What Is Foreshadowing – Examples in Film and Literature

Have you ever watched a movie or read a book where a plot twist completely shocked you—but when you went back through it, you realized all the now-obvious clues had been quietly subverting the story all along? You’re not alone. Those clues are a form of foreshadowing, a powerful storytelling technique that helps make an ending—no matter how wild—feel earned. Using foreshadowing in your stories can create anticipation and keep your audience engaged right up to the end.

Foreshadowing

When used well, foreshadowing can be extremely effective at drawing in an audience. If it’s too obvious, the audience may lose interest. If it’s too subtle, they might miss it entirely.

Before we look at examples of foreshadowing in film, we first need to define what it is and what it does. What is foreshadowing, fundamentally? How does it help you tell your story?

What Is Foreshadowing?

Foreshadowing is a literary device used to hint at or suggest future events in a story. It can be a very effective tool for building curiosity, intrigue, suspense, or even a sense of narrative harmony by the time a film or novel reaches its ending. Writers often use foreshadowing early in a story to set up later events. “Hint” and “prediction” are both synonyms for foreshadowing. While you can categorize types of foreshadowing by how subtle or direct they are, its main function is to hold the audience’s attention.

• Creating suspense
• Dramatic buildup
• Building anticipation

Two Types of Foreshadowing

Now that you know the definition of foreshadowing, you may already be thinking of examples from books or movies that immediately spring to mind. All of these examples fall into one of two types of foreshadowing.

Direct foreshadowing is when an element in the story explicitly suggests an upcoming event. This can come through dialogue, a narrator, or a prophecy within the story.

An example of direct foreshadowing can be found in Macbeth.

Shakespeare opens with three witches who plainly state Macbeth’s fate—that he “shalt be king hereafter,” but that Banquo will be the father of future kings.

This is a clever use of direct foreshadowing because it gives us information while also making us—and the characters—want to know more. Why will Macbeth be king, yet Banquo’s line ultimately takes the throne?

Indirect foreshadowing is when story elements hint at upcoming events through subtle clues. These hints aren’t obvious and usually aren’t fully understood until the event they foreshadow actually happens.

Of Mice and Men is a great example.

Throughout the book, there are repeated mentions of Lennie accidentally killing things when he pets them. This sets up the climactic moment between Lennie and Curley’s wife.

Although there may be two ways to define foreshadowing, both can effectively serve the same purpose if used well. The core of the technique is capturing the audience’s attention.

Foreshadowing vs. Other Devices

Foreshadowing is often confused with, or used to refer to, several other literary devices. Let’s look at some terms commonly associated with foreshadowing.

Chekhov’s gun is a very famous form of foreshadowing. The principle, based on Anton Chekhov’s work, can be summarized as: if a gun appears at the beginning of the story, it must be fired by the end.

The point of the rule is that details you highlight early in a story should pay off later. Sound familiar? That’s foreshadowing.

A red herring uses the audience’s familiarity with foreshadowing against them. Suppose we see a gun hidden under a pillow in the first act—we assume this is foreshadowing that the gun will be used later. If the gun turns out to be fake, or is never used at all, that’s a red herring. Red herrings are story elements designed to lead us in one direction so we’ll be surprised later.

Foreshadowing hints at the future; a flashforward shows us the future. But a flashforward can be vague enough that it functions like a hint. For example, we see a close-up of someone taking a gun from under a pillow, but we don’t know who it is or why they’re doing it—then we cut back to events before the reveal. That’s also foreshadowing.

Examples of Foreshadowing in Literature

Foreshadowing appeared in books long before it showed up in movies. Writers in any genre can learn from the following examples.

Shakespeare’s famous tragedy Romeo and Juliet contains several moments of foreshadowing. Romeo says, “Then love-devouring death do what he dare; It is enough I may but call her mine.” This (rather clearly) hints at the fate awaiting him and his lover.

Juliet also dreams of Romeo lying dead at the bottom of a tomb. This likewise foreshadows that something very bad is coming.

The ending of The Monkey’s Paw is also quite grim—and not without warning. The previous owner of the magical talisman warns Mr. White: “I threw it on the fire. If you keep it, don’t blame me for what happens. Like a sensible man, throw it back on the fire again.”

Most readers, after seeing this, become wary and fear that things are going to get much worse.

Here’s another bleak story. In his famous work, John Steinbeck hints at (spoiler alert) Lennie’s fate. In the book, a character explains in detail that animals too weak to survive in a harsh world should be killed for their own good. As the story progresses, George begins to believe that Lennie might fit that description as well.

Examples of Foreshadowing in Film

Although there are mainly two kinds of foreshadowing, filmmakers have found ways to use almost every tool of cinema to foreshadow a story, from the film’s title to the characters’ costumes. Analyzing and breaking down some of these examples can help you spot foreshadowing opportunities in your own stories that you might otherwise miss.

Sometimes the title of a film itself foreshadows its story. This method has to be vague enough to spark curiosity before the audience watches, but clear enough to make sense once the credits roll. The Coen brothers achieved this perfectly with their 2007 film No Country for Old Men.

The title, adapted from a line by writer Cormac McCarthy, hints that Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is not suited to dealing with the new generation of criminals he encounters.

“When you can’t sleep, nothing seems real anymore.”

Fight Club is one of the most famous plot-twist films in recent years. On a second or third viewing, you might notice subtle clues throughout the movie that foreshadow the fact that Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) isn’t real, including this voiceover line.

If you’ve seen The Departed, you know it’s full of twists and that almost all the main characters die—but did you know director Martin Scorsese left clear visual clues about which characters would die? Borrowing from the 1932 film Scarface, Scorsese places an “X” somewhere in the frame whenever a character who will die appears.

This classic “whodunit” keeps the audience curious and engaged right up to the last moment. How? The Usual Suspects skillfully balances subtle, indirect foreshadowing with quick, direct foreshadowing scenes throughout the film, tying all the plot threads together. The result is a plot twist that still ranks among the best more than twenty years later.

Its incredible final scene has been copied and parodied many times since its release, largely because of how effectively it pulls together all the foreshadowed clues to end the story.

The Prestige is another strong example: it layers in enough foreshadowing to hook the audience without giving away its major twists. One of the film’s best scenes is Alfred performing the birdcage trick, in which he kills a bird and then brings it back.

Foreshadowing is one of the most effective tools filmmakers have for sparking audience curiosity and keeping their attention. But it’s important to understand how much foreshadowing your story needs, and what kind. Too much can make a story predictable and dull; too little can make it confusing or boring—either way, you lose your audience.

Try identifying moments in your stories where you can use foreshadowing techniques, and see which approaches work best for you.