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 revisited it, you realized all the now-obvious clues had been there all along, secretly undermining the story you thought you were experiencing? You’re not alone. These 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 own stories can create a sense of anticipation and keep your audience engaged all the way to the end.

Foreshadowing

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

Before we look at examples of foreshadowing in movies, we first need to define foreshadowing and its function. 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 signal 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 end of a film or novel. Writers often use foreshadowing early in a story to set up what comes later. “Hint” and “prediction” are both synonyms for foreshadowing. While you can categorize foreshadowing by how subtle or direct it is, its main function is always to capture the audience’s attention.

• Create suspense
• Build dramatic tension
• Foster anticipation

Two Types of Foreshadowing

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

Direct foreshadowing is when an element in the story explicitly signals an event that is going to happen. This can be done through dialogue, a narrator, or a prophecy within the story.

You can find an example of direct foreshadowing in Macbeth.

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

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

Indirect foreshadowing is when elements of the story hint at future events by leaving subtle clues about what will happen. These hints are not obvious, and only become fully clear once the events they foreshadow actually occur.

Of Mice and Men is a great example.

Throughout the book, there are references to 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 when used well. Drawing the audience’s attention is at the heart of using this technique.

Foreshadowing and Other Devices

Foreshadowing can be 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 device refers to Anton Chekhov’s advice that if a gun appears at the beginning of a story, it must be fired by the end.

The point of the rule is that details you emphasize early in the story should come back into play 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 it’s foreshadowing that the gun will be used later. If the gun turns out to be fake or is never used, that’s a red herring. Red herrings are story elements designed to lead us in one direction so that we’ll be surprised later.

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

Examples of Foreshadowing in Literature

Long before foreshadowing appeared in films, it was used in books. Writers of any genre can learn from the following examples.

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

Juliet also dreams of Romeo lying dead in a tomb. This too foreshadows that something very bad is going to happen.

The ending of “The Monkey’s Paw” is also quite grim—and not without forewarning. The man who previously owned 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 in the fire again.”

After reading this, most readers are on edge, worried that things are going to get much worse.

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

Examples of Foreshadowing in Film

While there are mainly two types of foreshadowing, filmmakers have found ways to use almost every tool of cinema to foreshadow story events, from the movie’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 never have noticed before.

Sometimes, the very title of a film hints at its narrative. This method of foreshadowing has to be vague enough to spark curiosity before the audience watches, yet clear enough that they understand it once the end credits roll. The Coen brothers did this perfectly in their 2007 film No Country for Old Men.

The title, taken from writer-screenwriter Cormac McCarthy’s work, suggests that Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) no longer fits into the new generation of crime he encounters.

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

Fight Club is one of the most famous twist-ending films of recent years. If you’ve watched it a second or even third time, you may notice subtle clues throughout that foreshadow that Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) is not real—including this line of voiceover.

If you’ve seen The Departed, you know the film is full of twists and that almost every main character dies. But did you know director Martin Scorsese leaves very explicit clues about which characters will die? Borrowing a device from the 1932 film Scarface, Scorsese places an “X” somewhere in the frame in shots of characters who are going to die.

This classic “whodunit” keeps the audience curious and immersed until the very last moment. How? The Usual Suspects cleverly balances subtle, indirect foreshadowing throughout with quick, direct foreshadowing beats that tie everything together. The result is a twist ending that still ranks among the best more than twenty years later.

That incredible final scene has been copied and parodied for years after its release, largely because of how effectively it pulls together all the foreshadowing threads to close the story.

The Prestige is another strong example, weaving in just enough foreshadowing to engage the audience without giving away its major twist. One of the film’s best scenes is Alfred performing the birdcage trick, in which he kills a bird and then brings it “back to life.”

Foreshadowing is one of the most effective tools filmmakers have for sparking curiosity and holding the audience’s attention. However, it’s important to understand how much foreshadowing your story needs and what kind. Too much foreshadowing can make a story predictable and cause the audience to lose interest. Too little, and things may feel dull or confusing—which also drives them away.

Try to identify moments in your story where you can employ some foreshadowing techniques and see which ones work for you.