adam West series was airing, the Steelers wore uniforms inspired by Batman.
    • Three trucks are driven around by Bane's soldiers. One truck contains the nuclear device and two of the trucks are decoys. This is much like The Italian Job (2003), where the antagonist hires three armored cars to fool the main characters, with two of the armored cars being empty decoys and one carrying all of the gold loot (in that case, though, they were able to isolate the real truck from the decoys by using computer hacking to determine which one was weighed down).
    • Catching a plane by lowering men on ropes to attach a cable to its tail is taken straight from the opening of the Bond movie Licence to Kill.
  • In Beautiful Creatures, the cinema marquee that's always spelled wrong at one point says "Interception".
  • A subtle but enormous example – Peter Sellers was a huge fan of Laurel and Hardy, and the voice he used for Chance the gardener in Being There is an Americanized version of Stan Laurel's; Laurel's work partially informed Sellers's physical approach to the role as well, since it was exactly what the character required (the other part? A gardener who worked for Sellers in The '50s).
  • Bicentennial Man:
    • Home Alone is referenced (one of Chris Columbus's previous films) when Miss says that Kate McCalister's family has an NDR114 in their household.
    • When Andrew first repairs the record player, the disk he puts in plays "Mesicku na nebi hlubokóm" from Antonín Dvořák's opera Rusalka. The opera is concerned with the fairy-tale story of a water nymph who wants to become mortal for love.
    • The car that Ma'am drives in this film is the same car used in Demolition Man.
    • Galatea, the Fembot, is named after a story in Classical Mythology; Pygmalion was a sculptor who carved Galatea from stone and fell in love with her. Aphrodite brought the statue to life so that they could be together.
    • Galatea plays Aretha Franklin's "Respect" while walking home from the market. She plays "Since You've Been Gone", another Franklin song, while Andrew is talking to Rupert.
    • While Andrew and Rupert are designing their prosthetics, Galatea is singing "If I Only Had a Heart", from The Wizard of Oz (where a tin man wants a heart).
    • Andrew has misheard Swan Lake as Swine Lake.
  • At one point in Big Eyes, Walter speaks to a socialite named Mrs. Teasdale.
  • Bird Box: Charlie tries to talk to Malorie about his novel. He mentions that in his version of The End there are no kids with crossbows trying to kill each other, nor are they running around some giant maze to survive.
  • Black Sheep (2007), whose special effects are courtesy of WETA, whose leader is named Grant Major: Grant: "This is mine, all mine! I mean, ours!"
    • Some of the footage of maddened sheep herds charging over hilltops on the horizon look suspiciously similar to The Lord of the Rings scenes of the Riders of Rohan, which is probably because they used the same computer programme while creating it.
    • In addition, the name of the Animal Wrongs Group in the film is a very similar sounding WEKA.
  • Blade Runner
    • The replicants are created by the Tyrell Corporation. This is a reference to the Tyrell Institute, which created the android robot Mr. R.I.N.G. in the Kolchak: The Night Stalker episode "Mr. R.I.N.G.".
  • The Blind Side was released in theaters on the same week as New Moon, the sequel to Twilight. Collins is watching Twilight on television when Leigh Anne brings Michael to the Tuohy's home for the first time.
  • Jean-Claude Van Damme's debut vehicle Bloodsport featured Bolo Yeung as the villain, and (almost?) all of Bolo's dialogue is borrowed from Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon (which Bolo was also in, although, hilariously, his only dialogue in that was to shout 'dah!' whenever anyone mentioned him...)
  • The Bloody Man:
  • When Carrie Fisher's character shoots off a bazooka in The Blues Brothers, the sound effect is (essentially) the same noise that blaster weapons make in the Star Wars films.
  • There's a scene in The Body (2012) in which Álex ascends a staircase, holding a poisoned glass of wine. This scene is lifted from the notorious scene from Hitchcock's Suspicion, in which Cary Grant ascends a staircase, holding a glass of possibly poisoned milk.
  • Brick has plenty of these, ranging from The Maltese Falcon to Cowboy Bebop.
  • The dwarf in The Bride is named Rinaldo, after the name of blacklisted Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein screenwriter Frederic I. Rinaldo.
  • In The Laurel and Hardy's final film: The Bullfighters, The courtroom scene and the Body Horror ending is based on their 1934 short, Going Bye-Bye. In The Bullfighters, they were turned into skeletons while in Going Bye-Bye. Their legs were broken off and tied to their necks. As Oliver Hardy rants to Stan Laurel "Well, Here's Another Nice Mess You've Gotten Me Into!"
  • In But I'm a Cheerleader two people in an institution for curing the supposedly psychologically ill (in this case, gays) which is doing more harm than good have sex when they weren't supposed to, an uptight woman who runs the place discovers them, and they get in big trouble. Does anyone else think this is a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest shout out?
  • In Bye Bye Monkey, an orphaned baby chimp is found in a life sized King Kong prop.
  • Byzantium: Captain Ruthven's name is obviously a shout-out to Polidori's The Vampyre. And a subversion of Meaningful Name, as he never becomes a vampire.

    C 
  • Cain Hill: When the crew meets Elizabeth, the owner of the Abandoned Hospital, they makes jokes about her answering to such names as Zuul.
  • Cannibal Girls: The name of the town where the story take place, Farnhamville, is believed to be a reference to the Robert A. Heinlein novel Farnham's Freehold, where cannibalism features prominently.
  • Cannonball's showdown is a car chase between the hero in a green Ford Mustang Fastback and the baddie in a black Dodge Charger which crashes and immediately explodes in the end, spiced up with some nice jump scenes. We've seen almost the exact same thing before in Bullitt.
    • Also, the movie shouts out to a couple of elements from real-life Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dashes. Not as many as The Cannonball Run which was made by actual Cannonballers, but still.
  • Casper (1995): The ghostly trio do the "I'm melting!" routine when a kitchen window-shade suddenly flies open, causing the morning sunlight to shine on the ghosts. They dissolve into one ectoplasmic puddle, then disappear through the floor. (Unlike the Wicked Witch of the West, though, the ghostly trio were merely joking with Dr. Harvey and his daughter.) That same scene also contains a shout-out to Apocalypse Now, where the ghostly trio descend into the room vertically, the tops of their heads spinning like helicopter blades while they sing the melody of Ride of the Valkyries. After this, Stretch sniffs the air and exclaims "I love the smell of fleshies in the morning!"
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:
  • Chasing Amy:
    • Alyssa and Banky comparing lovemaking scars is nearly identical to the famous scene from Jaws.
    • Bizarrely enough, doubles with Actor Allusion twice over. The scene where Alyssa's lesbian friends chastise her for "selling out" (her lesbianism by hooking up with Holden) mirrors a scene in Go Fish. The scene here features Guinevere Turner, who shares a name with Adams' character in Mallrats. Turner also wrote and appeared in Go Fish (although not in the scene in question). Kevin Smith says he got the idea from the film.
  • One of the sequels to Child's Play, Bride of Chucky.
    • When Chucky and Tiffany attack Officer Warren (played by John Ritter) with the nail trap, Chucky takes a look at Warren's face, now covered by nails, and states "Why does that look so familiar?" making a reference to the infamous monster Pinhead from the Hellraiser films.
    • When one of the protagonists ask how the dolls got to being dolls, Chucky responds with "If this were a movie, it would take 3 to 4 sequels to do the whole thing justice." and thus parodying the entire Child's Play series.
    • At the end of the film when Chucky is trapped and killed in his own grave, the way he dies is similar to how he was killed at the end of the first Child's Play film.
    • The police lock-up at the beginning of Bride has Shout Outs to Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Myers.
  • A montage of the protagonist's developmental years plays in the Thai film Chocolate (also called Fury), during which she is shown watching Ong-bak on the television. The same director/martial arts choreographer pair created both movies. Not 10 minutes later, she's watching Tom-Yum-Goong, a.k.a. The Protector, also made by the same director and choreographer.
  • Cinderella (2015):
    • There are a couple of these to the Beauty and the Beast fairytale. Firstly the Fairy Godmother doesn't appear until Cinderella has helped her, via Secret Test of Character. Secondly when Cinderella's father goes away on business, the two stepdaughters ask for superficial gifts while Ella asks for a plant - as Beauty's sisters ask for gowns and jewels, while Beauty asks for a rose.
    • There are several sequences here that come from scrapped scenes from the Disney animated version. The most notable are the scene with the prince hunting a stag and Cinderella giggling as she overhears her stepfamily talking about the girl at the ball.
    • The king and the duke want Prince Kit to marry Princess Chelina of Zaragoza. In another Cinderella remake called Ever After, the royal family tried to marry off the Prince to a princess from Spain.
    • The residents of the kingdom are very racially and culturally diverse. This could be a meta-level shout out to a Disney ride called It's A Small World.
    • The mice outrunning the pumpkin is, naturally, yet another reference to Raiders of the Lost Ark.
    • The prince's name is Kit, which is a common nickname for Christopher... Rupert Windemere Vladimir Carl Alexander Francois Reginald Lancelot Herman Gregory James.
    • The Fairy Godmother asking if they have a watermelon is a reference to the 1977 version of Cinderella, where the "Fairy" Godmother makes Cinderella's coach out of a watermelon.
    • The Fairy Godmother's Secret Test of Character for Cinderella also appears in two earlier adaptations of the tale: Rossini's 1817 opera La Cenerentola and Prokofiev's 1945 ballet. Rossini's opera also features the plot points of the king's death, the prince disguised as one of his men, and the prince assuming the throne once he marries.
  • Clawed: The geology professor overseeing the trip into Bear Claw Mountain relays information to his students not to leave food lying around their campsite so they don't attract Yogi and Boo-Boo.
  • Clown Kill
    • When Colin and George notice something amiss on the security camera feeds, Colin asks George if he ever saw Poltergeist, believing they're in a similar situation.
    • When Charlie Boy finds a discarded hammer on the floor, he remarks "Hammer Time".
  • Coming Home In The Dark: When Mandrake asks for the names of Hoaggie's kids, he guesses Thompson and Thomson.
  • Constantine
    • When Angela Dodson wakes up in her apartment, her black cat meows and walks across her bed - a reference to the scene in The Matrix where Neo (also played by Keanu Reeves) sees the black cat meow and walk by twice.
    • After some demons are destroyed, Angela starts coughing due to the smell of sulfur/sulphur. Constantine says "Happens to everyone the first time", a reference to the "Everyone falls the first time" bit in The Matrix.
    • While Balthazar is looking at himself in a mirror, his image starts to distort and bubbles form on the glass just before the mirror explodes. This is a combination of two scenes in The Matrix film series: the one in The Matrix where Neo is looking into a mirror and it distorts, and the one in The Matrix Reloaded where bubbles form on a door just before it explodes.
  • The first scene of Cop Out has Tracey Morgan's character attempting to interrogate a suspect by rattling off a bunch of random movie quotes while his partner watches from the next room. At one point, Morgan shouts "Yipee-ki-yay Motherfucker! and his partner, who is played by Bruce Willis, responds, "I've never even seen that movie."
  • In Cradle of Fear, the unethical doctor who transplants Thomas's leg on to Nick is Dr. H. West.
  • Hunter in Crimson Tide invokes Star Trek to encourage the radio technician to work as fast as possible.
    Hunter: Well I'm Captain Kirk, you're Scotty, I need more power.
  • In Wes Craven's werewolf flick Cursed, the design of the night club owned by the protagonist Ellie's boyfriend is one big shout out to classic horror movies. It is lined from wall to wall with supposed memorabilia from the movie sets, including the silver-tipped cane from the original The Wolf Man (1941).

    D 
  • In Deadpool: No Good Deed, while Deadpool dons his costume in the phone booth, the classic Superman theme plays.
  • In Death Ring, Vachs' Bodyguard Babes are named Bambi and Thumper: after the Bodyguard Babes in Diamonds Are Forever, which was itself a reference to Bambi.
  • In Desert Heat, the bus driver invites Dottie to a showing of Yojimbo, which served as the inspiration for Desert Heat.
  • In Die Hard, in the opening scene where John McClane is looking for his wife in the computerized Company Directory, and later where he looks up Hans calling himself Bill Clay on an employee listing, names on the computer screen and names on the board include names of people who worked on the film.
  • Dog Soldiers has the line "There is no spoon" as a shout out to The Matrix, as well as Private Bruce Campbell, and one of the characters suggesting that they were in the Kobayashi Maru test, among many others. Neil Marshall (the writer/director) likes Shout Outs.
  • Dracula Untold:
    • Vlad takes a page out of Batman's book and summons normal bats into a swarm to use as a weapon.
    • The Reincarnation Romance at the end of the film takes its cue from Bram Stoker's Dracula, as does the idea of giving Dracula elaborate red armor (muscle-patterned with a wolf's helm in the Coppola film, embellishes with a dragon here).
    • Dracula's reactions and testing of his new powers recalls John Carter's first experiences on Mars.
    • Vlad having to give in to his bloodlust to become a full vampire at his wife's request mirrors a similar scene in Hellsing, where Seras Victoria had to do the same at Pip's request.
  • In Dr. Dolittle when the doctor and Lucky the dog are trying to stop a tiger from leaping to his death, they note all of the great tigers. When asked to name one Lucky comes up with Tony the Tiger, while Dolittle points out how Rocky beat up Mr. T after hearing "Eye of the Tiger".
  • In Dreamgirls, Beyoncé Knowles' character Deena is briefly seen dressed like Carmen from the all-black movie version of the opera Carmen Jones. One of Beyoncé's first acting roles was in MTV's Carmen: The Hip-Hopra.
  • In The Duff, the mean girls, Caitlin and Madison, seem to be named after Shelby's two friends from A Cinderella Story.

    E 
  • The Elf: Victoria informs her friend Skye over the phone of her plan to spend Christmas with her fiancee Nick at their house, which is located in an open field. Skye, sensing some serious red flags, asks her if she has ever seen The Amityville Horror.
    • Elves (2017): When the deaths start happening, the group of protagonists decide to meet up to discuss what's happening. One of them compares their situation to Truth or Dare (2018) with snapchat and filters. Another of the group says that that movie is like It Follows.
  • Elysium:
    • The Civil Cooperation Bureau, who provides most of the weaponry in the setting, shares a name with the real-life Civil Cooperation Bureau, which was a government-sponsored hit squad within the South African Defense Force, during The Apartheid Era. Agent Kruger, played by South African actor Sharlto Copley, is a member of the CCB who works as a Sleeper Agent for the Elysium Defense Forces. The members of his team are also white South Africans, very tellingly.
      • Sharlto Copley has mentioned that he and the production team based Kruger's look and accent on a composite of different things. The camo that Kruger wears, as well as Drakey and Crowe is the exact camo worn by the SADF during The Apartheid Era. Kruger's beard and shorts is a reference to the 32 Battalion, which was a special light infantry battalion for the SADF. The accent is particular to the Cape Flats region of South Africa. Judging by Kruger's age, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that He was with the 32 Battalion of the SADF and hails from Cape Flats.
    • To Johnny Mnemonic: Brain up/downloading and a rogue techie named Spider?
    • One of the screens on Kruger's ship shows a computer rendering of the Death Star.
  • Enchanted:
    • The movie is full of them, particularly to Disney classic movies:
      • The book opening sequence is a shoutout to many Disney classics.
      • When Giselle is looking at the fish tank in Robert's office, a song from The Little Mermaid plays in the background. Jodi Benson, who voiced Ariel, plays Robert's secretary.
      • While in the Italian restaurant, "La Bella Notte" from Lady and the Tramp plays; the restaurant itself is called after the song.
      • The scene where Nathaniel helps Edward to take his boots off is an obvious shout-out to Beauty and the Beast. Edward also watches a soap opera staring Paige O'Hara, who voiced Belle, while a mysterious sounding "Beauty and the Beast" motif plays.
      • Giselle wears glass shoes to the ball, and the scene where she takes the bite of the poison apple mimics the one in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
      • Narissa herself is a big shoutout to many Disney villainesses, especially to Maleficent; green electricity-based powers, similar outfits and the fact that she turns into a dragon while bursting in flames.
      • Broadway veteran Harvey Evans, the yellow-jacketed old man from "That's How You Know" previously danced as a chimney sweep in Mary Poppins.
    • There's something eerily King Kong-esque about Narissa's death scene.
    • There is an obvious shout-out to The Sound of Music during the Central Park sequence, and Julie Andrews was the narrator.
    • There was also a reference to Moonstruck.
    • There's a pop-up tracker solely devoted to this on the Blu-Ray disc, of which there are over 100, some of which are so obscure that even most Disney diehards won't catch them without it. According to director Kevin Lima, the actual count is over 1,000.
  • Erin's Guide To Kissing Girls: When Erin and Liz are talking on their walkie-talkies, you can see posters for The Body Snatcher, The Brain Eaters, and King Kong on the wall behind Liz.
  • Event Horizon:
  • In Evil Dead 2, one shot of the basement shows Freddy Krueger's glove hanging on a wall. This is a returned Shout-Out, as a clip from The Evil Dead (1981) was used in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).
    • Yet another exchange of shout-outs links the Elm Street franchise to the Critters films. In Dream Warriors, the patient who gets her face shoved through the TV was watching Critters before she dozed off. Later, one of the alien bounty hunters in Critters 2: The Main Course is narrowly prevented from mimicking a poster of Freddy. This incidentally creates a Recursive Reality situation, where each film franchise exists in the 'Verse of the other, as in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), Raphael exits a theater playing Critters and says "Who come up with this crap?"
  • Ex Machina:
    • Nathan as he asks Caleb "Who You Gonna Call?", and then describes the film Ghostbusters when Caleb doesn't quite get it.
    • Describing his house/research facility, Nathan says that there are so many fiber optic leads that you could "lasso the moon".
    • When Nathan, founder of "Bluebook", is first showing Caleb around the house, he tells Caleb that he is authorized to enter some rooms in the house but not all. Any room that Caleb's key card won't authorize him to enter is off-limits to him. This is reminiscent of the fairy tale Bluebeard in which a wealthy aristocratic man of that name warns his new bride that she must not enter a certain room in his castle. When he leaves the castle, she succumbs to temptation and enters the room, discovering to her horror the murdered bodies of his previous wives who had disappeared mysteriously. The allusion to "Bluebeard" continues when Caleb later discovers what is in the closets of Nathan's room (the discarded bodies of his past-female-androids, whom he used for sex).
    • The blond robot in Nathan's closet is missing her arms and legs, making her look like a dead ringer of the Puppet Master from Ghost in the Shell. Further, Ava, like the Puppet Master, has the ability to turn off the power and the question of her sentience is a key plot issue.
    • Nathan's surname is Bateman. While his namesake dismembers human beings, he dismembers his robots.

