38 Old Hollywood Easter Eggs in ‘Minions & Monsters’

Note: This story contains spoilers for Minions & Monsters.

It may seem like the Minions movies are for kids, but I’m not so sure if that’s true for the newest one. Minions & Monsters is actually for the cinephiles, and the further back your love of movies stretches, the better.

The plot follows two Minions—Henry and James—whose love of being henchmen to a “Big Boss” villain is superseded by their interest in making and sharing their own stories. When the Minions land in Hollywood, Henry and James somehow turn the crew into silent-film stars. But when sound enters the picture (literally), the Minion language of Minionese doesn’t quite work, and Henry and James resort to desperate measures—namely real-life conjuring monsters for a kaiju movie—to stay relevant.

Throughout their adventures, on film sets and off, they find themselves in situations that resemble the most famous films throughout history, starting with the dawn of cinema. The movie is framed by a tour through a museum dedicated to movies, where a tour guide explains to the group how the Minions changed the course of film history. The memorabilia in the background of the museum is enough to keep film geeks going, but there are plenty of other movie references for films throughout cinema history.

1910s and Earlier

• The references start even before the movie begins in earnest: The whole thing kicks off with a tour backwards in time through various Universal Pictures logos, until there’s a black-and-white, Merrie Melodies-esque animated intro.
• It wouldn’t be an homage to early film without a nod to the earliest film: Edward Muybridge’s The Horse in Motion (1878), which is really just footage of a jockey riding a racehorse. The Minions gallop on a racehorse in a similar manner, and the film is also referenced in the promotional, tie-in Minions zoetrope popcorn bucket.
• They also jog alongside a dog, just like in Dog Running (1887).
• The Minions trick a gardener in a scene similar to the one in L’Arroseur Arrosé (1895).
• A train-related action sequence is a big part of the movie, so it makes sense that the Minions would find themselves in the station from Train Pulling Into a Station (1896). They also pull off a heist akin to the one in The Great Train Robbery (1903), albeit with more mayhem. There are also shades of The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906).
• Even those who aren’t well versed in early films probably recognize the famous scene from A Trip to the Moon (1902), where the Man in the Moon is poked in the eye with a rocket. In this case, it’s a big, smiling Minion face shining up in the sky.

1920s

• When the Minions are stealing the train, a man can be seen hanging off a clock, the way Harold Lloyd famously does in Safety Last (1923).
• In the background of the museum, one of the displays features the robot from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927)—one of my favorite robot designs ever.
• There’s also a two-for-one on Buster Keaton references, since the Minions pack the front of the train like in The General (1927), and then the facade of a house falls, the way it does in the big stunt from Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928).
• Not quite a film, but one of the first monsters that Henry and James conjure, a little green guy with face tentacles called Goomie, is meant to resemble the cosmic-horror icon Cthulhu, from H.P. Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” (1928).

1930s

• Of course The Mummy (1932) makes an appearance—Minions & Monsters is a Universal movie, and the Mummy is a classic Universal monster. The Minions try to make the Mummy their “big boss” for a while, until one of the crew accidentally unravels him. There’s also a Mummy in the film museum.
• At one point, the Minions knock a man with a small mustache into the cogs of a machine. If he looks like Charlie Chaplin, it’s on purpose—it’s a scene from Modern Times (1936).

1940s

• In the museum, there’s an inflatable globe, a reference to Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940).
• The Minions get their monster-conjuring power from a book that belonged to a previous Big Boss, a dark wizard. He looks very similar to the one in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” part of Fantasia (1940)—and this magician’s helpers are equally bad at following directions.
• Befitting its place in film history, Citizen Kane (1941) and its creator appear more than once. There is an extended parody of one of the film’s most famous scenes—and you haven’t lived until you’ve seen it done in Minionese. Kane director Orson Welles is also on display in the film museum.
• Another classic genre made hilarious by Minionese, when they first transition to sound, the Minions are in the middle of making a hard-boiled noir film. Of course, the lead actor ruins it by not really being able to say the lines properly. They call this Minion Humphrey, as in Humphrey Bogart from The Maltese Falcon (1941).
• Casablanca (1942) also gets multiple shout-outs. Rick Blaine can be seen in the museum, and the studio heads—twins voiced by Jeff Bridges—request that a piano player named Sam “play it again.” Of course, Sam plays the famous theme from Casablanca.

1950s

• In one of the most obvious, hit-you-over-the-head references, there’s a robot named Dort, who looks a lot like Gort, the robot from The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).
• The entire plot of the movie—about a group of silent film stars who can’t quite make the transition to the “talkies”—is basically the plot of Singin’ in the Rain (1952). (Also 2022’s Babylon, which is almost eerily similar to this one!)
• The Mummy isn’t the only classic Universal monster on display in the museum—the gill man from The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1953) is right there next to the Metropolis robot.
• Kirk Douglas from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) can be spotted in the museum.
• Minions can be seen eating spaghetti in a nod to the ultimate spaghetti-eating scene from Lady and the Tramp (1955).
• The ultimate villain in the movie, Eyereen, is very similar to The Blob (1958).

1960s – the Present

• When Max, a director voiced by Christoph Waltz, is saying goodbye to a long line of Minions, they each share a first name with a famous director. Some of the names include Federico (as in Fellini), Quentin (as in Tarantino), Steven (as in Spielberg and Soderbergh), Erich (as in von Stroheim), Ridley (as in Scott), and Denis (as in Villeneuve). “That was an ad-lib from Christoph Waltz,” director Pierre Coffin (who does the voice of all the Minions) tells Variety. “I had written regular Minion names, like Tim and John, and he said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if they were directors?’”
• Bruce Lee is also visible in the museum, as is Alfred Hitchcock, surrounded by birds à la The Birds (1963). Star Wars creator George Lucas is there, too, and the director even recorded a bit of dialogue for the movie himself!
• The Minions survive a shark attack, similar to another summer blockbuster, 1975’s Jaws.
• The titular airplane from Airplane! (1980) is also on display in the museum.
• Another potential Big Boss, a cyclops, looks like it was inspired by Clash of the Titans (1981).
• Jaws isn’t the only Spielberg movie represented—the museum also has Elliot and E.T. from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982).
• You can also spot the hoverboard from Back to the Future Part II (1989)—something I’m still mad hasn’t been invented yet.
• The museum tour group passes a display of Neo from The Matrix (1999).
• A giant party—with elephants in attendance!—was meant to evoke Peter Sellers’s 1968 The Party, but ended up being more like Babylon again, so they went with it. “The Babylon thing came after the fact, but my initial thing was Blake Edwards more than Babylon,” Coffin tells Den of Geek. “It was just a general collectivist thing where let’s have crazy animals in there to show these guys are so rich they can get anything they want.”

So, which ones did I miss? Let me know in the comments.