Factual error: It's late 18th, possibly early 19th century and, as Jane and her sister walk along the beach, a construction crane is visible on the horizon.
Factual error: Near the beginning of the film before James McAvoy heads up to the house for the evening meal, he is seen looking up through a skylight when a Lancaster bomber slowly flies overhead. At the time it was was supposed to be 1935. The Lancaster bomber did not fly until the beginning of 1941. Can't be an Avro Manchester either, they only had two engines and first flew in 1939.
Factual error: When animated Giselle begins to sing and brushes her hair, the reflection of her "one true love" is visible in the mirror. Problem is that its image is not reversed in the reflection. (00:02:00)
Factual error: Early in the movie we see the newspaper dated "Sunday, March 14, 1987". March 14, 1987 was a Saturday, not a Sunday.
Factual error: The movie is set in 1962, but when Tracy misses her bus, she catches a ride on an International-Harvester truck that wasn't introduced until 1969.
Factual error: When August sits down at the piano in the church and begins to play, he plays a passage of ascending notes (his hand is actually on camera so you see it move to the right, up the piano). However, the audio that you actually hear is a passage of descending notes.
Factual error: In the Pop Goes My Heart video, the keyboard is a Roland D-50. At the start of the video it's said that it was from 1984. The D-50 wasn't released until 1987 to compete with the Yamaha DX7. (00:01:15)
Factual error: Karl Wolfschtagg's Olympic uniform should have read 'DDR' (Deutsche Demokratische Republik, the German name) rather than 'GDR', the English name for East Germany. Olympic country names are customarily rendered in their native language.
Factual error: In the first fire scene, Chuck and Larry go into an actively burning building with no air masks on - that would NEVER happen.
Factual error: In the beginning of the film, a variety of different suitors are presented to Elizabeth. Amongst them are Eric XIV of Sweden, reportedly "still madly in love [with her]". Even though he was born the same year as Elizabeth; when this film takes place, in 1585, he had already been dead for 8 years.
Factual error: The movie was set roughly in the early 1950s, but the two motorcycles were at least mid-1980s or newer.
Factual error: After Kate's wedding is broken up and everyone leaves the church and ends up fighting in the town square (using shovels, pizza oven paddles, etc.) you can see a post office in the background. The city and state say "Boiling Springs, Tennessee" followed by the zip code 87168. This isn't a real zip code according to the US Post Office, and zip codes beginning with "8" are closer to the west coast (i.e. in Nevada or Utah). Real Tennessee zip codes begin with 37's or 36's. (01:29:35)
Factual error: When Richard asks Art his opinion of his book, a copy of "Haymarket Scrapbook" is on a shelf. This book was first published in 1986, yet Richard's book will be published in 1981. (01:03:00)
Factual error: Trudie and her family are released from jail because David, being the victim of kidnapping, decided not to press charges. That's not how things work. It's not up to the victim to decide whether or not to press charges. It's up to the prosecutor to decide or not to press charges.
Factual error: The license plates on Dan's car are very inaccurate fakes. The colors especially are way off. Certainly, the makers may use a fake sequence of characters the same way "555" phone numbers are, but the styling of the plate should look right. Real NJ plates are a pale yellow along the top 1/4 that fades to a very pale tan by halfway down. Dan's plate is a bright yellow (nearly orange) at the top and the rest is white. The numerals are also the wrong typeface. The mistake is made more obvious by the fact that real New Jersey plates are seen in the early portion of the film on other cars.
Factual error: In the scene when Milly is on the phone with her mom and sisters while at the architect's house, she hangs up on the party call and her mom hears a dial tone before lowering the phone which anyone with a cell phone knows won't happen. (00:41:40)
Factual error: Although set in the 1960's, a modern UPS truck is seen just before the rooftop concert scene.
Factual error: At the beginning of the movie, we find out that Holly and Gerri were married when she was 19. She then turns 30, so at least 11 years have passed since the day that they met. However, when Holly sees Gerri in the pub on the day that they meet, he sings "The Galway Girl". This song was not written by Steve Earl until 2000, and they must have met sometime around the year 1996.
Factual error: When the two nuns strip to join Lorenzo in the bathtub, they both have bikini tan lines, hardly an everyday occurrence during the 14th century.
Factual error: In the movie, highway signs for Route 24 show the number inside a sunflower, which designates it as a Kansas state route. But in fact, the Route 24 that passes through the Kansas City Metro area, where the film takes place, is a U.S. route and would show the number inside a shield.