    F 

    G 
  • In Le Gendarme ŕ New York, there is a whole Spontaneous Choreography sequence inspired by West Side Story. The gang of young thieves Cruchot bumps into are clearly dressed like the Sharks.
  • G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
    • The underwater base is a James Bond homage.
    • The battle for the base is one long tribute to Star Wars. When the base's pulse canon first activates, it strongly resembles the Death Star's firing sequence. Duke and Baroness' escape from the exploding tunnel is almost frame for frame Lando's escape from the exploding Death Star II. The entire underwater melee has strong Return of the Jedi echoes.
    • When the pulse cannon fires, it makes the sound of programs "de-rezzing".
    • Strip the Night Raven down to bare metal and slap red stars on it, and you have Firefox. Including foreign-language-activated weapons.
    • And, of course, there's the Doctor regenerating as well.
    • Storm Shadow's the one using a double-bladed weapon in a reactor complex, which is funny given Snake Eyes' actor is the one that played Darth Maul.
    • Duke likes to kick ass and Chew Bubblegum. Right before the Paris chase, he runs out of gum.
    • The Eiffel Tower falls in much the same way you can make it fall in Twisted Metal 2.
  • Girls Like Magic: Jacob, while overhearing Jamie's angry argument with Casey, says it's like his own personal "L Word".
  • Gleahan and the Knaves of Industry: Gleahan is from "Eastvale," a reference to World of Warcraft's Eastvale Logging Camp.
  • The famous tollbooth scene in The Godfather is deliberately patterned after the climax of Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde.
  • In the American Godzilla (1998), three entire fishing boats are dragged underwater, presumably because Godzilla just swallowed their catch, nets and all. This is an apparent Shout-Out to the barrel-dragging scenes in Jaws ("Not with three!").
  • Godzilla (2014):
    • The far-away shot of the HALO jumpers landing past Godzilla is a nod to the first poster for Cloverfield.
    • The visual setup of the shot when the door of the HALO jump plane opens, with the setting sun framed dead center just above the horizon, is a reference to the start of the 'Stargate' sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The use of Ligeti's 'Requiem' from that scene in the film confirms this.
    • The massive Godzilla-species skeleton in the second trailer and the plot of an ancient monster going up against equally ancient winged creatures seems evocative of the Heisei Gamera series.
    • The loving, tender moment between the two MUTOS echo Edward's previous film Monsters. On a slightly amusing note, the way the two kiss as they share a nuke has been compared to Lady and the Tramp.
    • Edwards has said that the team looked at the monsters from Alien and Starship Troopers for inspiration in designing the MUTOs.
    • Early images of the toy version of one of the MUTOs show it to be suspiciously similar to the Cloverfield monster, right down to the arms on the abdomen and the layout of the body, albeit with a far more upright posture, two sets of frontal limbs and a pitch black colouration.
    • AKIRA served as a major source of visual inspiration as far as portraying the scenes of destruction.
    • The main family had the name Brody which is a shout-out to Jaws.
    • One of the many gags hidden in the opening credits: the paragraph surrounding Bryan Cranston's name is about a man named Walter Malcolm.
    • The MUTO eggs, orange and glowing, resemble the nest of Sammael from Hellboy.
    • The single word redacted after Gareth Edwards's name is the name of his first movie, Monsters.
    • The male MUTO looks like Mothra or Battra and fights like Megaguirus.
    • It might not be a coincidence that the Golden Gate Bridge is once again destroyed by a Kaiju. Also that the MUTOS charge an EMP: much like Leatherback.
    • The opening title sequence is a montage of (fabricated for the movie) old footage regarding nuclear "testing" in the '50s and '60s in the South Pacific, much like the 1998 film.
    • Godzilla pries open the female Muto's jaws as part of the finishing move, from the same angle and manner as Kong did in King Kong (2005).
    • The initial disaster in the beginning of the movie happens on Joe's birthday. In other words, Bryan Cranston's birthdays SUCK.
  • Grandma's Boy (2006): Among the various poster on the walls in the background promoting Brainasium's future projects are an advertisement for "Gay Robot". "Gay Robot" is Nick Swardson's episode-based film project.
  • Grandmothers Farm:
    • Some time into the movie, Abdulla is seen sitting on the couch watching Devil.
    • Abdulla is compared by his friends to Paulo Coelho.
    • That night, Abdulla and Ramsi are seen watching Tom and Jerry.
  • In The Great White Hype, as Samuel L. Jackson's Sultan sits down at ringside he has a short exchange with a familiar looking man.
    Sultan: Vincent, how you doing, baby! You seen Jules? How's everythin'? Alright. Good to see you.
  • At the end of Gremlins 2: The New Batch one of the disintegrating Gremlins is wearing a pointed witch-hat as a Shout Out to the iconic scene in The Wizard of Oz.
  • In Gunless, Larry's obsession with getting rid of a tree stump is almost certainly based on Joe Starrett's similar obsession in Shane (albeit more explosive).

    H 

    I 
  • The short film adaptation of the short story "Impossible Dreams" by Tim Pratt opens with Daniel watching The Other Side, a science fiction series based on The Twilight Zone (1959). The introduction to The Other Side features the same spinning cone seen in the opening credits of Season Three. When Daniel later discovers that there is a disused building where Impossible Dreams had been the previous night, the Twilight Zone theme music is heard.
  • A snickering Shout-Out was one scene in Independence Day where a frazzled cable TV worker is attempting to empathise with an enraged customer by saying "Yes, I love The X-Files too".
  • In one of the flashbacks in If I Stay, Mia, Kim, and Adam are playing cups.
  • Into the Woods:
    • The Wolf is given a zoot suit◊, an homage to the wolf character from Tex Avery's Red Hot Riding Hood.
    • Right before Cinderella leaves the festival the first time, a snippet of "Night Waltz" from A Little Night Music can be heard, and the magical harp that Jack steals from the Giant plays "You Must Meet My Wife", also from A Little Night Music. Of course, Jack does indeed meet the giant's wife.
    • Little Red's costume, apart from the cape, consists of a blue dress, red shoes and pigtails... so basically, Dorothy.
  • Invention for Destruction: The close-up of the big cannons on the cruiser sent to search the count's ship was inspired by a similar shot of the battleship Potemkin in Sergei Eisenstein's masterpiece Battleship Potemkin.
  • In Iron Eagle, the callsign for Colonel Charles "Chappy" Sinclair, played by Louis Gossett, Jr, was originally held (albeit with a slightly different spelling) by [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_James_Jr. Daniel James, Jr.]], a US Air Force pilot who was the first four star African-American general.
  • Irrational Man: The whole plot is one to Crime and Punishment, which is explicitly reference in the film and noted for its parallels, while specifically the killer's rationalizations are similar.

