10 Incredibly Smug Movie References You Might Have Missed

5. Last Action Hero - The Terminator

Along with Scream and The Cabin In The Woods, John McTiernan's superlative Last Action Hero probably stands as the finest meta-film of all time, thanks to its conscious celebration of generic conventions and a very clever commitment to deconstruction them.

It is a gem of a film, offering both a ribald parody of the action genre, and a celebration of everything that makes it great, with the prize sting in the tail of having one of the world's biggest action stars in the lead. And in amongst the numerous meta-references is one scene that introduced Schwarzenegger's Jack Slater to a poster of one of the actor's own films, but with a difference. In a video store, Slater clocks an advertisement for The Terminator, starring Sylvester Stallone, a visual joke that represents one of the funniest touches in the film.

So why is it smug exactly? Well, the line is very obviously a backhanded compliment directed at Stallone, especially as the script carries the extra punch of calling it "his best performance ever."

So, that's an Arnie movie celebrating the acting of Sly Stallone, but in a movie that he never acted in - presumably suggesting what Arnie's camp actually thinks of Stallone's career.