The Most Paused Movie Scenes in Cinema

Plenty of times, we do that by pausing the movie to really absorb everything happening. Sometimes they come too fast. Other times there’s too much happening on screen to truly enjoy in the moment. Regardless, these are the scenes that are paused more than any other.

There’s a little Easter egg that appears during a scene in the Galactic Senate. George Lucas gives a clever nod to his friend Steven Spielberg. One group of aliens looks quite familiar and straight out of a beloved 80s movie.

In the famous scene, Sharon Stone’s character gives a flash of skin to a room full of investigators while they’re asking about her sex life. It’s a steamy moment to be sure.

At the end of the movie, when Norman Bates is in police custody, there is a close-up of his face. If you pause at the right time, you can see a skull superimposed over him. It certainly adds another dimension of creepiness to the character.

At one point, there’s a quick scan of a whiteboard that lists all of the available ways for the characters to die. It goes too quickly for you to read it all in the moment, so fans of the movie have all paused to see everything on the list. There are some fun ones, and surprisingly, most of them show up at some point in the movie.

Among the many rowdy and raunchy scenes in the movie, one stands above the rest. For those in the know, that scene happens when Linda is going for a swim and gets out of the pool. The scene is certainly not safe for work and full of crude humor. It’s easy to see why it has been paused countless times over the decades.

The movie pays very close attention to continuity, and as such, every action taken by Marty McFly in the past seems to have consequences in his present. There are a few moments that will require you to rewind or pause to fully appreciate. For instance, after Marty crashes into a tree in the past, the mall in his own time changes its name from “Twin Pines” to “Lone Pine.” There are plenty of other changes you can find if you hunt.

The best cameo goes to the truck driver who tempts Freddy to stray from his heterosexual ways while on tour. The makeup is excellent, so you might not realize that the driver is played by Adam Lambert — who happens to be the fill-in for Freddy on modern Queen tours.

Perhaps the best reference comes in the form of the mechanical bartender. He’s dressed directly like the bartender from The Shining. A side-by-side comparison makes it unmistakable.

The famous scene in The Rescuers is easy to miss. As the mice are speeding down a road, the houses in the background hold a naughty image. You won’t see it unless you pause, but then you’ll wonder how it remained all these years.

In a key scene, Steve Rogers adds a line to a pocket notebook that he is carrying. The notebook is full of things that he supposedly missed while frozen. Fans of the movie have poured over the list in detail, and they have even noted how it changes depending on the region where the movie was marketed.

Having been viewed so many times, it’s no wonder that there are legends and hidden secrets within the film. The most notorious of these can be seen in a paused moment as Dorothy sets off down the yellow brick road. A strange shadow hangs in the background, and legends say that it is the tragic end of a disgruntled munchkin.

The movie has plenty of scenes of teenagers being inappropriate, but one really requires you to use the pause feature to see it. At the end of the last basketball game, everyone is celebrating, and one extra seems to be doing so without as much clothing as the rest.

That’s because one of the characters explains how you can hide an image in a film by changing a single frame. The image will flash so quickly that viewers can’t be sure of what they saw, and this is actually how the movie introduces Brad Pitt’s character. There are other images hidden throughout the movie that require a perfectly-timed pause to view as well. Then again, you might not want to find all of them.

Fans have also found silly mistakes, Easter eggs and plenty of other hidden messages. The one that really requires you to pause takes place when the characters are making their escape on the Death Star. One of the Storm Troopers seems to bonk his head on a door. It seems kind of silly, but it also adds unexpected humanity to the Empire’s often overlooked henchmen.

There’s a scene where adult Simba sighs and falls onto a bunch of flowers. The petals and dust get caught on a breeze and are carried away, and as that happens, they seem to spell a certain word amid the starry night.

One that really stands out from this movie takes place when Tony Stark is struggling to remove the suit in his shop. In the background, you can see what looks like an unfinished shield with a single star on it.

The movie made tons of sly references to the real world and really tried to capture how modern people would react to a park with real dinosaurs. Perhaps the most perfect example of this took place when loose pterodactyls are terrorizing the guests. A quick shot shows Jimmy Buffet grabbing his drinks before trying to make his escape. It’s a quick moment, but you can enjoy it longer by pausing the film.

There’s a moment where the film’s villain is delivering impassioned lines. Fans of the movie eventually realized that when you pause at just the right moment, you can see that a fly was crawling into his mouth during filming. It didn’t deter actor Raul Freeman’s delivery one bit.