    J 

    K 
  • K2: Siren of the Himalayas: The expedition leader laughingly says Vertical Limit was an actual documentary. There are a couple of clips from it as well.
  • The Kentucky Fried Movie's "A Fistful of Yen" segment.
    • Several members of Dr. Klahn's army are shown throwing hats at statues and knocking off pieces of them. This is a reference to Oddjob's use of his hat as a weapon in Goldfinger.
    • Two references to The Wizard of Oz.
      • During the fight between Loo and Dr. Klahn Loo splashes a bucket of water onto Klahn and he melts, saying "I'm melting, I'm melting".
      • The final scene is based on the "Dorothy wakes up after returning from Oz" scene. Loo is lying in bed wearing a wig with other characters from the segment gathered around him.
  • Kick-Ass:
    • The scene where Kick-Ass attempts to jump the roof is the same roof used in Spider-Man.
    • The movie ends with Red Mist quoting The Joker from Tim Burton's Batman (1989). "Wait till they get a load of me."
    • A line from Bride of Frankenstein.
    • Music from The Dollars Trilogy as Hit Girl enters the mafia safehouse.
    • Hit Girl's nightvision rampage resembles Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer, where Hit-Girl's apparently using a H&K USP Compact with a tactical knife attachment. Which is what some criminals were playing earlier on in the film.
    • Dave was partly distraught about the prospect of his death because he won't get to see what happens on Lost.
    • Dave points out that his narrating the film doesn't guarantee his survival by name checking several films that have featured posthumous narration.
    "If you're reassuring yourself that I'm going to make it through this since I'm talking to you now, quit being such a smart-ass! Hell dude, you never seen Sin City? American Beauty? Sunset Boulevard?"
    • "With no power comes no responsibility" references the famous mantra of the Spider-Man franchise.
    • "I WILL AVENGE YOU, MOTHER!!!!" in a style reminiscent of Peter Parker lurking around ol' Uncle Ben's grave in said Spider-Man franchise. And then you get told off by Dave for expecting that.
    • Scott Pilgrim is among the many comics mentioned by name; coincidentally, the first trailer for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was attached to Kick-Ass.
    • In the same scene, the shojo manga magazine Shojo Beat is mentioned.
    • Big Daddy name-drops John Woo while quizzing Hit Girl.
    • The microwave chamber torture scene is lifted almost wholesale from the James Bond movie Licence to Kill, but in that movie it was a decompression chamber. Same effect, though. In light of this, the car crushing scene is likely a shout out to Goldfinger
    • When Kick-Ass dons his costume for the first time, this is accompanied by upbeat music resembling John Williams' Superman march. Also, when Red Mist rides through the city in the Mist Mobile, the soundtrack heavily resembles the Batman theme from the Tim Burton movies.
    • The Mook that gets thrown under a bus to establish Red Mist as a superhero is named Tony Romita. John Romita Sr. was the second penciler on the original Spider-Man comic book and one of the most influential and best-known. His son, John Romita Jr., is also a comic book artist well-known for his own take on Spider-Man and, of course, the Kick-Ass comic book itself.
    • The shoot-out in darkness is one big 'Hello!' to Equilibrium.
    • The music that plays during Big Daddy's assault on the warehouse and the end of the pitch-black shoot-out are the themes from 28 Days Later and Sunshine, both directed by Danny Boyle.
    • The yellow car driven by Dexter Fletcher's character is the same one his character drove in Layer Cake, also directed by Matthew Vaughn. Both characters are called Cody.
    • Chris's bodyguard exclaims he's always wanted to yell "SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!!" as he's preparing to shoot Hit-Girl with a Mk 153 Mod 0 SMAW .
    • After he gets numerous metal implants to reinforce his broken bones, Dave is compared to Wolverine.
    • For those of you who watched the 2003 anime series .hack//Dusk, look very carefully in the background of the comic book store and you'll see a cardboard cutout of Rena in the background, as well as several Hellboy posters.
    • In one scene Dave and his friends are reading an issue of The Runaways.
    • When Dave is leaving the hospital, his Dad puts a copy of Watchmen in his bag.
    • Who am I? I'm Kick-Ass!
    • When Kick-Ass tries on his costume for the first time: "You talkin' to me?"
    • Hit-Girl's way of slaughtering her adversaries is similar to The Bride's modus operandi.
  • In The Killer That Stalked New York, a 1950 film Very Loosely Based on the 1947 New York City smallpox outbreak, the narrator makes one to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes when describing the manhunt for Patient Zero Sheila Bennet.
    "If you were female, five-feet-four, and addicted to the rinse that makes hair the color gentlemen are supposed to prefer, you had to prove you weren't Sheila Bennet."
  • In the Peter Jackson version of King Kong (2005), Carl Denham criticizes RKO Pictures, as they are supposed to be rival companies. The 1933 version, which almost everyone knows, was shot and produced by RKO. Also in the 2005 version, Carl is surprised Fay Wray isn't available for shooting. She played Anne in the 1933 version.
    • They also make fun of some dialogue from the original, having Jack Driscoll being quite sexist towards Anne, with actually making this exact scene a part of Denham's movie. It's quite nice how they did acknowledge the older work while (by giving them to a narcissistic jerk) pointing out that these lines are hopelessly out-of-date today.
  • German movie Kleine Haie makes a Shout-Out to Woyzeck when one aspiring actor is playing the doctor for the acting teachers. "Yes, good, but now play him with a Speech Impediment!"
  • Near the end of Kung Fu Hustle, one particular moment in the fight between the hero and the Axe Gang is a visual homage to the Burly Brawl in The Matrix Reloaded.
  • Kuntilanak: If you look closely at Anjan's shelf, you can see he has a Master Shifu figure.

    L 
  • Lady in Cement: When Tony Rome (Frank Sinatra) gets in the taxi by the airport, on the side of the cab there is an advertisement for Sinatra's fellow Rat Pack member Dean Martin's restaurant on 79th Street Causeway.
  • Land of the Blind: Tons of them. Maximilian I resembles Mussolini, Thorne resembles Karl Marx, his writing on the prison walls with feces resembles the IRA "dirty protest", "Baby Max" is a probable reference to Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, son/successor of Haitian dictator Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, his obsession with movies (and use of national resources to make really bad ones) appears to reference Kim Jong Il's history. The reeducation camps are much like those various communist regimes used, the reference to separating children from their parents and imprisoning intellectuals may refer to the practices of the Khmer Rouge and the clothing women are made to wear is very similar to that of Islamist Iran. Thorne's death scene is a visual reference to "The Death of Marat", and Joe's situation at the end explicitly echoes that of Rudolf Hess.
  • The Last Witch Hunter:
  • Laurel and Hardy had Stan Laurel saying Oliver Hardy's catchphrase "Well, Here's Another nice mess….." In the 1930 short: "Chicken Comes Home."
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
  • In Little Sweetheart, the title nine year old Villain Protagonist sociopath (the title comes from a sarcastic line) is seen watching Night of the Living Dead (1968) (severely out of order) and both her and her fellow nine year old female are seen wearing heart-shaped glasses.
  • The Lone Ranger: Just as Pirates of the Caribbean contained numerous references to old-fashioned pirate movies, this film features quite a few homages to classic Westerns:
    • The ending train chase/crash recalls Buster Keaton's The General;
    • The plot of the "false Indians" being used to trigger a range war comes from Fritz Lang's Western Union.
    • The Searchers with the "Comanche" raid on Rebecca's farmhouse and the heavy use of Monument Valley.
    • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance inspires John's introduction as a gun-shy, Eastern educated lawyer.
    • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly inspires Tonto looting the corpses of Dan's posse, he and John riding through the desert with an umbrella and the bridge detonation.
    • Once Upon a Time in the West gets quite a workout: the railroad plot, the intro of Dan and his posse wearing dusters, the squeaky windmill featuring in one scene, and Tonto revealing his past identity to Cole "at the point of dying." Hans Zimmer's music sounds like a conscious homage to Ennio Morricone, too.
    • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid inspires the standoff between John, Tonto and two of Butch's henchmen, with the heroes arguing over who should kill whom, and John admitting he's not fired a gun in years.
    • The train robbery features one of Butch's men forcing hostages to sing "Shall We Gather at the River?", in a nod to The Wild Bunch.
    • The Comanche scenes, flashbacks to the massacre in Tonto's backstory and the line "it's a good day to die" all originate from Little Big Man.
    • At one point, the Big Bad tells Tonto "Pretty soon no one will even know you people were here." A very similar line popped up in the director's previous film Rango.
  • In The Lord of the Rings:
    • Boromir's comment upon cutting his finger on the shards of Narsil: "Still sharp."
    • Peter Jackson is on record that the entrance of the Easterners to Mordor was deliberately staged after the entrance of the Winkie Guards into the Witch's Castle in The Wizard of Oz right down to the unintelligible chant.
  • Lost in Space had the following line which was a reference to an oft used line by Dr. McCoy in Star Trek: The Original Series:
    Dr. Zachary "Spider" Smith: I'm a doctor, not a space explorer.
  • In The Lost World: Jurassic Park, there is a Shout-Out to Godzilla: while the T. Rex rampages through the streets of San Diego, one of the groups of people running in terror is a group of Japanese businessmen. Translated, they're shouting, "We left Japan to get away from this!"
  • The Lovely Bones: During the scene with Susie and Grandma Lynn in the bookstore, a 1970s poster advertising The Lord of the Rings book trilogy is on display.

