16 Pirates Of The Caribbean Easter Eggs You Probably Missed

16. Citizen Kane

There are some genuine high-brow references in the franchise that most kids watching would never have got, but which eagle-eyed cinephiles would have got a serious kick out of.

Firstly, at the end of the first film, when Barbossa meets his (temporary) demise, his symbolic apple (which turns into a running joke) falls out of his hand in an almost shot-for-shot redo of Citizen Kane's death scene, when he drops the snow globe.

And then in Dead Man's Chest, there's a reference to The Good, The Bad & The Ugly in the triple stand-off between Will Turner, Sparrow and Norrington. Their angry triangle is reminiscent of the one from the climactic showdown of the classic Western between Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef.