Best factual movie mistakes (see all mistakes)
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| Rank | Title | Mistake |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Rocky Horror Picture Show | The criminologist describes the events of the movie as taking place "on a late November evening". In the very next scene, Brad and Janet are driving in Brad's car, and President Richard Nixon's resignation speech is playing on the radio. Nixon resigned in August of 1974. |
| 2 | Titanic | The lake that Jack told Rose he went ice fishing on when she was threatening to jump is Lake Wissota, a man-made lake in Wisconsin near Chippewa Falls (where Jack grew up). The lake was only filled with water in 1918 when a power company built a dam on the Chippewa River, six years after the Titanic sank. |
| 3 | Spider-Man 3 | During the fight scene with Sandman in the armor car, the Terminal Tower can be seen in the background, which is a landmark in Cleveland, Ohio (where the scene was shot), not in New York city. |
| 4 | Chicago | In the scene where Roxie is placed in the "paddy wagon" to be taken to Cook County Jail, the prosecutor refers to himself as District Attorney Harrison. However, the court system in Illinois doesn't have district attorneys; rather, they have state's attorneys. The original play by Maureen Watkins correctly calls him a state's attorney. |
| 5 | Independence Day | In the scene where Will Smith's girlfriend is running in the tunnel, she kicks open the door just in time to save herself, her son, and the dog. The terrible fireball then goes right by them. They are just inside the open door, with fire and debris flying right past it. While the fire and debris might not spill in, the heatwave would still fry them. |
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| 6 | Pearl Harbor | In the first view of Pearl Harbor, just before the nurses are shown in the small transport boat as they arrive at Pearl, you clearly see the Arizona Memorial in the background as the camera pans down from sky to harbour. |
| 7 | A Beautiful Mind | In a scene that takes place in 1956 or 1957, Alicia Nash places an orange Tupperware container in the refrigerator. Although Tupperware first became very popular in the mid-50s, the particular model of Tupperware used in the film was not introduced until the late 60s or early 70s. |
| 8 | The Mummy Returns | When Brendan Fraser & his son are running to reach the pyramid before the sun hits it, the sunrise line approaches the pyramid along the ground, but the sun would naturally have hit the pyramid at the top first and worked its way down to the ground. <em>[Some people insist on trying to correct this - think of it this way. If the sun's illuminating the ground from way up in the sky, what's keeping something higher up than the ground in darkness?]</em> |
| 9 | Armageddon | After crashing on the asteroid, A.J. walks outside surveying the wreckage while debris is strewn out burning on the ground. This is wrong, as oxygen is needed to make something burn, and there is no oxygen in the asteroid. |
| 10 | Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl | During Jack's sliding down the rope scene, it is very noticeable that each one of the English soldiers fire their weapons more than once, which is impossible for that time, knowing that repetition weapons weren't invented until the mid 1800's. |
| 11 | Dune | There is a scene in which Piter DeVries is talking about the Landsraad (one of the governmental organizations in Dune). Twice he mispronounces the name, saying "Lansdraad" instead. |
| 12 | Panic Room | After the intruders flood the panic room with propane, Jody Foster's character gets a lighter and ignites the propane causing it to burn along the ceiling. This would be impossible as propane is heavier than air and would sink to the floor rather than rise up to the ceiling. Lighting a flame in that room should have caused anyone in the room and on the floor to be engulfed in flames almost instantly. |
| 13 | The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers | When Faramir and his men are looking at the map of Middle-Earth in Henneth Annûn, you can see that the plain of Dagorlad is actually spelled Dagorland on the map. An odd mistake, especially considering the fact that they got it right when they spoke of it in the first movie. |
| 14 | Spider-Man | When Harry is talking to Mary Jane on the phone, she hangs up on him and his cell phone produces a dial tone. Cell phones do not have a dial tone. |