Considering the source, there were bound to be references to Finding Nemo, and fans with a quick pause reflex were able to find exactly that. A fast background shot shows a picture of Darla from the original movie. It was a fun surprise for anyone who was paying especially close attention.

It’s no wonder that fans of the movie have combed through every scene. In their search, they found a sinister surprise waiting for them. There is a single, brief moment in the movie where the demon possessing Regan is visible. You have to pause just right to get a good look. It seems in line with the general themes of horror present throughout the movie.

One of the best is written in Spanish on a sign in the movie. You have to pause to get a good look, and for those who aren’t so good with Latin languages, here’s a translation of what you’ll find, “We spit in your food.” Yes, the sign is for a Mexican restaurant.

The one on this list isn’t exactly a single pausable moment. Instead, it’s pointing out an homage that most people never really knew was in the film. The character Dennis Nedry’s appearance repeatedly references characters from The Goonies — another Speilberg classic.

In that exploration, they found something peculiar. When Neo is going to meet the Oracle, there is a really cool shot that shows him in the reflection of the doorknob. If you pause the movie and look closely, you’ll see that the filmmakers had to hide the camera in the shot with some clever trickery.

This movie didn’t make the list because of naughty hidden secrets. Instead, it has a couple of pausable moments that are full of great puns. The main character has a playlist, and every song on the list is a pun. The artists are also puns. So, if you want to enjoy the dad jokes, you’ll probably have to pause.

One death really stands out in the crazy scene. When an invisible character lands on a power line and is electrocuted, you can briefly see him, and he turns out to be a major cameo in the movie. It’s so fast that you can only really appreciate the cameo with a properly timed pause.

There’s a major twist in the movie, and it shocks viewers just as much as it did the main characters. The moment is not safe for work, but it’s such a brilliant twist that many viewers have paused and rewatched it just to wrap their minds around everything.

While the main character is trying to unravel secrets on Mars, he comes across a woman with abnormal anatomy. It’s a moment of pure shock value, and many viewers had to pause to be sure of what they just saw.

Without spoiling a truly impactful moment in cinematic history, the paused moment comes when a character is suddenly subjected to some Cronenberg-style violence.

If you remember the story, Ariel is transformed from mermaid to human, and hijinks ensue. When she first comes ashore, she hasn’t yet learned about pants. Needless to say, she was animated in a bit more detail than you might expect for a kid’s movie.

One such moment happens when you can see a game of Pacman unexpectedly appear on one of the screens. It’s brief and hard to catch, but it’s a nice little surprise for anyone watching closely.

During a scene that really plays into her . . . curvy design, the animators reveal quite a bit more than you might expect.

At one moment, you see a satellite become collateral damage. If you pause the movie and tilt your head, you can see who made the satellite, and it’s a nice allusion to another famous D.C. character.

One jump scare happens when the characters are watching the news. Nothing eventful happens in the scene, but it still elicits a good scare. It’s the first time any of the aliens can be seen in the daylight. The footage is grainy, but many viewers paused for a better look all the same.

At one point in the movie, a garbage man comes to empty a can, and if you pay close attention, you can see that he was in the first movie too and is all grown up now.

But, none of those are the most paused moments. That moment occurs when Bruce Willis is on the screen. He steps out of the shower in the buff, and legends say that if you pause it just right, you can see everything.

When Gaston goes to storm Beast’s castle, there’s a brief flash of his eyes. If you’ve never paused, you won’t know this, but during that flash, you can see a skull reflected in his pupils.

There is one moment that clearly stands out above the rest. Mark Whalberg’s character is giving himself a bit of a pep talk in front of a mirror, and he happens to be showing everything — if you catch the drift. Viewers were shocked by the sheer dimensions of what they saw, but it was later revealed that the scene was filmed using a prosthetic.

In Tarzan, there is a scene where Tarzan’s friends trash the human camp with a fun musical number ensues. If you look closely, you’ll see that the tea set is very familiar.

In a rather intense and steamy scene, she teases Belfort with a bit of a reveal. It was too much for some viewers to handle. The same can be said for other characters in the movie.

There are a few scenes that fit that description, but the one that takes the cake is the cold open. Seeing a character introduced just to be brutally killed in such a frightening fashion was new to cinema, and fans had to pause to take it all in.