Ben-Hur (1959) - 42 mistakes

Continuity: Ben-Hur places his crown on a table when he visits the fallen Messala, but upon returning the table and crown are gone.

Revealing: During the chariot race, where the contestants are riding towards the screen, tyre tracks from the camera vehicle are clearly visible imprinted in the sand.

Revealing: When one of the ships collides with the other, you can clearly see that the rowers being hit are dummies.

Continuity: When Ben Hur finally defeats the bad guy, his opponent's wheel disintegrates. However, as the chariot flips over, we see a complete wheel on both sides.

Continuity: There is a hex bolt holding the spikes to the chariot wheel hub.

Continuity: Count the number of chariots that start the race. Then count the chariots that get thrown out and the number that finish - there's one too many. There are 9 at the start, 6 get thrown out, and 4 finish.

Continuity: One of the first shots in the picture is a wide angle establishing shot showing a street scene in Jerusalem, with milling people, animals, etc. A tall figure in the background is slowly walking toward the camera. The figure is Charlton Heston, and the shot is an earlier segment of a shot used later in the movie when Ben-Hur is returning home from a trade expedition. Heston's costume is the same, but he's only clearly recognizable in the second sequence. Since the two scenes are set 33 years apart, perhaps the earlier figure is Ben-Hur's father.

Continuity: When Judah takes rest on his way to Jerusalem funny things happen with his headgear. First, when he lies down it suddenly disappears under his head. Then he falls asleep, and when Balthasar from Alexandria approaches him a little later and he quickly gets up there is nothing under his head and back.

Continuity: During Ben Hur and Messala's duel on the chariots, Messala's wheel-scythes tear away most of the right hand side of Ben Hur's chariot. When Messala has been thrown and Ben Hur crosses the finish line a few moments later, however, the camera has zoomed out far enough to reveal that his chariot is perfectly intact.

Revealing: During the race Judah runs into the remains of another chariot and almost falls off the cart. You can see that the guy who is doing the handstand on the railing is a stuntman.

Continuity: When Judah goes to the place where the leper lives, a man tells him it's a cursed place and puts a lettuce or a cabbage on a plate. It has disappeared the shot later.

Continuity: When Arrius makes the galley do a practice race and finally allows them to rest the oars are going up and down from the waves. However, when the camera is close on Judah the oars are perfectly still.

Continuity: When the Sheik takes down the bets his man who had handed him the book is standing behind him with his hands down. When the camera angle changes his hands are folded.

Deliberate "mistake": During the chariot race, the chariots crash together but the width of the horses make it impossible for them to actually collide. In some instances it is obvious that they are only using 2 horses to shoot the shot when there should be four.

Factual error: The actors and stunt drivers use only two reins to control the four horses that pull each chariot in the race. However, charioteers in ancient Rome used separate harnesses with two reins controlling each horse. In a race such as the one depicted in the movie, where four horses draw the chariot (two-horse races were common, as well), a real charioteer from the era would be holding eight reins.

Continuity: When the baskets are being loaded to be lowered into the Valley of the Lepers, someone loads two heads of lettuce onto a basket. Just as the basket is being lowered, someone else throws in three more heads. When the basket hits the bottom, there are only three heads of lettuce.

Revealing: When the slaves are walking through the desert on their route to Tyros, in several scenes it's obvious that a double is standing in for Charlton Heston as Ben-Hur.

Factual error: The galley during the battle seen is rowed by slaves. Romans during this time period didn't use slaves to row their galleys. Rowers had to be able fight. If not the Romans would be outnumbered 200 to 30 when they boarded the pirate ship as the Pirates rowers would be able to fight.

Audio problem: When the rowers in the Roman galley were going normal speed, you could tell that the drum was sounding before the drummer hit it.

Continuity: When Judah comes back to his house and meets Esther her curls over the forehead change several times throughout the scene.