    M 
  • The Major and the Minor:
    • Susan lies to train conductors saying she's from Swedish stock, and when they ask her to say something in Swedish, she says Greta Garbo's famous line from Grand Hotel.
    • One to Veronica Lake:
      Cadet Clifford Osborne: Well, the bus is here. The zombies have arrived.
      Susan Applegate: Who?
      Cadet Clifford Osborne: [disdainfully] The girls from Miss Shackleford's school.
      Cadet Lt. Miller: We use 'em for women. May as well warn you, there's an epidemic at Miss Shackleford's school.
      Susan Applegate: An epidemic?
      Cadet Lt. Miller: Yeah, they all think their Veronica Lake. Look. [cue to all the girls turning their heads, all with the exact same hairdo]
  • The Marine. As John Cena's title character doggedly chases the bad guys, one of the mooks likens him to the Terminator. To which Robert Patrick responds with a glare.
  • Mars Attacks!
    • There are a number of references to old science fiction movies.
      • The Martian saucers, the saucers' beam weapon, and their attacks on human civilization (particularly the attack on Washington) are an homage to the alien saucers in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers.
      • The Martian saucer crashing into a river near the end is a reference to the end of This Island Earth, where a saucer crashes into the ocean.
      • During the Martian attack a saucer shoots a bell tower, a scene taken from the Martian attack on Los Angeles in the 1953 film version of The War Of The Worlds.
    • The fat clown executed by the Penguin in Batman Returns can be seen in stasis inside a Martian ship.
    • Also, whenever Lisa Marie's character appears, she's followed by The Bride's theme from Bride of Frankenstein.
  • The Mask:
  • A cynic could call the multitude of Biblical references in The Matrix (including the names and ID numbers of the various hoverships) a series of classy shout outs.
    • At least two to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
      • "Follow the white rabbit."
      • "You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."
    • Trinity: "The answer is out there, Neo, and it's looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to." => The X-Files slogan, "The truth is out there".
    • At one point while running from the Agents, Neo yells, "Mister Wizard, get me the hell out of here!"
    • The video screens in the Architect's room show some clips from Baraka.
    • The Bring It hand gesture Neo and Morpheus are fond of using to their opponents is a Shout-Out to Bruce Lee.
    • The Matrix Reloaded. During the freeway chase, just before the Agent jumps down onto the truck carrying Morpheus and the Keymaker the police radio says "One Adam-12 please respond".
    • The Matrix Revolutions. Smith calls the Oracle "The great and powerful oracle", a reference to the line "The great and powerful Oz" in The Wizard of Oz (1939).
    • In keeping with the movie's philosophical subtext, some of Zion's military personnel are named after famous philosophers. There's Commander Locke, Captain Soren (after Soren Kierkegaard), and Captain Ballard (after science fiction author J.G. Ballard).
    • Also, there's Captain Mifune. There are two possibilities here.
      • In the original Japanese version of Speed Racer (which the Wachowski brothers are huge fans of), "Mifune" was the main character's last name. Fittingly, the brothers would go on to direct Speed Racer just a few years after finishing the Matrix trilogy.
      • It could have also been a reference to the famous actor Toshiro Mifune.
  • Maverick
    • Zane Cooper's name combines Zane Grey, famous author of Western novels, with Gary Cooper, famous actor in Western films.
    • Danny Glover plays a bank robber who mutters "I am too old for this...". The scene is a Casting Gag played as Actor Allusion; Mel Gibson, Glover's buddy cop in that franchise, recognises the voice of the bank robber and pulls down his mask, leading the two of them to share a moment (complete with Lethal Weapon musical leitmotif). They look at each other as though in recognition, but then shake their heads saying, "Naaah..." before shaking their heads and walking away. As Glover exits the bank, he murmurs, "I'm getting too old for this shit!" And, the guitar track at that moment becomes suspiciously like the Lethal Weapon theme.
    • Maverick rides a bicycle belonging to his friend Chief Joseph, who explains that he won it in a card game. This is a reference to another Western movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In that movie, Butch Cassidy owns (and rides) a bicycle, and is a rotten gambler - so Chief Joseph won his bicycle from Butch!
  • In Mean Girls, Janis Ian is named after the singer of the same name, who was a musical guest on the first episode of Saturday Night Live, Tina Fey's former show. Ian's hit song "At Seventeen" even plays in a scene.
    • The sequel: Why does it feel like the football game between the Plastics and the Anti-Plastics is an homage to The Longest Yard (of all things)?
  • Men in Black:
    • The guy behind the Locksmith counter looks remarkably like Riff Raff.
    • Agent J tells K not to "go all Jack Webb" on the coroner.
    • It's subtle, but when K shows J his third grade teacher, Ms. Edelson, was an alien, she's listed as being in Philadelphia where, presumably, James Edwards was born and raised.
    • J tells K not to push the Big Red Button in the gear shift of their Cool Car. This is a reference to Goldfinger, in which Q does the same thing to James Bond. In Bond's car the button activates an ejector seat, while in the MIB's car it activates a jet engine in the rear.
  • During the opening sequence of Mirrormask, there is a brief shot of one of the circus performers "contact juggling" with a set of four crystal balls, a homage to the crystal manipulations done in Labyrinth.
  • Misfit Heights: The restaurant that some zombies invade is called "Romero's".
  • Monty Python and the Holy Grail: the Trojan Rabbit (Trojan Horse) and Lancelot's squire Concorde (the jet), among others.
  • Monsters:
    • Considering it's taking strange huge creatures, unnaturally introducing them to a foreign environment and then failing to contain them, it makes sense Jurassic Park was cited as the main influence.
    • One of the soldiers on patrol in the opening scene hums "Ride of the Valkyries," calling it his personal theme song, in a clear homage to Apocalypse Now.
  • In the James Bond film Moonraker, James is investigating a laboratory of the Big Bad, and is watching one of the scientists using a sound lock to open the door. The sound used to open the door? The first five notes of the Close Encounters of the Third Kind alien theme.
  • The Mummy Returns
    • Something quite hard to spot: when the log is blown up and the pygmies drop into the river, only one of the pygmies remains on one half of the log. He straddles it and waves his hand round, while one end of the log glows, in a brief shoutout to the famous scene from Dr. Strangelove.
    • When Rick and Evey return from their Egyptian trip, Rick is wearing a suspiciously familiar fedora.
  • The Muppet Christmas Carol:
    • In the musical number after Scrooge's change of heart, the ensemble passes a shop called Micklewhite's. Scrooge is played by Michael Caine, whose real name is Maurice Micklewhite.
    • Another storefront bears the names "Statler and Waldorf," after the two old cranks who routinely heckle the Muppet performances (and who appear in the film as the Marley brothers).
  • In the 1984 Philip Jackson film Music Of The Spheres, computer technician Andrew uncovers the existence of alien intelligences — and whispers "The stars -- the fucking stars!" before vanishing.
  • Mystery Team

    N 

    O 
  • Oblivion:
    • Several to 2001: A Space Odyssey, such as the shape of the drone pods, Jack being suddenly denied access to the base, the red glaring eye of the eerie antagonist or the name of the space mission to the unknown, The Odyssey.
    • The number of shout outs to the Mass Effect series in this movie is rather astounding:
      • Jack's rifle looks almost exactly like the Viper Sniper Rifle from Mass Effect 2. It also sounds the same with similar-looking glowing blue projectiles.
      • Jack Harper has the same name as (Mass Effect spoiler) The Illusive Man.
      • (spoiler for Mass Effect 3) Fridge Brilliance: The Illusive Man was Indoctrinated!
      • "Welcome back, Commander." although this is a massive case of Irony considering where and when this is said.
      • The soundtrack is at times reminiscent of the Mass Effect soundtrack.
      • The Big Bad is a giant sentient spaceship with a god complex.
      • However, Sally's voice, her Deadpan Snarker attitude, and the turrets, along with the cloning of two people, using them as test subjects, setting up individual areas, the remarkably mechanized voice when approaching the core, and the glaring red eye when confronted are much closer to GlaDOS. All we need now is a literal Companion Cube and we have a post-apocalyptic Portal!
      • The drones resemble the Oculus fighters. The scene where the drones attack the human base is very similar to the scene near the end of Mass Effect 2 where an oculus breaks into the Normandy's cargo hold.
    • There's also a nice shoutout to the Fallout series, with the present year being 2077, the same as the Great War. Considering the vital part nukes take place in the back story, it's hardly a coincidence. Also, in the making-of features, we learn that the Scavs' base is called Raven Rock - the same as The Enclave's base in Fallout 3.
  • Ocean's Thirteen has at least two shout-outs to The Godfather.
    • The first of these is spoken by George Clooney to Al Pacino, when he says "What I want- what's most important to me..." (this being the exact phrase Pacino himself used when speaking to Sollozzo in the restaurant).
    • The second shout out was when Reuben, the bedridden casino executive, uses the same lines spoken by Vito Corleone just before Vito learned of his son's death from Tom Hagen ("I hear cars coming and going..."). They were both very subtle; probably meant as inside jokes by the actors, who didn't expect anybody to actually catch them.
  • One Night in October: Two of the robbers in Michelle's house are named Freddie and Jason.
  • One, Two, Three has several: To Little Caesar, Gone with the Wind, Yankee Doodle Dandy, The Public Enemy (1931), Ninotchka.
  • One of the James Bond movies, George Lazenby's brazen fourth wall breaking in On Her Majesty's Secret Service after he fails to get the girl in the opening sequence:
    Bond: This never happened to the other fellow.
  • Our Man Flint. After the three Galaxy leaders try to convince him to let them rule the world for its own good Flint says "All I have to do is take a bite of your apple?", a reference to Eve and the Serpent in the Garden of Eden.
  • The Outlaws IS Coming!'s ungrammatical title is actually a reference to Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds; the early publicity for which featured posters stating "The birds is coming!"

