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Quotes

Sam Hall: Look, I got every question right on the final, and the only reason Mr. Spengler failed me is because I didn't write out the solutions.

Jack Hall: Why not?

Sam Hall: I do 'em in my head.

Jack Hall: Did you tell him that?

Sam Hall: I did. He said he didn't believe me. He said that if he couldn't do them in his head, then I must be cheating.

Jack Hall: Well, that's ridiculous! How can he fail you for being smarter than he is?

Sam Hall: That's what I said.

Jack Hall: You did? How did he take it?

Sam Hall: He flunked me, remember?

See more...

Mistakes

When Sam is sitting in the kitchen eating, his mother is talking to Jack on the phone and just after Jack says, "Sam is a straight A student he doesn't fail classes," Sam puts down his glass of milk and leaves his left hand up, but in the following shot it is down by his stomach. See more...

Trivia

In January 2002, the Larsen B Ice Shelf, which was where the opening scene took place, did collapse as portrayed in the movie. Details at Larsen B Ice Shelf See more...

Picture

Movie Mistakes blog

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The Day After Tomorrow (2004) - 109 corrections

Directed by Roland Emmerich, starring Dash Mihok, Dennis Quaid, Emmy Rossum, Ian Holm, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jay O. Sanders, Sela Ward (add more)

