15 coolest shared-universe moments in movies

A rare multiple crossover occurs when Kurt Russell's military record flashes up onscreen in the film Soldier. One shared universe moment suggests he's been trained to use the M41A Pulse Rifle, linking this world with Aliens. 

Yet there are plenty of other movie Easter eggs in there, including a list of battles that references the locations from a speech in The Wrath of Khan and some commendations that sound a lot like previous character names. And, of course, he fought at the Tannhauser Gate, like Blade Runner's Roy Batty. 

Marvel's MCU is the shared universe all other shared universes aspire to be. There are no end of good crossover moments to choose from but our all-time favourite is Loki trying to rile his brother Thor by appearing as different people – including Captain America. 

It actually harks back to another very early shared moment when Mr Fantastic turned into Wolverine in Fantastic Four. Sadly his impression was cut from the film and ended up in the DVD extras.

If you've ever wondered where Friday the 13th kill-machine Jason gets his power, you only have to look at his reading material. In Jason Goes to Hell, he's got the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis (The Book of the Dead) from The Evil Dead series in his possession. That shared universe is further explored via comic books.

Spotting a group of delegates from ET's home world in the Imperial Senate Chamber answers so many questions. Wouldn't it make sense that ET was a Jedi, given that he can make a bicycle float through the air?

There's a nice fourth wall break in Deadpool where the Merc with a Mouth wonders if the only two X-Men apparently staying at Xavier's mansion are the ones the studio can afford. 

In a callback to this in Deadpool 2, the cast of X-Men: Dark Phoenix (including stars James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, Evan Peters and Tye Sheridan) close a door before Ryan Reynold's character spots them.

When Danny Glover's cop tracks the alien hunter back to its ship in Predator 2 he finds its trophy cabinet, which includes an alien skull. When this shared universe moment appeared onscreen, fans of the Aliens vs Predator comics lost their minds. Could it really happen? Would these two races actually face off against each other? Then we all saw AVP and wished Danny had never found it.

There are those who would argue that Jason Statham plays the same character in every movie. That could be the case when he delivers a package to Tom Cruise's hitman in Collateral but we prefer to believe that this incredibly brief, uncredited cameo features his gruff character from The Transporter series, as these two men deserve to live in a shared world.

We only have a (really fun) first trailer and some official images of Shazam! so far, but there's already been some nice touches that place it in the wider DC Universe. Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer), the best friend of Billy Batson (Asher Angel), is enough of a fan of the Justice League to have a Superman hat and cup, Batman action figure and batarang on his shelves, as well as a news story about the last son of Krypton's return on his wall.

There something incredible about realising that "Uncle" Machete from the Spy Kids films is the deadly assassin from the Machete movies. The same man who doles out tech to nippers like a Mexican version of Q from the Bond movies is also capable of rappelling out of a hospital window using someone's intestines as a rope. Amazing.

OK, so you'd have to wade through the bonus features on the Prometheus Blu-ray pretty carefully to get this reference but it turns out that Blade Runner's Eldon Tyrell was the mentor of Peter Weyland from the Alien franchise. In a journal entry written by Weyland (Guy Pearce) he talks about a man who "ran his corporation like a God on top of a pyramid overlooking a city of angels".

When you're building a superteam someone has to be first and in the most recent incarnation of the DC Universe it was Superman. But director Zack Snyder hid a ton of Easter eggs from the wider comic-book world in his film, including everything from Wayne Enterprises and LexCorp logos to the Utopia Casino owned by villain Tony Gallo. Our favourite is the blink-and-you-still-can't-see-it Be Calm and Call Batman poster on an office wall during the Zod fight. It's an insanely tiny detail to hide in a movie.

As a droid, R2-D2 could technically live forever. So even though we know Star Wars takes place a "long time ago", it's not impossible that he could survive until Egyptian times and be immortalised with his pal C-3P0 in tomb decorations seen in Raiders of the Lost Ark. And if R2-D2 survived even further into our future, that would explain why he's seen flying through space in JJ Abrams' reboot of Star Trek.