Not to be mistaken for a mid-credits scene, which is when a clip pops on the screen after some flashy credits sequence but before the real credits, a post-credits scene is what comes at the very end of the movie, after audiences have watched thousands of names scroll by.
With the Marvel Cinematic Universe popularizing the trend and having many post-credit scenes in their movies, post-credits scenes have almost become an expectation that audiences now have for every movie, but that wasn’t always the case. The first post-credits scene dates all the way back to 1966, but it took studios decades to catch on to the trend in a big way.
Earliest: The Great Muppet Caper (1981)
As movies in the Muppets series have never been shy about breaking the fourth wall, that’s exactly what happens at the end of The Great Muppet Caper.
Not only does the movie have some creative credits, as it sees the characters of the movie parachuting down the screen as the credits roll, but there’s a fascinatingly jarring post-credits scene too. When the credits come to an end, Gonzo, while parachuting, takes a photo of the audience and promises to send everybody a copy.
Latest: Sonic The Hedgehog (2020)
After barely escaping development hell, Sonic The Hedgehog surprised audiences when it actually turned out to be a lot of fun. However, as the whole movie went without even a mention of the hedgehog’s partner in crime, Tails, a fox with two tails that she uses as spinning rotors to fly, the post-credits scene didn’t come as much of a surprise to fans of the video game series.
There was clearly going to be a character reveal at some point, and though there’s still no Knuckles in the series, Tails is good enough. The fox enters into the real world through a ring portal, trying to find sonic, and the character design looks phenomenal.
Earliest: Airplane! (1980)
With post-credit scenes being very much in their infancy in 1980, especially as there had only been three movies to do it beforehand, Airplane set the precedent of continuing a running gag after the movie had technically ended.
As a taxi passenger gets into the cab at the beginning of the movie, the driver jumps out of the cab to run a quick errand, but not before hilariously starting the meter. He then disappears for two hours. After the credits have finished, the passenger can be found still sitting in the taxi, waiting for the driver to return.
Latest: Project Power (2020)
Though there are many great moments in the movie and it features a terrific premise, as Project Power is about a pill that gives people superpowers for five minutes, it’s also one of the latest in a string of underwhelming Netflix movies.
Of all the exciting things that could have been shown in a post-credits sequence, what audiences get is a short clip of Robin writing lyrics into a notepad. Though she is one of the best characters in the film, Robin’s side story of being a freestyle rapper is one of the things we hate about the movie.
Earliest: The Muppet Movie (1979)
The Muppets franchise loves a post-credit scene, as The Great Muppet Caper wasn’t the first movie in the series to pull one-off. Not many people know, but The Muppet Movie was the very movie that started the trend of post-credit scenes in which a character asks the audience why they’re still sitting there.
Ever since Animal told the audience to go home at the end of the 1979 movie, it has been done to death in movies such as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Mr. Bean, and even in Deadpool.
Latest: Bill & Ted Face The Music (2020)
As the movie goes forwards and backward, the time-travel is what makes Bill & Ted Face The Music one of the best sci-fi movies of 2020. But though audiences have seen the characters from the past and from the future, they have never seen them as old as they are in the post-credits scene, as they’re on their death beds literally waiting to die.
The final scene sees the two musicians strugglingly get out of bed to shred one last time. Though not having any character development is what generally makes a bad movie, it’s the cornerstone of the whole Bill & Ted series and is what makes it so great. The fact that they are just the same characters as they were in the first movie, pursuing their teenage dream literally on their death beds, is the perfect way to end the movie, and it’s also kind of sad.
Earliest: She-Devils On Wheels (1968)
As one recent trend in the movie industry is remaking classic movies with an all-female cast, producers should look to She-Devils On Wheels, as it proves that there can be truly original movies with an ensemble cast of mostly females.
The movie follows a motorcycle gang called the Man-Eaters, and at the end of the movie, the leader of the gang, Queen, is arrested for murder. However, after the credits have rolled, there’s one last scene that sees Queen get out of jail and rejoin her biker gang, who are waiting for her outside the jail.
Latest: Antebellum (2020)
Seemingly set over a century ago in the 1800s, Antebellum is a horror movie that follows an African American woman in a slave plantation. From the very beginning of the movie, not everything is as it seems and it becomes an interesting but down-to-death mystery.
It is revealed that the slave plantation isn’t actually a slave plantation at all, but a modern-day Civil War reenactment, which makes this one of the most terrifying southern horror movies. The post-credits scene shows the FBI discovering the plantation and finally freeing the slaves.
Earliest: The Silencers (1966)
Being the first film to feature a post-credits scene, The Silencers was very ahead of its time, as the movie’s tagline is “Girls, Gags, & Gadgets,” and the poster explains that the movie is the “best spy thriller of nineteen sexty-sex.”
The fact that it’s the first movie to ever have a post-credits scene is the only thing notable about it. But the idea that a movie with such a raunchy, scandalous, and kitsch tagline is also a movie that set one of the most popular movie trends going is hilarious.
Latest: Soul (2020)
Just as the trend began, the latest movie to have a post-credits scene, Soul, features one of the characters of the movie telling the audience the film is over, Just like Deadpool before it, and Mr. Bean before that, and Ferris Bueller before that, and surely many others in between.
The scene features Terry, one of the least likable of all the characters in the movie, telling the audience to “go home,” which is ironic considering that it became a Disney+ exclusive.