The Passion of the Christ (2004) - 15 mistakes

Continuity: When Jesus tells Peter to stop fighting against the temple guards when in the garden, you can see the background behind him: a small tree by a large one. The shot cuts to Peter and then back to Jesus telling him to again stop. The background is now reversed.

Revealing: Just before the Roman soldiers pressed Simon of Cyrene to help Jesus carry the cross, Jesus has fallen and we see that the bruised and swollen-shut eye is now his left. The shot changes and when it comes back to Jesus his right eye is swollen shut again. The film must have been flipped.

Revealing: During the scene where the Romans soldiers raise Jesus' cross, they use two ropes on each arm of it. If you look at the rope on the left side of the screen, you can see that it is slack, it's obviously not supporting the weight of the cross. There must have been some device lifting it off screen.

Factual error: In the scene where Mary the mother of Jesus cleans with white clothes the copious blood spread on the Pretorium is peculiarly red showing no traces of the normal biological process of coagulation and condensation in that season of the year (pesach or Jewish Easter) as shown in Lee White's hematology tests. No coagulation can be seen in the scene despite the amount of blood.

Factual error: According to the Gospel of Luke (23:28) The sign nailed on top of the cross identifying Jesus as the "king of the Jews" was written in three languages: Greek, Latin and Hebrew. This is confirmed by the Gospel of John (19:20). In the movie the Greek and Hebrew are eliminated from the sign thus giving to the Latin an importance that it did not have for most of the people.

Revealing: This concerns the criminal to Jesus' left on the cross. If you pay close attention to the criminal's right hand, you can tell that the part of his hand that is nailed (past the area of the thumb) is obviously not his. When he moves around this part doesn't, and his wrist moves independently from the rest of his hand. Difficult to explain, but it is there.

Revealing: When Roman soldiers are scourging Jesus, he was on knees, and his hand almost fell out the manacles. And you can see that they are made of something soft.

Continuity: In the flashback scene where Jesus is confronting the stonethrowers (represented as the chief priests) who are approaching to stone Mary Magdalene, when Jesus bends down to draw the line in the sand he is reaching over with his right hand, with his right index finger pointed. The close-up of the hand drawing the line is a left hand.

Factual error: Two-humped (Bactrian) camels are not native to Judea. They're found in the Gobi desert and didn't get to the Eastern Mediterranean until the Turkish migrations westward.

Continuity: In the scene where the governor is deciding who to let free, the murderer is standing on the top step looking at Jesus, in the next scene, the far back view, he is about 4 or 5 steps down.

Other: as the sun is setting a jet vapour trail can be seen traveling from right to left above the sun.

Continuity: Towards the end when Mary is kissing the feet of Jesus, she gets blood on her lip and then more and more blood gets added to her face without her ever touching the body again. It's almost as though there is a blob of blood on her face and in the next shot it's a totally different shape, consisting of speckles. She could not have done this with the blood she had on her face.

Revealing: Before Judas commits suicide he puts his hands to his face and you can see that the makeup on his right hand is peeling away.

Continuity: After the second fall Jesus takes while Simon is helping him carry the cross, Simon gives him a hand to get back up and Jesus stands on Simon's LEFT HAND SIDE. In the following shot of the two of them, after the shots of the mountain, Jesus is on Simon's RIGHT HAND SIDE (this is the shot where Simon holds His hand as He falls, taking Simon half way down with Him).

Continuity: The amount of sweat on Jesus' hair alters significantly during the first few scenes in the Garden of Olives.