10 Subtle Movie Jokes That Went Straight Over Your Head

[@penad8]

There is nothing subtle about Watchmen, Snyder put a goddamn batman poster in the background to hit you in the head with it.

[@Saavik256]

Another great bit from Silence of the Lambs is an incredibly subtle jab about a census taker's liver, fava beans and a chianti. All three foods that you're not supposed to consume if you're on a certain type of psychiatric medication. Meaning he wasn't taking his meds.

[@aaronworthing1023]

1. Not sure all these counts as jokes. 2. Here’s the ultimate. In Kentucky fried movie, they have a long spoof of enter the dragon. And toward the beginning the bad guy starts ranting in Korean. And they put subtitles claiming thank you that he’s a typical bad guy speech. But supposedly if you understand Korean (I don’t) he says something like “ to my Korean listeners, I apologize. The Director just told me to start ranting in Korean.”

[@pyrosplicer85]

I’d like to point out that in Shaun of the Dead, Shaun isn’t walking like that because he’s tired. It’s because he’s got a hangover.

[@hbk4ever2]

… and when you’re hungover you are …. Tired?

[@jamesallan5914]

I watched Pulp Fiction an unhealthy number of times back in the day and the toilet gag didn't slip past me. However what did only get pointed out to me recently was the logic behind it; as a heroin user, he's meant to be chronically constipated, which is why he takes such long bathroom trips.

[@seantlewis376]

That part went past me too. I did not know that opiates cause constipation until just a few years ago when a friend told me.

[@whopito422]

I thought i was the only one who knew that. Granted because ice also been in same scenario

[@user-lb9xw4xf2q]

I thought it was only a running gag, but that added information does make sense!

[@vincevvn]

10 times WhatCulture didn’t know the difference between jokes and foreshadowing

[@NealKlein]

Oh, I like that.

[@jrwhit24]

The entirety of Arrested Development is a subtle joke that goes over most peoples heads.

[@ShortArmStrongArm]

under. waaay under, as most aren’t dim enough to see it

[@vincevvn]

Wtf does that even mean

[@apri.lwetter]

At the Opera House in Watchmen are some posters for Batman as well. Maybe it‘s a later couple at the opera, maybe Batman is just a comic in this reality

[@user-lb9xw4xf2q]

At least Vincent got to finish the book he was reading before Butch shot him. lol

[@JeffLundrigan]

There's another fun in-joke in Shaun of the Dead: the really fancy restaurant Shaun tries to get a reservation with -- and gets laughed at over the phone by -- is called Fulci's. Lucio Fulci was an Italian director known for a number of zombie and zombie-adjacent movies in the 80s and 90s, including, um, Zombie.

[@matthewleonard371]

also, when he's talking to Liz he tells her they'll go to the "fancy place that does all the fish", later when he looks them up in the phone book it actually says that next to the name of the restaurant, it's super quick though so way easy to miss

[@CarlosRivera-eq4cj]

I love the Watchmen detail but confuses me is that if Nite Owl saved Thomas and Martha, why are there covers for the first Batman comic issue on the walls behind them?

[@tenimeartstudios]

Your editor didn't SHOW Bridges' shirt in Big Lebowski...

[@mikes2622]

Was thinking the same thing

[@Frink108]

Shaun wouldn't have paid attention to the radio if it was in English, the zombies were right there and he still ignored them. He was like a Zombie with his morning routine.

[@nv4699]

I've always said that would be me not noticing because when you got a morning routine it becomes autopilot. Plus the first time I saw the movie I couldn't figure out why he was in such a noisy neighborhood you kept hearing sirens and seeing military trucks and things kind of like when you see the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and you keep seeing the garbage trucks and later it clicks and you realize what's going on.

[@markzuckergecko621]

I don't know if this qualifies as a joke so much as a subtle visual gag, but in Idiocracy, when Joe/Not Sure first meets President Camacho, in the background through the window, you can see a freeway overpass that's torn in half, with cars continuously driving off of it, and a huge pile of cars at the bottom🤣

[@JohnDrummondPhoto]

Fun fact: Vincent Vega went to the bathroom so much because, being a heroin addict, he was constantly constipated. That's one of the side effects of long-term use.

