Our Favorite Movie Easter Eggs: Ace Ventura, Captain America, and more!

January 8th 2015, 11:13pm

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

These days part of the fun of watching a movie in theaters or at home with the ability to freeze frames, is finding the hidden Easter eggs hidden within. For the history buffs out there, the origin of the cinematic Easter egg dates back to THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. Supposedly one day on the set, the cast decided to have a traditional Easter egg hunt, as you do, but some of the eggs were never found and actually appeared in frames of the movie! So if you're obsessed with finding hidden messages, jokes, and ways to make you look smart in front of your friends, check out these Easter eggs!

Understandably some of these have been around for a while, but some may be new to other readers; there’s no expiration date on sharing so enjoy and have fun!

**POSSIBLE SPOILERS**

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER – His brother's keeper

If you haven't seen one of the biggest movies of 2014 yet, this is pretty spoiler heavy; I almost made the spoiler alert notice above flash off and on with fire wrapped around it. In Winter Soldier there is a suggestion that Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is dead, but like a lot of the movie, that was all trickery and a set-up for the upcoming Civil War story arc. They even go as far as to make him a gravestone. The Russo brothers put a pretty great, albeit obvious, nod to his infamous Pulp Fiction scripture as his epitaph as seen above.

Because we all love it so much, here it is:

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER – There's an app for that

While we're at it, let’s include this fun one. Disney, known for making their movies as universal as possible, found a way to take that approach with Steve Rogers’ list of things he needs to learn about to catch up to the 21st Century. So depending on the country where the movie’s being shown, the list is different. Here are the shots you would see in the US (above) and the UK (below) respectively. If you want to see what the other countries look like, here’s a full list.

WE'RE BACK! A DINOSAUR'S STORY – So much Spielberg

Steven Spielberg produced this animated feature, but you wouldn’t know watching it. I kid of course, they even animated him in the darn movie! This forgotten gem came out in the fall of 1993; months after JURASSIC PARK already had kids interested in dinosaurs again. There are multiple nods to the great filmmaker including during a parade scene we see a very Spielberg-looking gentlemen run by with a JP shirt on as well as a hat that says Amblin, his production company. Not only that, the character Rex dances in front of a JURASSIC PARK movie marquee. Very subtle guys.

BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II – Even more Spielberg

It's 2015 now and we still don’t have giant holographic movie characters coming at us outside the movie theater; yes I’m disappointed too. In BTTF 2 Marty travels to 2015 and encounters a theater playing Jaws 19. Steven Spielberg's son, Max, directed the movie as you can see on the marquee. “This time it’s really really personal”, it reads on the logline. They weren’t that far off considering how sequel heavy 2015 is going to be.

ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE – Your gun is digging into my hip

In the scene where Ace goes into Einhorn's office to tell her that he's solved the crime and that it's Ray Finkle, you can see in the shot from behind Einhorn, a banana placed between 2 apples. A subtle foreshadow at Einhorn's true identity. Einhorn is Finkle. Finkle is Einhorn. Einhorn… is a man!