Genres: Action, Adventure, Sci-fi, Thriller

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

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At the end of the film when they arrive in NYC looking for the library, we know that they survived because they are inside with a roaring fire burning. But where is the smoke up above, as Jack Hall approaches? There must be a chimney, or else they would have all died of asphyxiation. [As already corrected, just because we can't see an outlet for the smoke doesn't mean there isn't one. White smoke against white snow is very hard to see.]
Edit Corrected by Nik Rolls
None of the men in the movie grow any facial hair at all, even the ones stuck in the library in New York. [At no point in the movie does anybody say "Not one person stuck in this public library has a razor on them."]
Edit
Even though all of the RAF helicopters are flying in close proximity to each other, they all freeze at different times. They should all have frozen at the same time. [Not necessarily. The hydraulic oil and engine oil, and perhaps fuel would have been what froze, causing them to crash. All of these fluids are heated by engine heat, pressure and such. All of those can freeze at different rates depending on the operating temperatures of the respective equipment. This happens at the mine I work at. In extreme cold, the equipment has never frozen up at the same time.]
Edit Corrected by rswarrior
In the scene where the three scientists are walking on top of the mall and the older scientist falls through the glass, he doesn't swing. The other two look through the glass and he's perfectly still, but he should be swinging especially with the sled hanging down below him. [He falls straight down through the glass; why should he be swinging?]
Edit Corrected by BocaDavie
After the people leave the library, you never see the French lady that Laura saved. Then, at the end, she is asleep on the couch when Jack comes into the room. [Putting aside that in movies unseen doesn't mean not present, she is seen multiple times: when they first walk into the fireplace room; in the scene where the other characters discuss the Gutenberg bible; sleeping with her son the night Sam suspects Laura has a fever; then the next morning when Laura is diagnosed with blood poisoning; she's also smack dab in front of the fireplace when Sam bursts into the room with the chairs to make snowshoes; and finally when they're throwing more books into the fire when the stomr's eye hits.]
Edit Corrected by JC Fernandez
If New York City has lost power, the cell phone towers are inoperable. Therefore, cell phones will not work. This very problem happens all over the country when there is a power failure. There is not always another tower close enough to pick up your signal. [Most if not all cell phone towers have emergency generators. While they would not provide power indefinitely, depending on their fuel, they could keep the tower operational for anywhere from a couple of hours to a few days.]
Edit Corrected by papajim
There's a scene when the storm starts freezing the buildings in New York and windows break from the extreme freezing temperature. Later in the end of the film, when the helicopters come to look for survivors, some land on the buildings with all the windows intact. [There's different types of glass; glazed, safety, tempered, laminated among others. All have different characteristics for shattering and can withstand different environmental conditions.]
Edit
When the helicopters are flying over Scotland and through the eye of the storm, the temperature is cold enough to freeze fuel in the pipes and tanks. Yet the pilot takes a good five seconds to open the window, and then freezes. Logically, anything cold enough to freeze fuel should not have given him that long. Fuel has a much lower freezing point than the human body. Plus, fuel pipes, even though metal, are usually in an area hotter than the cabin, since the engines are running there, generating heat. Even with the added padding of a coat, a body just could NOT have taken longer than fuel to freeze. The pilot should not even have had time to reach for the window before freezing, let alone to open it and then wait a good five seconds to do so. [The fuel in the tanks did not freeze instantly. It took the entire length of the scene. Remember, they began having problem (presumably when the fuel began to crystalize) and continued to fly for several seconds before the engines stopped.]
Edit Corrected by jhoffman100@yahoo.com
The US Army loaned several UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters for the rescue scene at the end, prompting the Canadian authorities to reassure the people of Montreal that they weren't being invaded by America. [I live in Montreal and that never happened. We have a military base and a helicopter plant here and we constantly see military helicopters overhead.]
Edit
When the ship sails into New York city, it is stopped in a matter of feet when the wreck of the city bus is trapped underneath the bulb stern. A ship with that size and speed would have enough momentum to move the city bus much further. However, in that case it wouldn't conveniently stop outside the library. [If you look closely at the hull of the ship, you can see that it is actually dragging on the street below it. That is what stops it. Not the bus. Also, several overhead shots in the movie show that the ship has also slammed into the building across the street from the library.]
Edit
After the news report about Grand Central Station being closed, the weather man stands in front of a map of the large weather system over Canada. The storm is spinning clockwise, when it should be counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere. [Clockwise spinning storms do occur in the Northern Hemisphere, they are just rare events. http://www.usatoday.com/weather/resources/askjack/wfaqtorn.htm http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/ (Most tornadoes - but not all - rotate cyclonically, which is counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise south of the equator.)]
Edit Corrected by Rlvlk
After it comes to light that Laura's leg is in a bad state, Sam and friends decide to risk going outside to the ship to find some first aid. A First Aid cabinet is visible during the scene where the library vending machine is smashed. Fair enough Sam and friends may not be aware of this being there, but there are two members of library staff who should know about this. No attempt to bring this to Sam's attention is made while he is creating his snow shoes. [Character mistake not movie mistake. Moreover, they needed penicillin which is a controlled antibiotic. Not found in generic first aid kits.]
Edit Corrected by William Bergquist
In the movie Jack Hall describes that the chunk of land mass that broke off where he was in Antarctica was the size of Rhode Island. In 1992, there was an iceberg that floated away from Antarctica and broke in two and the larger half, given the moniker B-10A, was the size of Rhode Island. [In the beginning of the movie, they say that they are at the Larsen B ice shelf. The movie was referring to the March 2002 collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica which was also the size of Rhode Island.]
Edit
In many of the shots that were supposed to be really cold, or even fairly cold, the character's breath is not seen. [Seeing breath in the air is caused by humidity in the air, as well as low temperatures, as mentioned in one of the audio commentaries.]
Edit
Even though many buildings and even the American flag freeze completely solid in some scenes, this fails to happen to any of the main characters, despite the fact that some sleep outside in tents during a snowstorm without a jacket or hat. [Well, A) the people are moving with jackets and gear to keep warm. B) Things freeze when the super-cooled air comes down and the main characters were inside then.]
Edit Corrected by shortdanzr
When the tidal wave hits New York there appears to be a large number of people still in the city, as evidenced by the shots of them running from the wave as it pours through the streets. However, when we see an underwater shot of the front of the tanker, there doesn't appear to be a single dead body anywhere in the water. While I appreciate that a number would have been washed through with the wave, surely this would not be everyone. [The shot you mention is very isolated (that is, it was a close-up). So what's to say that if there were any dead bodies, they would have all been isolated in this one area where the ship just so happens to stop? As you yourself point out, chances are they would have been swept away much further away (even more likely considering the severity of the tidal wave).]
Edit Time
When the wall of water is about to slam into New York, a city bus driver is stuck in traffic in the pouring rain. As he is listening to the weather report on the radio, he looks in his rear-view mirror to see the wall of water coming up behind him. There is not one drop of rain obscuring the view between the outside mirror and the window. [There are drops of rain between the window and the mirror, but since the cameras focus is on the wall of water in the mirror, the drops simply aren't in focus. The camera's depth of field is simply not set sufficiently to capture the rain drops, but if you look close enough you can see the blur from them.]
Edit Time
The aircraft flying to rescue the British Royal Family are described as belonging to "an elite Royal Air Force search and rescue squadron." However the middle aircraft has white and green striped camouflage painted on it, which is a pattern only used by aircraft in 845 Naval Air Squadron (a Royal Navy unit), which whilst arguably elite, is used for troop transport, not SAR. [It simply says that "an RAF search and rescue team has been dispatched by helicopter." It never says anything about them being elite. In a crisis such as this, SAR uses any available equipment they can.]
Edit
We see a screen of satellites on the GPS receiver throughout the movie. This view does not contain any useful navigational data. [The screen actually shows the latitude and longitude very faintly below the circle. ]
Edit Time
In the scene where the tidal wave goes through New York and the wave is shown crashing over the Statue of Liberty, the Statue of Liberty is facing towards New York - it should be facing the opposite way. [Checked, double-checked - simply not so. The camera pans around the statue in a sweeping motion so parts of the city are seen in the background, but when it finishes the circle and moves slightly closer, it is evident that the statue is facing the way it is supposed to be.]
Edit Corrected by STP

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