January 11, 2023 1.1k votes 451 voters 79.6k views
List Rules
Vote up the clues you'll be looking for on your next rewatch.
We've all done it - we're watching a mystery, whispering to our neighbor who we think the culprit is. Maybe you were working alongside Benoit Blanc as you watched Glass Onion. Or you kicked yourself after not realizing the big twist at the end of The Usual Suspects.
More often than not, the director throws in some red herrings that do a good job of throwing us off the trail. But we're here to help you hone your deduction skills. Read on to learn of the clues that directors sprinkled throughout some of our favorite mysteries.
And the next time you go to watch these movies, keep your eyes peeled for any other hints that help you sniff out the guilty party. Beware: Spoilers ahead!
Plot: Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) investigates the death of the patriarch of a wealthy family hiding many secrets.
Hidden Clue: When Detective Blanc first meets Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas), you can see that his eyes are locked on her feet for a moment. This is because he's noticed the drop of blood on her shoe, which she doesn't realize.
Throughout the film, Blanc alludes to this secret information by repeatedly mentioning feet, saying things like: “The game is afoot,” especially when speaking to Marta.
Plot: We follow the years-long battle between two magicians in 1890s London, each of whom are attempting to create the ultimate illusion.
Hidden Clue: Throughout The Prestige, we're trying to figure out how Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) is doing his trick called “The Transported Man," where he seems to transport from inside one wardrobe to another wardrobe across the stage.
At the end of the film, Borden reveals that he was able to do the trick with the help of his twin brother. The same twin brother who just took the fall for Borden and was sentenced to death.
This idea was hinted at earlier in the movie, when Borden does a magic trick with a bird. While it seems like the bird is crushed in a cage, it “magically” appears to have moved - out of harm's way. However, the boy Borden shows this to isn't fooled and asks, “But where's his brother?” - referencing the bird who has been killed for the sake of the trick.
Plot: Six guests receive a strange invitation to dinner, only for their host to be killed. Like the popular board game, they must work quickly to try and figure out the killer.
Hidden Clue: If you happen to know French, you might have noticed in the 1985 iteration of Clue that the French maid, Yvette, seems to say random French words.
This is hinting at her deception. We later learn that Yvette is in fact American, and doesn't actually know French at all.
Plot: A sole survivor (Kevin Spacey) tells police of the events involving five random criminals that led to a horrific gun battle on a boat.
Hidden Clue: There are two major clues that Verbal Kint is actually criminal mastermind Keyser Söze, but they're extremely subtle. The first is his limp, a reference to the morality plays of the Middle Ages, in which the devil walks with a limp due to his fall from heaven. Kint makes reference to Söze as the devil.
The second clue can be found in Söze's name. Keyser is likely a corruption of “kaiser,” the German word for emperor. Söze, meanwhile, is from the Turkish idiom “söze boğmak,” which can be translated as either “to drown in a sea of words” or "talks too much." To paraphrase, that means Keyser Söze is “the king who talks too much.”
Plot: We're working alongside world-famous detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to try and figure out who wants to kill billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton).
Hidden Clue: The action escalates when we realize that Duke Cody's (Dave Bautista) gun is missing from his body.
As the lights go off (around 1:06 hr into the film), for a split second you can see that Bron is actually carrying the gun in the hallway.
Plot: A US Marshal investigates a hospital for the criminally insane, hoping to find clues about a murderer who recently escaped.
Hidden Clue: Agent Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) are asked to remove their firearms before entering the hospital. Chuck struggles to get his gun off the holster.
Later on, we realize he struggled because he's actually a doctor, not a law enforcement officer.
