Saving Private Ryan (1998) - 102 mistakes

Continuity: When the eight men are walking through the fields near the start, Vin Diesel has a cigarette. In some shots it is considerably longer than in previous shots.

Factual error: Near the end, Melish fires through the wall and kills a German. The blood then streams round the corner way to quickly to be real.

Other: When Ryan and Miller are using the 66's without the tube, there is one shot of a French soldier being hit and falling forward. A couple of seconds later this same shot is used again.

Continuity: When they go to find Private Ryan there are eight of them, when they go to a French town and a solider picks up the little girl and he gets killed there are seven, right? Wrong. A few scenes later, the camera shows all eight of them marching on to the next town, only in a far away camera shot so it's hard to see.

Factual error: 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.

Continuity: When Miller is collecting Upham from the group of translators and map readers, Upham is so confused and clumsy that he knocks everything off the table onto the floor (e.g. typewriter and helmets). Told by Miller to leave everything except his helmet, Upham picks up a German one by mistake. When sent back to the table to get his own, everything has miraculously jumped off the floor back onto the table.

Revealing: In the scene where the medic gets shot, watch the shot where Upham brings the bags up to the injured medic. The next shot there is some fog which then reveals the injured medic. In this shot, watch carefully as the cast rips away the medic's shirt. If you look near the neck, you can see the fake stomach vest he is wearing for a split second - when the actor realizes he ripped too far up, he quickly covers it back up.

Continuity: In the scene in the Pentagon between several officers and General Marshall, when the camera pans over Marshall's left shoulder towards the officers, you can see that the colonel, who was missing his left arm in earlier scenes, has it again; it's missing again in the next shot. It may be just that his sleeve's rolled down in the middle shot, but that's still an error.

Revealing: Just before the two American soldiers slap their grease coated "sticky bombs" on the passing German Tiger tank, you can clearly see two identically shaped grease stains on the first two wheels. Presumably nobody remembered to wipe off the wheels of the tank after a rehearsal or previous take of the scene.

Continuity: After the taking of the beaches, and Miller returns for revised orders, the fleet in the background appears/disappears.

Revealing: In the scene where the American soldiers are in the village listening to the French music on the record player, take a look at the stone pillars at either side of the doorway. The bullet patterns are all the same on each stone block. No doubt the same mould was used.

Factual error: In the Ryan farmhouse scene, the camera pans across the room. You see a telephone hanging on the wall. That type of phone did not appear until at least the 1950s.

Revealing: In the opening sequence Cpt Miller is wading through the sea with another man. You can see an odd looking square-shaped object clearly through his wet uniform. It may come as no surprise that a second later he is shot dead centre of the pocket. The object was obviously a charge.

Continuity: When Jackson has been given the dog tags to search through he looks for a place to sit. In this scene you see a black box with two yellow boxes at either side in the background. In the next scene the yellow box on the left has magically jumped up onto the black box in order for Jackson to kick it off and sit on it.

Continuity: In the last battle in the village, a 20mm cannon killed the occupants on the tank. The camera zooms in to show the cannon ejecting spent shell casings, but if you slow it down you see that it is ejecting unfired rounds.

Continuity: In the Belltower in Ramelle where Jackson and Parker are shooting away, there is one scene where you see Parker running out of .30 caliber ammunition. One second the MG uses a belt with ammunition, in the close up, you see the more modern disintegrating link.

Continuity: At the start of the film in the telegraph scene, a Captain goes into the Colonel's office to tell him about the Ryan brothers. He is holding a folder which he puts on the Colonel's desk, but we don't see him pick it back up in all the following shots, yet it suddenly appears back in his hands.

Continuity: When the Americans are preparing the final ambush in Ramelle, there is a part with Miller explaining to a soldier and Ryan how the bridge has to be blown (1:57:44), then the soldier mentions that the last man to do it must run away because they are going to use 30-seconds delay fuse. But at the very end, Miller tries to detonate the explosives with a electrical switch (2:29:53).

Continuity: In the scene where Mellish is in the fight to the death with the German. Mellish pulls out his bayonet with an underhand grip. In the next shot he has it with an overhand grip.

Continuity: When Miller and Ryan are talking outside a cafe (I think), Miller grabs a chair, sits down in front of Ryan and puts his right hand on top of his left, but in the following shot his left hand is on top of his right.