X

Great sites

Anything Hollywood

Atomic Popcorn

Banned in Hollywood

Bits & Pieces

Blockbuster Buzz

Book mistakes

CanMag

The Daily Column

Daily Stab

Defamer

Double Viking

EHOWA

The Evil Beet

Film Drunk

Filmofilia

Filmspotting

Foundry Music

Game mistakes

Geek Tyrant

Gone Hollywood

Hollyscoop

Hollywood Outbreak

I Am Bored

I Love Bacon

Joblo movie news

Movie Banter

Movie Buzz

Movie spoilers

Movie timeline

Other crap

Screenjunkies

Sky movie reviews

Something Really Funny

Tengossip

Trailer Addict

Unreality Magazine

Virtually Existing

Mistakes

As Dixon is explaining to Viktor about the gap in the door guard on the escalator, Dixon's hand changes position in an angle change. See more...

Trivia

Steven Spielberg cut a line from the film where Hanks's character is getting help using a phone card and says, "Home phone, home phone!". Spielberg cut this because he didn't want comparisons to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and the famous lines "Phone home." See more...

Picture

Movie Mistakes blog

Popular blog posts:

Top 15 biggest Harry Potter film mistakes

The biggest mistakes in the Harry Potter movies

15 biggest mistakes in Titanic

The 20 biggest Friends mistake pictures

10 Twilight mistakes in pictures

The Terminal (2004) - 21 corrections

Directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Tom Hanks (add more)

Genres: Drama, Romance, Comedy

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.

