10 Most Spiteful Movie Easter Eggs Ever

There's an undeniable art to movie Easter eggs - audiences love to seek them out for their cleverness and ingenuity, often serving as a reward for keen-eyed, attentive viewers.

More often than not Easter eggs are a playful tip of the hat to observant audience members, perhaps containing a sly nod to a wider aspect of the series' lore or simply including a cute message acknowledging that the viewer is paying attention.

But every now and then, a filmmaker will sneak a secret into their film that's a little more nefarious, perhaps even genuinely mean-spirited.

These 10 films, from outrageous comedies to dark thrillers and mega-budget blockbusters, all included gags, references, and sneaky visuals thumbing their nose at something, be it another movie, another franchise, some pesky producers, or perhaps even a few uncharitable film critics.

These Easter eggs all fly by fast enough that they're sure to be easily missed by the majority of viewers, but in reality the director is throwing some catty shade at someone or something that's done them "wrong."

Whether the spite was truly earned or not, these filmmakers vented their bile with gags that were hidden in plain sight...

It's no secret that David Fincher had an absolutely hellish time working on his feature debut Alien 3, with executive meddling resulting in a messy - if intriguing - end product that he still disowns to this very day.

But Fincher seemingly couldn't resist getting some petty revenge while shooting Fight Club.

In the montage of Project Mayhem's "soldiers" carrying out their various missions of criminal mischief, some of them are seen demagnetising all the video tapes in a rental store. If you look closely, one of the rows of VHS tapes is filled with copies of Ridley Scott's original Alien.

Presumably the rental store they shot the scene in didn't have any copies of Alien 3 lingering around, so Fincher had to settle for Scott's film which, in the causal sense, led to Fincher's misfire of a directorial debut.

Before anyone considers this a mere coincidence, remember that Fincher is one of the most detail-orientated filmmakers working today - if something is upfront in the frame, he meant it to be there.