    P 
  • Percy Jackson and the Olympians:
    • The Lightning Thief: While passing the river of lost dreams thing in Hades, one can see a little sled floating by.
    • It's mentioned that Medusa's eyes need to be opened to activate her power from her decapitated head. Instead we see them open automatically, just like in Clash of the Titans.
  • In Phantasm II, an undertaker is shown filling a bag labeled "Mr. Sam Raimi" with ashes. Possibly also a Stealth Pun, since the protagonist of Raimi's Evil Dead series is named Ash.
  • In The Pink Panther (1963), during a car chase near the end, Sir Charles and George meet in the town square. One says "You take the high road, and I'll take the low road" from Loch Lomand.
  • Pitch (2009): Belial mentions that Jim's fantasies of his crush borrowed some from Little House on the Prairie.
  • Pokémon Detective Pikachu has one to Red Heat during the interrogation scene. The perp says something in a language one of the detectives can't understand, the detective's partner gives him a Tactful Translation, and the angered detective goes for the physical offensive.
  • Inverted, kinda, in Pope Joan, though probably by pure chance. Joan (Johanna) is played by Johanna Wokalek.
  • Project Almanac:
  • The Punisher (2004) has Frank Castle's wife and son killed by a truck full of hitmen running them down. The scene immediately following it in which a devastated Frank runs towards them screaming their names is almost identical to a scene in Mad Max.

    R 
  • Red Lights:
    • Many of them, especially to The X-Files — Margaret shares the surname of Senator Matheson from the series, the TV-presenter's name is Dana, and in Buckley's room there is a poster identical to that in Mulder's office but with "I want to believe" replaced by "I want to understand".
    • Also to many famous (or infamous) real life events/arguments in the paranormal debate: the debunking of Leonardo is done the same way as faith healer Peter Popoff was exposed by the skeptical magician James Randi, the arguments of Buckley/Matheson are common, along with the paranormal tests, Simon Silver resembles the real Uri Geller, the identical horoscopes is a technique used to expose confirmation bias, the initials SPRC (Scientific Paranormal Research Center) are close to that of the actual 130-year old SPR (Society for Psychical Research), Leonardo has the same last name as famous fraud medium Eusapia Palladino, Shackleton shares one with Basil Shackleton, a star of the Soal-Goldney experiments of the 1940s that were later found to rely on faked data, etc.
  • At the end of the Reefer Madness musical, President Roosevelt makes reference to a "little orphan girl" who once gave him some trite advice.
  • The "Repo Code" from Repo Man ("I shall not cause harm to any vehicle nor the personal contents thereof, nor through inaction let the personal contents thereof come to harm") is a takeoff on Asimov's First Law of Robotics.
  • Requiem for a Dream has a few.
    • Marion curled up in a ball in the bathtub and shrieking is taken straight out of Perfect Blue. Aronofsky even secured the rights to a live-action version of the film just to justify including this scene in this movie.
    • During the scene when Tyrone and Harry are in the crowd, trying to get the drug shipment from Florida, one of the dealers is shown peeling an orange. This is a reference to The Godfather and the use of oranges as foreshadowing to something bad about to happen. They don't get their drugs, and the next sequence is Winter.
    • Averted by the recurring image of Marion standing at the end of a small pier, which is extremely similar to the recurring image in Dark City that also features Jennifer Connelly. Word Of God says that this was unintentional.
  • Rise of the Scarecrows: When Rufus is having his friends beat down Carlos, he tells them to remove Carlos' pants so he can "go Deliverance on his ass". Thankfully, he wasn't serious.
  • A Shout Out exists in every scene of the movie River City Rumble, a fan-made tribute movie based on River City Ransom, be it to the game itself, other classic video games, anime, or western cartoons.
  • Mel Brooks does it to his own films as well. "A BLACK SHERIFF!?" "Hey, it worked in Blazing Saddles!!"

    S 
  • Satan's Cheerleaders: When Stevie disappears into the bushes with Debbie for some hanky-panky, Coach yells after him to "remember your precious bodily fluids!"
  • Suki, the main character in The Scribbler, moves into a halfway house for psychiatric patients - where a rash of suspicious suicides are occurring. When her doctor calls to check on her, Suki answers the phone with a glibly deadpan "Bates Motel..."
  • Secrets In The Hot Spring: At the start of the movie, when Hsien-Chao is working at a Haunted House attraction, he's dressed up as Chucky.
  • See How They Run's Inspector Stoppard is named after Tom Stoppard who wrote The Real Inspector Hound, a parody of Agatha Christie mysteries.
  • Serenity has a planet named Miranda "Miranda." Miranda is the character from Shakespeare's The Tempest who says the line Note  that Brave New World by Aldous Huxley comes from. Brave New World, of course, had the mind-control drug that made all people happy, mindless, and compliant.
  • Sharkenstein:
  • Sherlock: Case of Evil contains references to a number of other Sherlock Holmes films:
  • Miho from Sin City uses a ''pair'' of Hattori Hanzo swords. According to Rodriguez and Tarantino, Miho wouldn't use anything less than a Hanzo blade to chop vegetables.
  • Sleepers: Shakes talks about obsessing with The Count of Monte Cristo and its tale of jailbreaking and cold-served revenge.
  • In the film version of A Sound of Thunder, Charles Hatton tells the travelers after the first successful time traveling expedition, "Gentlemen, and lady: today, you stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Columbus discovering America, Armstrong stepping on the moon, Brubaker landing on Mars." The director, Peter Hyam, also filmed Capricorn One, where Col. Charles Brubaker (James Brolin) is the first man on Mars in the faked landing.
    • In the backstory of the original Total Recall (1990), Quaid/Hauser stayed at a hotel on Mars under the name "Brubaker".
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (2020):
    • In the prologue, Sonic describes Longclaw, the owl who raised him, as "Obi-Wan Kenobi if he had a beak and ate mice".
    • Sonic gives this little tidbit when the Echidna Tribe showed up during his monologue about his childhood:
      Sonic: Turns out with great power, comes great power-hungry bad guys.
    • In his rambling assault against Major Bennington, Dr. Robotnik asks Bennington if he ever read Charlotte's Web, saying that the book ends with the death of the titular spider after she lays an egg sac. He then compares Charlotte's egg sac to his ovular white drones.
    • Sonic's slow-motion sequence in the bar is accompanied by pop music, homaging Peter Maximoff from the X-Men films.
    • When Tom helps a duck and her ducklings cross a street, he addresses them as "Donald, Daisy, Daffy..."
    • Sonic is a huge fan of The Flash, owning and reading a lot of his comics.
    • Sonic is shown peeping on Tom and Maddie's movie nights over the years he has spent in secret at Green Hills, and Sonic's favorite is Speed. Sonic even imitates Dennis Hopper's famous "Pop quiz, hotshot" and notes that Keanu Reeves is a national treasure. (The latter may also double as a reference to an infamous fanmade poster with human versions of the characters, where Reeves in a blue jacket was Sonic.)
    • Another film Sonic briefly watches is The Naked Gun.
    • Wade comments on how Robotnik and his men remind him of the Men in Black, but they aren't "as likeable or charming as Will Smith". He later asks if they're going to wipe his memory when they leave, referencing the Neuralyzer used frequently in the franchise.
    • While fleeing the roadside bar, Sonic slides across the police car's hood like Bo and Luke do in The Dukes of Hazzard.
    • The scene where Maddie gives him smelling salts:
      Sonic: GOTTAGOFAST! (runs around the kitchen like a lunatic before stopping to stand on top of the kitchen island) Where am I? What year is it? Is The Rock president?!
    • Sonic flosses after overturning Robotnik’s tank and when he gets his room. Flossing is a dance which has become so synonymous with Fortnite that many people don't even know its actual name and just call it "The Fortnite Dance".
    • When Sonic takes the wheel of the pickup truck:note 
      Sonic: I feel just like Vin Diesel! It's all about family Tom!
    • Part of Robotnik's dance, particularly when he goes "headless", is a tribute to Dick Van Dyke.
    • Once Tom reaches Rachel's house, he's holding a suspicious bag (containing Sonic). Being distrustful of him, she asks if he's hiding something illegal in the bag, such as guns or e-mails.
    • According to co-writer Pat Casey, Robotnik shaving his head with a piece of metal is a reference to Marlon Brando's character in Apocalypse Now.
  • Spider-Man Trilogy:
    • When Peter Parker is trying to figure out a phrase to shoot a web he tries "Up, Up, and Away" and "Shazam!"!
    • In her hospital bed, Aunt May admonishes Peter for all that he does (school, work, taking care of her), and reminds him that he's "not Superman." Peter laughs at the reference.
    • Peter opening his shirt like Superman; Doc Ock climbing NY buildings like King Kong; "Symbiote Night Fever".
    • In the novelization of the first movie, the wheelchaired and bald Oscorp Board Member, Maximillian Fargas, is compared to the "professor character in that mutant movie."
    • When Jonah and Hoffman are discussing what to call Octavius for the paper headline:
      Jonah: What are we gonna call this guy?
      Hoffman: "Doctor Octopus"?
      Jonah: That's crap.
      Hoffman: "Science Squid"?
      Jonah: Crap.
      Hoffman: "Doctor Strange"?
      Jonah: That's pretty good... But it's taken!
    • Peter's landlord and his daughter, the Ditkovich's.
    • Before the Sadistic Choice:
      Green Goblin: We are who we choose to be, now choose!
    • One of the surgeons trying to operate on Octopus raises an arm holding a chainsaw a là Ash in Army of Darkness. In the same scene, we get a POV shot from one of the tentacles as it slithers through the air just like the unseen force in the Evil Dead movies.
  • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
    • Multiple direct references to Moby-Dick and A Tale of Two Cities, the two books which represent Khan (irrationally obsessed with revenge) and Kirk (coming to terms with his own mortality).
    • The concentric tubes of the Genesis control panel resemble the ones that Ripley uses to activate the self-destruct sequence in Alien.
  • Star Trek Into Darkness:
    • The design of Earth's cities now has a very Mass Effect-like look and feel. From the vehicles, to the architecture, you'd expect to see a derelict Reaper near London. The Klingon ruins suggest a cross between Tuchanka and Ilos.
    • When Harrison takes out the Starfleet High Command early in the movie, it resembles the scene in The Godfather Part III.
    • Nibiru, the name of the planet in the opening scene, is the ancient Babylonian name for Jupiter (which has also been used in a couple of different pseudoscientific theories involving planetary catastrophes).
  • George Lucas' Star Wars films contain a reference to his first movie, THX 1138, when Luke Skywalker explains away their presence on the Death Star by claiming it's "a prisoner transfer from cellblock 1138". Interestingly enough, when Mark Hamill improvised that line, George Lucas actually told him not to do it in another take, as the original script just had a random combination of numbers.
    • Not the first time this happened. One of the protagonists in American Graffiti has a car with the license plate THX-1138.
    • In Raiders of the Lost Ark, you can hear "Ein-tausend-ein-hundert-acht-und-dreißig", 1138 in German.
      • Not the last time, either. In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the nightclub Dr. Jones first goes to is named "Club Obi Wan".
      • Almost every Star Wars movie has some reference to THX-1138. On Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back, General Rieekan says, "Send Rogues 10 and 11 to sector 38." In The Phantom Menace, the droid killed by Jar Jar Binks at the end has serial number 1138 on his back. In Attack of the Clones, the LED lights on the back of the clone trooper helmets display a serial number. Although illegible, they all read "THX 1138". Finally, in Revenge of the Sith, Clone Commander Bacara's number is 1138.
      • In Lucas' novelization of Star Wars, one of the stormtroopers who was assigned to guard the Millennium Falcon after its capture on the Death Star was THX-1138 (changed either to or from TK-421 in the movie).
      • Almost everything Star Wars has a reference somewhere. Don't forget the stormtrooper unit in Galactic Battlegrounds would state "THX-1138 ready, sir," when selected.
      • In Attack of the Clones, the scene of the clones being trained via helmet is an identical visual reference to a flashback scene from AKIRA.
      • The once-ubiquitous THX mastering standard is a Shout-Out to same, making it possibly the most common one of all time (if you count every single movie, TV show and video game where the logo appears).
      • The protagonist of Republic Commando, Boss, is Delta 1138.
    • In A New Hope, just before Vader starts choking one of the Death Star commanders, a shout out is made to one of Lucas' influences:
      Admiral Motti: Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the Rebel's hidden fortre...
    • Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is full of them.
      • The alien body that the Russians are looking for at the beginning was reportedly an old prop from Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Near the end of the scene in Area 51, Indy smashes through a number of crates with a truck, including one holding the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark. There's even a Star Wars reference, with Indy quipping near the end, "I've got a bad feeling about this".
      • According to an Ain't it Cool editor, there were a bunch of shout outs to the Indiana Jones EU Books - Indy's resistance to telepathy, alien hunting, etc.
      • Indy also tells Mutt about his time in Pancho Villa's army — that's a reference to events that took place during The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.
    • The Empire Strikes Back contains a Shout-Out to The Aeneid. Chewbacca carrying the broken C-3PO on his back in the escape from Cloud City is an unmistakable reference (well, unmistakable to people who've studied classic literature, anyway) to the most identifiable image in the work; Aeneas, escaping from the sacking of Troy, carrying his father on his back.
    • In Raiders of the Lost Ark, in the chamber where Indy finds the Ark, you can see your two favorite droids drawn among the hieroglyphs.
    • The shots of C-3P0 and R2-D2 are very reminiscent of Tuco leading a dehydrated Blondie through the desert...
  • Fritz Lang's Film Noir Secret Beyond the Door... (1948), starring Michael Redgrave and Joan Bennett, is a shout-out to Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940) in several ways: a woman marries an almost complete stranger and moves into his Big Fancy House, replete with a stony-faced Creepy Housekeeper, and begins to suspect that her husband might have killed his former wife. Also, Hollywood Fire plays a large part in the resolution.
  • Stitches (2012) has Tommy taking Hypnocil and features a knife-perspective view straight out of Halloween (1978).
  • The 2007 St Trinians is rife with them:
    • Pride and Prejudice gets a lot:
      • Many of the cast have some connection to P&P: Colin Firth was Mr. Darcy and Anna Chancellor (Miss Bagstock) was Miss Bingley in the 1995 miniseries; Talulah Riley (Annabelle) was Mary Bennet in the 2005 film version; and Gemma Arterton (Kelly) was Elizabeth Bennet in the 2008 miniseries Lost in Austen.
      • Miss Fritton's dog is named for Mr. Darcy. This becomes distinctly "meta" in that the dog is kicked out the window while attempting to hump the Education Minister's leg - even Mr Darcy wants Colin Firth!
      • Colin Firth's slow-motion walk to the hockey field in wet white shirt with his jacket over his arm mimics a similar scene he did in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice.
      • The quizmaster's question "What book was originally titled First Impressions?" references the original title of Pride and Prejudice.
    • Similarly, there are a number of shoutouts surrounding "The Girl With A Pearl Earring", starting with Colin Firth's role in the 2003 film of the same name, the explicit reference to Colin Firth wanting to shag her, and Chelsea initially thinking that the idea is to "steal Scarlett Johansson''.
    • To The Italian Job (1969), when the twins use a little too much explosive during the heist rehearsal.
      You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!
    • In her mannerisms and mode of dress, Camilla Fritton parodies Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall.
    • When Thwaites and Camilla meet, she says "Another time!" and he answers "Another country!" His response is the title of a 1984 film in which Rupert Everett and Colin Firth first starred together.
    • When Annabelle is entering the school for the first time, she calls it "Hogwarts for Pikeys".
  • Superman II. While Lex Luthor is sliding down the wall of Superman's Fortress of Solitude he says "Another small step for mankind", a reference to astronaut Neil Armstrong's famous statement upon setting foot on the Moon.

    T 

    U 
  • Unbroken: In the Cinderella skit that the prisoners of war perform, the name of the prince is "Prince Hillenbrand". Author Laura Hillenbrand wrote the book on which the movie is based.
  • Undercover Brother
    • Sistah Girl initially calls Undercover Brother "Bruce Leroy".
    • While looking at a picture of Danny Glover, Da Chief says "I'm getting too old for this shit.", Glover's famous Lethal Weapon line.
    • The theme song from Shaft.
      Undercover Brother: "Smart Brother, you a bad mother..."
      Smart Brother: "Shut your mouth!"
      • Lances above-mentioned beatdown is only short a FATALITY!
      • Penelope Snow White She Devil: "I'm all the Single White Female you'll ever need!"
    • There's also when Penelope Snow AKA White She-Devil tells "Anton" that he's "cute in a Theo Huxtable kind of way." Eddie Griffin had just four years starring in a sitcom with Theo himself, Malcolm Jamal Warner.
  • Unstoppable: A shout out to Silver Streak - an AWVR official named Gene Devereaux is interviewed at one point. Gene Wilder starred in Silver Streak, and the villain was named Roger Devereaux.