Mistakes
Trivia
Pictures
Corrections
Submit
When Viktor is eating crackers with ketchup/mustard/mayo, he puts a "sandwich" together and gets ready to take a bite. In this shot, there are three crackers in the "sandwich" and mustard on the top. When the shot changes to show Dixon standing there, there are five crackers in the "sandwich" and no mustard on the top cracker. [It's pretty visible that he puts 4 crackers and mustard on top at first and it's exactly the same at the wide shot with Dixon.]
Edit Corrected by Anastasios Anastasatos
When the guys are playing for Cher's panties, Enrique Cruz doesn't deal Gupta in the hand. [Yes he does. Watch Enrique when he deals. He deals four hands on the table in front of him. He deals Gupta in, he just doesn't deal the cards on the table in front of Gupta.]
Edit
When Victor is running up the steps, he throws his bag over the railing onto the escalator. When he does this, the tag is facing away from him. He goes and watches the T.V. for a while. When they change the shot to the suitcase coming up the escalators, the tag is now opposite of what it was when it was coming up the escalator. [It's very possible and even more likely that other people on the escalator moved the suitcase so they could pass.]
Edit Corrected by Al
The Russian with the goat medicine is transferring flights from Toronto. The likelihood that he would be doing that rather than flying into Russia directly from Canada is pretty slim. However, assuming he did, there are two major errors with this scenario. First, U.S. customs is cleared in Pearson Airport in Toronto so he would not be dealing with Dixon at all in New York. Secondly, its unlikely he would be dealing with customs at all as it would place all transferring passengers in a holding area and send them on their plane with no opportunity to go anywhere except onto the other planes. While the U.S. reserves the right to interrogate anyone entering the U.S., the fact is it would transfer him out as quickly as possible. [When the movie was made, there were no direct flights to Russia from Canada. Even today, most flights change planes in either Frankfurt, London, Helsinki, etc. There are cheaper flights originating or connecting in the US, so it is very likely he that he would travel to New York to get a direct flight to Moscow. When I travel to Russia, it is cheaper for me to get a flight to Seattle, and fly directly to Moscow, than to fly out of Canada and transfer planes in Europe. Since 911, ALL passengers travelling through the US must clear customs in the US even if only transferring flights. All passengers must deplane, and all luggage is removed from the plane, checked, and loaded again. If the Russian has goat medicine in his luggage, the FDA would definitely be interested in why he has it, and what for.]
Edit Time
The CBP (Customs and Border Protection) has no responsibility over visa and travel documents. That responsibility falls under the USCIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services) jurisdiction not the CBP. [CBP is the first contact travellers make when in the US and all travel documents must be shown to them. CBP only sends travellers to Immigration if there is a problem with documents or a question about their citizenship. CBP does check all documents, and will stamp visas etc if required. They have as much responsibility for documents as Immigration, and in fact, can turn a passenger away from the US if they don't feel the traveller has a reason to enter the US.]
Edit Time
In the scene where Viktor is asked to translate for a Russian man, he's talking total nonsense. Still the Russian "understands" him and "answers" the questions. There's no way he could ever do so in real life- the words Viktor says do not exist and the way he says them- I guess the Russian would better understand the officers standing around, rather than Viktor. [My wife is Russian. The words Viktor speaks, although horribly accented, are real Russian words. He does not translate word for word what the Russian speaks, and the translation does not match the subtitles. Nevertheless, they are speaking Russian, just not very well.]
Edit
At the romantic dinner, Viktor's coworker lights the candle with one hand. In the next shot his other arm is extended to steady the lighter. [Actually, he uses his right hand to light both candles and his left to steady it.]
Edit Corrected by EMTurbo Time
At the end of the film, Viktor gets in the cab and the driver asks him where he wants to go. Viktor replies "I'm going home". How does the driver know where to go? [There is a short time as the camera zooms out from the cab when we cannot hear what is said. The cabbie had enough time to ask Viktor where exactly to go.]
Edit
In the scene where Viktor has just gotten to the lounge and is looking at the T.Vs, he rushes up the escalator and drops his suitcase in the escalator going down. Later, it shows him turning back and his suitcase comes up from the escalator. [He tosses his suitcase to the escalator on the right, which is traveling upwards. Other people can also be seen riding the same escalator upwards, during that same time.]
Edit
In the scene where Gupta is outside, the weather is fine. On the other side of the terminal when Viktor walks outside, there is a snow storm. [You can see that there is blowing snow when Gupta is heading for the plane though it is not as strong as the storm is when Viktor leaves.]
Edit
When Viktor is talking to Dixon, you can see high-rises out of his window. No such buildings exist around JFK (at least not when I worked there). [The film is set at a fictional airport which is never identified specifically as JFK.]
Edit Time
In the scene where Viktor is with the food transporter in the kitchen, a camera standing on a column is visible above him. [The kitchen is equipped with security cameras. No mistake here.]
Edit Corrected by Phoenix
Near the beginning, Viktor does everything to turn up the volume on a set of TVs. He passed some TVs where the volume was already up. He had no reason to leave them, and also he could have just returned to the audible ones. [He leaves the audible ones because they changed channels or subjects, while he wanted to follow the news about Krakhozia.]
Edit Corrected by Zaphod Beeblebrox
Aircrew do not linger around transit lounges. They have their own access to the aircraft. They also do not go through the same immigration check as passengers. [This is not true, I recently took a few flights at three different airports and at two of them I saw Pilots and stewardesses going through the transit lounges.]
Edit
The scene towards the end of the movie when Viktor's flight to Krakozhia appears on the Departures board is incorrect. Since Krakozhia is a country, it wouldn't appear, it should have the city the flight is arriving in. [Since Krakozhia is a fictional country, the capital might well share the name - just like Luxembourg or San Marino.]
Edit
Victor takes out a picture of Jazz musicians that he says his father saw in a magazine in 1958. I have seen a poster version of that same picture, and it says "Harlem Jazz Portrait 1959" across the bottom. ["A Day in Harlem" by Art Kane is actually from 1958.]
Edit
Towards the end of the film, Victor walks out of the airport and gets in a cab, which takes him to New York City. How can he afford a cab when he couldn't even afford a Starbucks or Burger King earlier on in the film? [He didn't have any money because the money from his homeland was invalid. Therefore, at the end when his country reinstates itself, he would be able to convert his money to American money. Also, he got a job, remember? He was on nearly 20 bucks an hour, more then the controller.]
Edit
When Viktor is told he cannot leave the airport he is given a bunch of giftcards and coupons. The chief security guard tells Viktor he is giving him a $15 phone card to use as well. In the next scene, he is then being pushed out of an executive lounge while trying to watch TV. While the doors are closing there is a clear shot of the phone card which reads "$10". [The officer says that it is a 15 minute phone card, not a $15 dollar one.]
Edit Corrected by moviemogul
When the police officers ask Dixon if he wants to arrest Viktor, he says that the 5:00 pm flight from Tokyo has just arrived. It's New York during in the winter, but it is sunny outside at 5:00pm. [The five pm flight from Tokyo would have LEFT Tokyo at 5pm. I don't know much about flight times and such, but it could really get there when its sunny.]
Edit Corrected by SexyIrishLeprechaun
Viktor arrives at the airport from what must be another country (connecting flight), since he is the only one of his countrymen stranded in the airport. Yet when he leaves there is a flight to his country. [It is very plausible that Viktor had a connecting flight even if there are direct flights from his country to and from New York. Perhaps the particular city Viktor lived in does not have direct flights to JFK, or maybe the airfare was cheaper on a different airline that included a connecting flight. Furthermore, flight schedules are changed all the time, so a flight to his country could have been added even if there wasn't one earlier.]
Edit

1 2 • Next page • Show all