| 15 | Gone With The Wind | Scarlett is seen walking on the main street on the way to the hospital. You can clearly see a light bulb in one of the street lights. |
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| 16 | Aladdin | The animators have clearly tried to make all the writing in the film look Arabic. However in one scene we see the faces of Jafar and the Sultan as they read a scroll. Their eyes move from left to right; Arabic is read right to left. |
| 17 | Forrest Gump | Jenny shows Forrest a clipping of him in U.S.A Today magazine (first published in September 1982), but on Jenny's grave it says she died on March 22 1982. |
| 18 | Casino Royale | In the scenes at Miami airport you see numerous CSA planes (Czech Airlines). Czech Airlines offer no direct flights to Miami, however Prague airport, where this scene was shot, is full of CSA planes. |
| 19 | The Fast and the Furious | In the opening scenes when Brian goes back to the shop, he demands that he needs some nitrous to boost his low top speed. Well I'm sure that most tuners will agree that more horsepower doesn't equal more top speed, it only contributes IF you have a transmission that can handle it and distribute it. I was sure they'd had some type of car advisors on the film.... |
| 20 | Shrek | Farquad wants to marry a princess to become a real king. The mirror shows him three princesses to choose from: Cinderella, Snow White and Fiona. But Cinderella wasn't born a princess! In fact, her only chance to become a princess was to marry a prince. |
| 21 | Black Hawk Down | In the first 15 minutes of the movie, a Delta Force operative is seen wearing a pair of Oakley X-Metal Juliets. The events portrayed in the movie took place in 1993. Oakley didn't make the Juliets until 1999. |
| 22 | Daredevil | When we see the burning 'DD' in Joe Pantoliano's glasses it is not a reflection. The DD should be backwards in his glasses. |
| 23 | Die Another Day | After the helicopter escape at the end, a red sports car is sticking nose down in the ground after falling hundreds of feet down out of the airplane, without a single crack in the windshield, in mint condition. The yellow one only has the right door open. |
| 24 | Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | In the scene in the glass elevator, when Mike Teavee wants to push a button, he presses the TV Room button. The elevator stops going down and immediately moves horizontally. The characters within the elevator are thrown against the wall from the sudden change. However, they are thrown against the wall that is in the direction the elevator is now moving, instead of the opposite wall as they should have been. |
| 25 | Minority Report | The time period of the movie is 2054. There is an election day (April 22nd) that is on a billboard and then announced as a Tuesday. However, April 22nd, 2054 is actually on a Wednesday. |
| 26 | The Sum of All Fears | A force of Russian Tu-22 Backfire bombers attacks the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74)by sneaking in under the ship's radar. This is all well and good except that carriers usually don't use their own radar, they have Airborne Early Warning aircraft (E-2 Hawkeye's) that can see much further and not give away the carrier's position (let alone the F-14s which would be patrolling too). The whole point is, the US Navy practiced and planned for such a "carrier versus Backfire" battle for years. I guess in the interest of furthering the plot Hollywood has to ignore the immense measures the USN takes to protect those multi-billion dollar assets, not to mention the 5000+ sailors that man them. |
| 27 | Tristan & Isolde | The poem Isolde recites, John Donne's "The Good-Morrow", is a 17th-century work, which is centuries later than the movie's time period. |
| 28 | Saving Private Ryan | The Tiger tanks portrayed in the movie are actually Soviet T-34s. You could tell by looking at their wheels. Real Tigers had interleaved wheels. These Tigers clearly had the T-34 suspension. Obviously, Tigers were so rare that another tank had to be substituted. But an excellent job was done to make the T-34s look like Tigers. |
| 29 | Air Force One | The plastic explosive used on the cockpit door was C-4. When shot (as shown), C-4 does not explode; it requires the use of a detonator. |
| 30 | Swordfish | Worms are not created in AutoCAD. Ever. Period. Does not happen, cannot happen. Building design work and the like is done in AutoCAD. Viruses and worms are coded out by hand or created with a generator by slackers that don't know the code and then compiled into executables. |