[@purnenduray1130]

In the watchmen opening credits nite owl erases batman from existing but then how come there are posters of batman comics on the wall in the same scene . I mean its like snyder dont even think the whole thing through. He just make scenes that looks cool .

[@Nhamp2000]

Yeah, I thought the same thing. Didn't make sense

[@atzuras]

Well he was serious in undoing Batman. He finally undid the whole Justice League

[@DomDomTheFirst]

Neo accepting a cookie from the Oracle the first time they meet and then next time they meet she says "now where were we" 👌

[@seanellio]

In the novel "Red Dragon", it is explained how Will catches Hannibal Lector. As he is talking to Hannibal about missing persons at the college campus, Will is looking at the Doctors bookshelf. In the middle of books about surgery, with graphic photos, is a Bon Appetit magazine. Will realizes that Lector is a killer, Lector knows Will knows, and Will knows that Lector knows that he knows. There is a pretty tense scene that ends with Will being gutted and barely surviving. I think the Bon Appetit magazine in "Silence ..." is more an Easter egg.

[@robgronotte1]

I think it's just to show the character is a gourmand. Doubt it's really supposed to foreshadow the biting he does to escape.

[@aphotoguy_that_collects]

How did you miss the batman poster on the right hand side?

[@mrdth1987]

In Die Hard the drug addict businessman looking pretty disappointed when he is given a drink of Coke by the bad guys.

[@JonathanMorley]

I'm sure I'm not the first to notice this, but in the first Home Alone movie the officer that takes over the call is named, Sgt. Balzak.

[@cassandrakarpinski9416]

Second joke in silence of the lambs that many don't get is the most famous line. Liver, faava beans and chianti are all foods that are on the list of foods that people taking antidepressants/antipsychotics should avoid, especially if they are on monoamine oxidase inhibitors. This line is him saying he was off his meds when the census taker came round

[@salemslotandmore8278]

Thank You for the List and for the Video 😀

[@ejgoldlust]

Um, perhaps you could have shown maybe ONE clip from the Big Lebowski? Or is demonetization that much of a risk here?

[@mikes2622]

Was thinking the same thing

[@robgronotte1]

So they saw the newspaper headline in German, but not the Batman posters a few feet over from it? Obviously there is no real Batman in a universe where Batman is a comic book character.

[@Dirkus17]

"...with which to make it with"

[@mikes2622]

The Fight Club, Trainspotting and Silence if the Lambs references are all pretty obvious. Have to be pretty dim not to notice those. Appreciate you saying Tarantino rips thing off from old movies. He comes across as such a film snob when he really just steals most of his best stuff from movies no one has ever heard of.

[@fatherofdragons4880]

Been addicted to opiates 15 years straight, and my bowel movements are normal now. No constipation at all anymore.

[@johnspooner1403]

Yeah, got the Fight Club reference. The whole movie’s hilarious!

[@whopito422]

You messed up pulp fiction. It was a subtle joke that he has "bad luck" in bathrooms. Its that he has to go often cuz of heroin

[@Kleetus_Van_Damm]

Loved this video, I was entertained

[@danielsantiagourtado3430]

Thanks For these recaps guys

[@Kleetus_Van_Damm]

Don’t click on the video then

[@snowroaches]

*humor

[@Scrobbles]

Christ, that’s a stretch

[@caseyjumbalaya2516]

I don't think you know what subtle movie jokes mean as this list is pretty bad

[@MichaelDropp-v4i]

If you didn’t understand that Night Owl was meant to have saved the elder Wayne’s then this explanation is still too subtle for you to get. Only a mentally disabled or blind adult from the West wouldn’t get the reference in the first three seconds of the scene. If you didn’t immediately understand what the intent was, you won’t understand the rest of the movie, or this text, either.

[@seanellio]

uhm. OK