Joshua Jackson wears a Breitling Navitimer

They hand out Breitlings at initiation. Joshua Jackson plays Luke McNamara, a scholarship student at an Ivy League university who is recruited into a secret society in Rob Cohen's The Skulls (2000). The watch is not something Luke bought. He is handed it during the initiation rite, the same model given to every other new member, told to put it on as the council watches.

The watch is a Breitling Navitimer chronograph, and it reads cleanly on screen: a black dial, three white subdials, the beaded slide-rule ring around the edge, the winged-B logo. Breitling launched the Navitimer in 1952 as a pilot's tool, the slide rule built into the bezel for working out fuel burn, airspeed and unit conversions in the air. Here it is one of several gifts that arrive together, a rule book, a key, and a sum of money that turns up in Luke's bank account.

The watch also does quiet work in the plot. Each new member is branded on the wrist during the ceremony, and the watch covers the mark. The film is loosely modeled on Yale's Skull and Bones, the real-world society whose initiation rituals and wealth gave the story its template.