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, quietly subverting the story all along? You’re not alone. Those clues are a form of foreshadowing, a powerful storytelling device that helps make the ending—no matter how wild—feel earned. Using foreshadowing in your story 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, viewers may lose interest. If it’s too subtle, they may miss it altogether.

Before we look at examples of foreshadowing in movies, it’s important to define foreshadowing and its function. What exactly is foreshadowing? 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 highly 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 on 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 focus the audience’s attention.

• Creating suspense
• Dramatic build-up
• Cultivating anticipation

Two Types of Foreshadowing

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

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

An example of direct foreshadowing can be found in Macbeth.

Shakespeare opens the play with three witches who clearly 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, while it gives us information, it also makes us and the characters in the play want to know more. Why will Macbeth become king, yet Banquo’s line ultimately inherits the throne?

Indirect foreshadowing is when story elements hint at future events by leaving subtle clues about what’s going to happen. These hints are not obvious, and are only fully understood 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 lays the groundwork for the climactic moment between Lennie and Curley’s wife.

Although there may be two ways to categorize foreshadowing, both are effective at achieving the same goal when used properly. Capturing the audience’s attention is at the core of this technique.

Foreshadowing and Related Devices

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

Chekhov’s gun is a very famous form of foreshadowing. The technique refers to Anton Chekhov’s principle 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 any detail you emphasize early on 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 never gets used at all, that’s a red herring. A red herring is a story element designed to steer us in one direction so that we’ll be surprised later.

Foreshadowing hints at the future; a flash-forward shows us the future. However, a flash-forward can be vague enough that it effectively serves as foreshadowing. For example, we see a close-up of someone reaching under a pillow and pulling out a gun, but we don’t know who it is or why they’re doing it, and then we cut back to events before this is revealed. That’s foreshadowing.

Examples of Foreshadowing in Literature

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

In William Shakespeare’s famous tragedy Romeo and Juliet, there are several instances of foreshadowing. Romeo says, “Come, death, and welcome. Juliet wills it so.” This (rather obviously) hints at the fate of Romeo and his lover.

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

The ending of The Monkey’s Paw is quite grim, and it’s 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 on the fire again.”

After reading this, most readers become more alert, worried that things are about to get much worse.

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 progresses, George begins to believe that Lennie may fit this description too.

Examples of Foreshadowing in Film

Although there are mainly two types of foreshadowing, filmmakers have found ways to use nearly every tool in cinema to foreshadow story events—from the film’s title to a character’s costume. Analyzing and breaking down some of these examples will help you spot foreshadowing opportunities in your own stories that you might not have noticed before.

Sometimes, the title of a movie itself can foreshadow its plot. This method of foreshadowing has to be vague enough to spark curiosity before the audience watches it, and meaningful enough to be understood once the end credits roll. The Coen brothers achieved 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 not well suited to the new generation of crime he encounters.

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

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

If you’ve seen The Departed, you know the film is full of twists and that nearly all the main characters die. But did you know director Martin Scorsese left a very clear clue about which characters would die? Borrowing from the 1932 film Scarface, Scorsese places an “X” somewhere in the frame with every character who dies.

This classic “whodunit” film keeps audiences curious and invested right up to the final 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.

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

The Prestige is a great example of a film that uses just 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, where he kills a bird and then brings it back to life.

Foreshadowing is one of the most effective tools filmmakers use to spark the audience’s curiosity and hold their attention. However, it’s important to know 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 the story may feel dull or confusing—again losing their interest.

Try identifying a few moments in your story where you can use foreshadowing techniques and see which approaches work best for you.