The Shawshank Redemption (1994) - 30 mistakes

Continuity: During the scene where Andy and Red meet for the first time (baseball scene) the sun is in Red's face and so, Andy shouldn't have the sun in his face.  But in fact, sometimes Andy has the sun in his face and Red doesn't anymore.  Either they move very quickly between scenes or (probably) the whole scene were filmed at least two times.

Continuity: When Andy is talking to Red for the first time in the yard, Red is playing catch with a few guys. Towards the end of the conversation Red catches the ball twice without throwing it back the first time.

Visible crew/equipment: When Sgt. Hadley nearly throws Andy off the plate factory roof, the reflection of a boom mike is briefly visible in the shiny brim of Hadley's hat. Andy dropped the tar mop before approaching Hadley, and there are no other objects in this shot that could have caused the reflection.

Continuity: When the convicts are having beer on the roof you see Red taking a sip. The camera cuts to Heyward offering Andy a beer, and when it cuts back to Red taking the next sip his bottle is much fuller than before.

Continuity: When one of the "sisters" gets beaten up by Capt. Hadley he tries to escape from his cell and holds on to the bars on the other side of the passage. From the side his right hand grabs a diagonal bar, but seen through the bars he is holding on to a vertical bar.

Continuity: In the scene where the warden is tossing cells and comes to "size up" Andy, it shows all of the chess pieces on the window being knocked over while one is in the guard's hands. After a short time one of the pieces is upright again, without anyone touching them.

Continuity: When Brooks has the knife to Haywood's throat, in one shot there is blood visible on his neck, yet in the next shot the blood is gone.

Continuity: In the same scene where Brooks is hanging himself, he carves his name and he is almost eye level with the spot where he is carving his name. The place where the rope is tied is lower. How come when he finishes carving his name he stretches to put the rope on? It is lower than where he was carving his name.

Continuity: Andy plays Mozart over the public address system of the prison. When Hadley finally breaks through the door after the aria is over the needle is still in the first groove.

Continuity: When Andy is playing the opera music, the whole prison stops what they're doing and stares at the speakers. When they show the infirmary, an African American man gets out of bed and looks out of the window. When the camera goes to the prison yard it pans around and goes right across the same African American man, who is now standing in the yard.

Continuity: When the warden is given a bribe by his contractor/buddy, it comes in a box containing a pie and the pie is in a disposable corrugated aluminium pie tin.  The warden gives the pie to Andy in a later scene and when Andy and Red eat it, it is in a metal pie pan... the non-disposable kind.

Revealing: When Tommy crumples up the test paper he had written for Andy and throws it into a waste basket the metal container shakes as if he had thrown something heavy. (Telling from the noise it makes the item must have been heavy.)

Factual error: When the warden offers Tommy a Marlboro, the pack has Marlboro Miles on the side. Not in 1965 or '66.

Continuity: Andy is discovered missing. While the warden is walking to Andy's cell, he tells the guard to question "him", meaning the Morgan Freeman character. He points to Freeman with his left hand but when the scene changes its point of view he is pointing with his right hand.

Plot hole: When the warden comes into the cell the morning after the escape, the poster covering the hole is fastened down on all four corners - impossible to do after squeezing into that small hole. [On the DVD commentary, the director confirms that this was a movie "cheat".]

Continuity: In the two different shots we have of Tim Robbins getting ready to put the book and folder into the safe for the last time (before he escapes) he collects the book and folder in two very different ways. First time he pulls the book towards the folder. Second time he brings the folder to the book.

Continuity: When Andy is in the bank, in the background you can see a man in a "porkpie" hat and a white shirt move forward to talk to the cashier. As Andy stands up to leave, the man can be seen again, standing towards the back of the queue.

Continuity: When Norton loads his gun the bullets are scattered over the table. When he takes aim the bullets are neatly in one place, but after has has shot himself they are scattered as before.

Factual error: Near the end of the movie, in the shot where the marked patrol cars are racing towards the prison to arrest the warden, you hear them using electronic sirens. Those sirens were not in law enforcement use until the mid to late seventies.

Continuity: When the warden shoots himself, he places the gun on the middle of his neck but when we see him lying there the bullet hole is now on the left side. (This is corrected on the tenth anniversary edition. The director also confirms this change on the DVD commentary.)