The right direction

It's amazing how paying attention to the slightest details elevates the experience by more than just a notch.
A movie goer loves the element of surprise, even more so, if that is brought out by a detail so diminutive that he chose to turn a blind eye to it initially.
Take Shawshank Redemption, for instance, what a lovely movie that was, film connoisseurs shall forever be indebted to Stephen King for the amazing stories he writes.

The Shawshank Redemption, The Shining and Inception movie spoilers ahead.

A rock hammer, and a poster, was all he needed to get out of the prison. The rock hammer, that we thought he used only to chisel those chess pieces out, helped him out of the hell hole that Shawshank was. A little rock hammer, and the Rita Hayworth/Marilyn Monroe/Raquel Welch poster.

Speaking of great movies, and attention to detail, the one director that pops into your head is Christopher Nolan, ranging from his very first feature film, Following, his movies have dealt with topics so very complex, yet making sure that the little details, were still absolutely perfect. The protagonist in the movie Following (Watch it if you haven't already), is a writer, and in one of the first few scenes, we see him typing away on his typewriter, and the wall behind him adorns a poster of Jack Nicholson in the movie The Shining (Another brilliant movie, may I add), The Shining also is a story about a writer, who ends up losing his state of mind due the circumstances that ensue. Following, follows the journey of the writer who ends up losing his vision from what he set out to do, write that is, due to few other circumstances as well, though we may not exactly be able to draw parallels, between both these movie, that little poster, puts a few things into perspective.

That Monroe poster!

Let's take Nolan's fairly recent movie, Inception. Don't we all adore the movie to bits? Now, let's skip to the very last scene, where DiCaprio spins his totem to check if he is still dreaming, while we were all paying attention to the totem, very few of us looked at DiCaprio's hand which was devoid of the wedding ring, that the extremely beautiful Marion Cotillard gave him, while in his dreams, she lived on, hence, the wedding ring was on him, the reality, of course differed. The little detail here, was the wedding ring.

Notice that the ring on his hand is missing.

There are so many elements that go into making the movie right, ranging from a good script, a director with eye for detail, the  dialogue, cinematography, knowing which detail to focus on and which detail to blur, makes a vast difference. These are the things that make the movie goer differentiate between a good film and a brilliant one.

A few traits set apart a few amazing people 

from the rest in the film industry.

Daniel Day Lewis, for example, lives the character, quite literally, now it's hard to miss out on small details that build a character, if you talk,walk and basically, live like them, isn't it? Other brilliant actors like Adrien Brody, Heath Ledger embody their characters so well, they ensure to emboss  the smallest details of the character they are portraying.

Same goes with directors such as Nolan, Martin Scorsese, Kubrick, Hitchcock (All hail the God of suspense and thriller!), et al, they focus on the smallest intricacies and make the story their own. This makes us love them. This makes us love the movie.

Christopher Nolan

Martin Scorsese

Stanley Kubrick

A rock hammer, a poster, and a ring, small things, that made quite a big impact.