The Shawshank Redemption (1994) - 30 mistakes

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".]

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

Factual error: Chess is played with a white square at the right end of the first row. You see the chess board with the stone figures in Andy's cell, and every time there is a black square on the right. Andy would have known better.

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 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.

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.

Factual error: At the end of the film following Andy's escape from Shawshank there is a scene of him driving along the cliff edge in a red car. This car is a red Pontiac GTO from 1969. The year in the film is 1966, 3 years before the car was made. Confirmed in commentary.

Continuity: When Red is walking along the beach before he meets Andy his hat flies off and almost lands in the water. In the next wide shot the hat is lying a few meters inland against the direction of the wind.

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: In the library, Heywood is listening to Hank Williams' "Lovesick Blues." He is playing the double LP "Hank Williams 24 Greatest Hits," which was originally released by MGM in 1970. "Lovesick Blues" was recorded long before this, but it is not possible for him to have acquired that particular 1970 double LP.

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: As Norton kills himself, the glass that blows out behind him is quite large and about half of the frame gets blown out. There are a few specs of blood on the window as well. A couple of shots later as the camera pulls back and shows Norton you can see the hole in the window is quite small and shaped differently and a smear of blood above the hole now.

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.

Factual error: In the scene where Red is working in the Food-Way shortly after his release in 1967, there are cartons of "More" and "Newport" brand cigarettes visible on the shelf to his right. "More" was not released until 1975.

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 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 prepares for his suicide you see on the desk a photograph and, a bit away, a lamp. After he has shot himself the photograph is leaning against the lamp (it was too far away in the previous shot to have fallen against it). There's some sort of card open on his desk on some paperwork which suddenly moves onto bare desk as well.

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 Red finds the metal box he takes out an envelope in a plastic bag, folded up on the right side. When he opens it the crease is on the left side. He hasn't turned it over.

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: The sweat disappears from Red's white shirt as he approaches the oak tree at the end.

Factual error: In the scene where the guys are drinking beer on the roof, the bottles have "ribbed" tops. Beer bottles did not have twist-off's in the late 40's.

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.

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 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.

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.)

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.

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: 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.)