    V 
  • Vicki has several to Laura, with which it shares some plot points. The film opens with a view of Vicki's portrait, which looks eerily like Laura's portrait—same pose, same dress—as if Gene Tierney's head was replaced by Jean Peters' head. Later, Steve and Jill meet up in an all-night movie house which is showing Laura.
  • Vigilante Diaries: Having tried and failed to talk his way past the two mooks guarding the door to Andreas' box at the opera house, the Vigilante knocks them both out before commenting "It was a boring conversation anyway".
  • The Villain: Since the flick's basically a Road Runner cartoon in live action, Jack bounces around like Daffy Duck to the Merrie Melodies theme when Charming Jones kisses him at the end. Also the character names Avery Simpson and Charming Jones.

    W 
  • The Restaurant Shenanigans in Waiting... is a restaurant that was mentioned in Super Troopers that Officer Rodney Farva likes to eat at complete with Goofy Shit on the wall
    O'Haggan! I'm gonna pistol whip the next guy who says "shenanigans".
Mac: Hey Farva, what's that restaurant you like so much with the mozzarella sticks and the goofy shit on the wall?
Farva: Shenanigans? Shenanigans, right?
  • WarGames. Just before hacking into the Protovision computer, David Lightman says "Protovision, I have you now". This is a reference to Darth Vader's Tempting Fate line "I have you now" in A New Hope that he spoke as he prepared to shoot Luke's X-wing fighter during the battle over the Death Star.
  • In We're the Millers David refers to the man who inspires his plan by using his family to avoid getting a speeding ticket as a "real life Flanders" due to his strong physical similarity to Ned Flanders.
  • A song from the Marx Brothers Animal Crackers accompanies the opening credits of Woody Allen's Whatever Works (2009).
  • The Widow (2020): At one point, Vika finds Ilya in a house just silently standing with his face to the wall, and his back to her.
  • Wild Wild West:
  • The Wolfman (2010):
    • Even though differs significantly from the original, they did keep a few tidbits from the 1941 version:
    • Gwen's family owns an antique shop
    • Lawrence's cane is similar to the one in the original, sporting a wolf's head and star.
    • Sir John beating the crap out of Lawrence with said cane but not in self defense, oh, far from it.
    • The telescope.
    • Also a possible Shout-Out combined with a meta-example of a Stealth Pun: Lawrence, who has lived in the United States since he was a child, and who has recently contracted lycanthropy, is sent to an asylum in London. Making him, naturally, An American Werewolf in London.
    • The gypsy girl Lawrence saves is named Maria, which might possibly be a subtle nod to Maria Ouspenskaya, who played Maleva in the original.
    • Del Toro's Talbot bears a striking resemblance to Oliver Reed's Leon from the Hammer Horror The Curse of the Werewolf. And you don't get more Spanish with a name like Benicio del Toro. The idea that love might inhibit the transformation is also from Curse.
    • Might be a subtle shout out to Werewolf of London. Not just for the fact Lawrence terrorized London for part of the film, but mainly for the ending scenes. Lawrence stays alive long enough to thank Gwen for shooting him and reassures her that it was the right thing to do, much like Dr. Glendon reassures his wife and friends in a similar nature.
    • The fact that Sir John received the curse from the bite of a feral child is an even subtler one. In the earliest treatment of the original movie, the titular Wolf Man would have been an orphan raised by wolves. This upbringing would have been the source of his lycanthropy. He received the bite in Tibet, just like Dr. Glendon.
  • Wonder Woman (2017):
    • Near the end in the alley scene, Diana blocks a bullet while taking the classic Rosie the Riveter stance.
    • A boat can be seen that has singer Édith Piaf's name painted on it.
  • The World of Kanako: Detective Asai is a cop who is never seen without his lollipop. The same thing happens in Kojak.
  • The World's End:

    X 
  • X-Men Film Series:
    • X2: X-Men United: Both Magneto and Professor X reference The Once and Future King at separate points. Erik is seen reading it in his cell near the beginning, and Charles ends the film lecturing some of his students about it.
    • X-Men: The Last Stand: When Mystique is being interrogated, she is asked where Magneto is, as she turns into Magneto to taunt the interrogator, she replies "In here, with us", no doubt quoting Linda Blair from "The Exorcist".
    • The Wolverine
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past:
      • Naked on Arrival from a bleak future dominated by a Robot War, the time-shifted Wolverine demands a goon hand over his clothes and vehicle. Hello there, Terminator 2! Although in this case, it wasn't the time-traveler who was naked, but the past version of his body he was jumping into that happened to be naked at the time.
      • When Quicksilver questions whether Xavier, Hank and Logan are like him (mutants), Xavier tells Logan to "Show him." Logan mimics the pose taken by the Terminator in Terminator 2 when John Connor orders him with that exact phrase, and pops his claws.
      • Magneto quotes James Brown's "The Payback" during his rescue.
        Erik: I don't know karate, but I know crazy.
      • The beginning of the film has the mutants hiding in the subway system under post-apocalyptic Moscow, in a possible homage to Metro 2033.
      • The Sentinels from the Bad Future act like more aerodynamic versions of the Asgardians' Destroyer.
      • An episode of Star Trek: The Original Series appears on a screen-one about Time Travel, no less! (And in a film with Captain Picard in it.)
      • Charles' introduction, featuring a pull-back from Patrick Stewart's eye that flies the camera through the guts of the X-Men jet, is almost certainly a shout-out to the opening shot of Star Trek: First Contact. The jet's toroidal reactor even has the exact same shape as the interior of the Borg Cube.
      • Villain planning to stop humanity's wars by uniting them against an enemy that isn't actually an enemy? Where have we seen that before? Bonus points for Nixon being the President in both cases.
      • There's a scene from the 2003 Children of Dune miniseries where Leto Atreides II (played by James McAvoy) collapses to the ground in agony because he is overwhelmed by the voices in his head, much like Xavier does when the serum wears off. A woman then asks Leto, "Are you crazy yet?", which mirrors Charles' belief that he had lost his mind after the onset of his telepathy. Moreover, Leto has Bene Gesserit training, so his use of the Voice to control another person's behaviour is virtually identical to Xavier's powers.
      • When Logan awakes in the revised future and talks to old Charles, he says, "You did it," and Xavier replies, "Did what?" This exchange is similar to Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Albus Dumbledore's exchange (except the duo said "We did it" to Dumbledore) after the teen duo did the Set Right What Once Went Wrong which also involved Time Travel in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
      • The ending is reminiscent of the end of Back to the Future Part One. In both films, the protagonist wakes up in his room in a happier altered future, is initially confused by his surroundings, and is specifically asked by another character "Is everything alright?"
      • When Magneto yells at Charles on the plane, the room goes dark and Michael Fassbender channels even more of Ian McKellen than usual, in a clear reference to the scene where Gandalf intimidates Bilbo into cooperating with him in The Fellowship of the Ring.
      • In their commentary, Bryan Singer and Simon Kinberg admitted that they were inspired by '70s-era Conspiracy Thrillers when they came up with the idea of the military and Trask Industries covering up the experimentation and murder of mutant soldiers under the fog of war.
      • Bullets suspended in midair being picked up by a character brings to mind The Matrix.
      • There are a lot of similarities between the younger Xavier and Will Graham from Hannibal. Will's "pure empathy" is not unlike Charles' mind-reading power (and since Will's brain contains an abnormally high number of mirror neurons, this would make him a genetic mutant), their Blessed with Suck "gift" can cause them a tremendous amount of agony, and they're both tormented by a love-hate relationship with a violent man of equal intelligence who has physically harmed them (Lecter for Graham, Magneto for Xavier). As a bonus, Hugh Dancy looks somewhat like James McAvoy (both actors are brown-and-wavy-haired, blue-eyed and possess Pretty Boy-like features), so after Hannibal's debut, Dancy became a very popular fan casting choice for Brian Xavier should the X-Men Film Series ever decide to show Charles' father in a flashback.
      • Blink's use of portals (port Colossus high into the air, then catch him with a portal flat on the ground that translates his downward velocity into horizontal movement via an upright standing portal and slams him into a sentinel) will be very familiar to anyone who ever played a certain game about apertures.

Alternative Title(s): Films, Film

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load
Advertisement:

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder You Know That Show... Trope Launch Pad Reviews Live Blogs Go Ad Free!
Advertisement:

Crucial Browsing

Community Showcase More

Top