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 to it, you realized all the now-obvious clues had been quietly subverting the story the whole time? 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 story can create anticipation and keep your audience engaged until the very end.

Foreshadowing

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

Before we look at examples of foreshadowing in films, we first need to define what foreshadowing is and what it does. What is foreshadowing to begin with? 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 ends. Writers often use foreshadowing early in a story to set up later events. “Hinting” and “foretelling” are both synonyms for foreshadowing. While you can categorize foreshadowing by how subtle or direct it is, its main function is to focus the audience’s attention.

• Creating suspense
• Dramatic buildup
• Building anticipation

Two Types of Foreshadowing

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

Direct foreshadowing is when an element in the story clearly signals an event that will happen later. 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 the three witches explicitly stating 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, while it gives us information, it also makes both us and the characters want to know more. Why will Macbeth become king if Banquo’s line ultimately takes the throne?

Indirect foreshadowing is when story elements hint at upcoming events by leaving subtle clues about what will happen. These hints are not obvious; they are only fully understood once the foreshadowed event actually occurs.

Of Mice and Men is a strong example.

Throughout the book, it’s mentioned that Lennie accidentally kills things when he pets them. This sets up the climactic moment between Lennie and Curley’s wife.

Although there may be two ways to categorize foreshadowing, both approaches can be equally effective when used well. Capturing the audience’s attention is at the heart of this technique.

Foreshadowing and Other Devices

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

Chekhov’s gun is a very famous form of foreshadowing. The principle, attributed to Anton Chekhov, can be summed up 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 any detail you emphasize early in the 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’ll assume it’s 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 that 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 as a kind of foreshadowing. For example, we see a close-up of someone pulling a gun out 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

Foreshadowing appeared in books long before it appeared in films. Writers in any genre can learn from some of the examples below.

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

Juliet also dreams of Romeo lying dead in a tomb. That too foreshadows that things are not going to end well.

The ending of “The Monkey’s Paw” is also quite grim, and it does not come without warning. The previous owner of the magic 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, having seen this, will be on edge, expecting things to go very wrong.

Here’s another bleak story. John Steinbeck foreshadows (spoiler alert) Lennie’s fate in his famous work. In the book, one character explains in detail that animals too weak to survive in a harsh world should be killed for their own good. As the story goes on, George comes to believe Lennie may fall into that same category.

Examples of Foreshadowing in Film

Although foreshadowing mainly has two types, filmmakers have found ways to use almost every tool of cinema to foreshadow story developments—from film titles to costume design. Analyzing and breaking down some of these examples can help you spot foreshadowing opportunities in your own stories that you might otherwise miss.

Sometimes, a film’s title itself foreshadows its plot. This approach has to be vague enough to intrigue viewers before they watch the movie, yet clear enough that the meaning is understood 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 and screenwriter Cormac McCarthy, hints that Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is ill-suited to deal with the new generation of crime he encounters.

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

Fight Club is one of the most prominent plot-twist films of recent years. If you’ve watched it a second or even a third time, you may notice subtle clues throughout the film that foreshadow the fact that Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) isn’t real, including the above voice-over line.

If you’ve seen The Departed, you know the film is full of twists and that nearly every main character dies. But did you know director Martin Scorsese left very clear clues about which characters would die? Drawing on the 1932 Scarface script, Scorsese places an “X” somewhere in the frame for every character who is going to be killed.

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

The film’s incredible final scene has been copied and parodied for years after its release, largely because of how effectively it pulls together all the foreshadowing clues to close out the story.

The Prestige is a great example of a film that weaves in enough foreshadowing to keep the audience engaged without giving away its major twists. One of the most striking scenes in the film shows 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 use to spark curiosity and hold their audience’s attention. However, it’s important to know how much foreshadowing your story needs and what kind to use. Too much foreshadowing can make the story predictable and cause viewers to lose interest. Too little can make it dull or confusing, which also drives them away.

Try looking for moments in your story where you can incorporate some foreshadowing techniques, and see which ones work best for you.