Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) - 58 mistakes

Visible crew/equipment: When Ferris, Sloan, and Cameron pick up the Ferrari at the parking garage you can see the camera and its reflection in the window directly behind Ferris and Cameron.

Continuity: When Jeanie meets the boy at the police station, his hair changes after every cut from her to him.

Visible crew/equipment: Near the beginning of the movie there is a brief scene around the empty house. While the camera is in the kitchen you can see a reflection of one of the set guys moving in the fridge handle.

Continuity: The rear view mirror disappears when Jeanie is speeding home.

Continuity: When Ferris is kicking his shoes off at the end of the movie before jumping back into bed, he kicks his right shoe off and then he kicks the same shoe off again.

Continuity: When Ferris is about to jump in the pool to save Cameron there is a cookie floating in the water. As he jumps in it disappears.

Continuity: In the scene where Ferris is doing his dancing thingy to "Twist & Shout", there is a cop wearing a blue jacket from the street view, and then he's not wearing it in the next shot from an aerial view.

Continuity: When Mr. Rooney goes to Ferris's house he is wearing a long sleeved shirt and coat jacket.  A shot of his arm ringing the doorbell shows a bare arm with dark hair.   When they return back to a shot of Mr. Rooney, his sleeve is touching his wrist and he does not have dark hair on the back of his hand.

Continuity: At the end, Jeanie slams the kitchen door in Mr Rooney's face. Watch the pane of glass in the door. In all previous exterior views of the door, the pane is composed of about 4 horizontal pieces of glass. It is apparently a "jalousie" window that opens like a venetian blind, so there are no mouldings between each piece of glass. However, as soon as we see the inside of the door behind Jeanie, visible through the curtain is the silhouette of a "criss-cross" moulding grid, dividing the window into 9 panes of glass.

Revealing: In the scene where the nurse tells Sloan in the hallway about her grandmother's passing, if you look past them, you can see Jeanie standing at the very end of the hall. Evidently she is waiting for the scene that shows the camera moving in on her later in the movie.

Continuity: Jeanie doesn't undo her seatbelt before she jumps out of the station wagon. And additionally in one shot of the car parked - the seatbelt is slammed in the door of the car and hanging out but when they cut back to the car seconds later, the seatbelt is gone.

Continuity: When Ferris, Sloan, and Cameron go to the Sears Tower they lean their heads on three separate windows. Ferris's window is the same as Cameron's. You can tell this when you see them look at the top and top right.

Other: In the scene where Cameron is sinking in the pool you can clearly see some kind of weight belt or something around his waist, which isn't there when he is out of the pool.

Continuity: When Ferris and Sloane are in the pool, the Pepsi can behind Ferris changes position in different shots.

Continuity: When the Ferrari goes through the window and the three of them are standing there, you can see the camera tape on the floor where they are supposed to stand. Also the broken glass on the window changes a bit over the course of that scene.

Continuity: Cameron kicks and shatters the glass light on the front of the Ferrari towards the end of the movie. A shot of the entire garage is then shown and there is no glass on the floor.

Continuity: When Ferris is talking with Cameron on the phone and playing on the computer, there is no Pepsi can on his desk. A second later one appears next to his hand. The can then disappears in the next shot.

Visible crew/equipment: When Ferris picks up Sloan at school he puts her in the car and walks to the left of the screen.  He then enters the Ferrari from the right of the screen. He obviously had to walk around the camera man to do this. You can also see a reflection moving back and forth on the driver's side door while this is unfolding. Presumably the cameraman's.

Continuity: At the very end of the movie when Ferris' mom is tucking him into bed the blanket is showing the line at the top then folded in and back several times.

Continuity: When Cameron is on the phone with Mr. Rooney pretending to be George Peterson, Ferris calls the school. Grace picks up the phone in the outer office and tells Ferris to hold. You clearly see the third button (line three) is the one he called on. Grace says that Ferris is on line two. When Mr. Rooney puts Cameron on hold and listens to Ferris, after Ferris hangs up, the camera cuts to the phone buttons on Mr. Rooney's phone showing that Ferris was just on the second button (line two).

Visible crew/equipment: When Ferris and gang are driving into the city (Chicago), you hear a song being played and they show an aerial view of Chicago. When they do a flyby of one of the buildings, you can clearly see the helicopter and the cameraman that is doing the filming, in the reflection of the building's windows.

Continuity: In the scene where Ferris is singing "Twist and Shout," you can see a building sign that reads '33 North Dearborn Street.' After the shot cuts, you can see an intersection of two streets: Adams Street and Dearborn Street. The address '33 North Dearborn Street' is a few blocks away from the intersection.

Continuity: Notice Jeanie's watch at the police station, and how it changes by hours during the short scene with Charlie Sheen.

Continuity: In the scene where Ferris is talking on the phone with the freshmen and playing his "sick sounds" on the keyboard, his legs cross and uncross several times between shots.

Continuity: When Rooney first arrives at the Bueller house, he parks in the street by the orange fire hydrant with a good deal of room between the car and the curb, however when the policeman is putting the ticket on his car, he is right up next to the curb.

Visible crew/equipment: At the very end when the credits are rolling but the movie continues, Rooney boards a school bus. When a student hands him a gummy bear, a mike is visible in the upper left of the screen. This was a TV version of the movie.

Continuity: Cameron's shirt with the The American Medical Association's symbol changes half way through the movie. You can see how they try to cover it up by turning it inside out, but it still shows.

Continuity: After Ferris picks up Sloan from school in the Ferrari, he is seen speeding off towards the end of the parking lot (there's an exit and then a few more stalls before the end of the lot). He gets into 2nd gear before it cuts back to a shot of Mr. Rooney. As we see Rooney's face, we hear the Ferrari running through 2nd gear and into 3rd. This is impossible as they would've had to slow down to make the exit or they would've run off the end of the lot.

Factual error: Cameron tries to stop Ferris from borrowing his father's red sports car, explaining that it's an extremely rare and valuable '61 Ferrari 250 GT California. But the car itself is not a real Ferrari. It was manufactured by Modena Design and Development of El Cajon, California, and is a "Modena GT250" which strongly resembles the 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder. Since the film makers were throwing the car out of a window, using a real Ferrari was 'cost-prohibitive'. Comparing the real Ferrari to the Modena, differences include the Moden's sharper body crease above the grille, the more steeply angled headlamp covers, higher-mounted emblem and counter-sunk hood scoop.

Visible crew/equipment: When Ferris and Cameron are in the garage for the first time inspecting the Ferrari, Ferris is shown talking. Shadows are cast on the hood of the car and you can see the shadow of the boom mic picking up his lines.

Plot hole: When Jeanie is racing to beat Ferris home, a cop chases Jeanie and eventually Jeanie pulls over. Later, Mom says that Jeanie got a speeding ticket. It is unlikely that Jeanie would have gotten home before Ferris or Dad after pulling over and getting a speeding ticket(s), yet somehow Jeanie gets home first.

Continuity: Right at the end, as the Ferrari is flying out into the trees, it lands in the middle of a couple of very large maple trees. In the next shot, when the kids are standing looking down at the car, it is in a clearing, with nothing around it. It is unlikely that the trees were completely pulverized by the car and it was landing directly on top of them so it did not continue to move away after the fact.

Continuity: Near the very end, Ferris races home in vain as both Jeanie and his parents beat him home. Ferris is still in the kitchen as we see his parents at the base of the stairs, saying 'Let's go check on him.' They turn and start up the stairs. The next shot shows Ferris racing up the stairs. Next, we see the parents begin to mount the staircase (this time from a different angle) for a second time.

Continuity: In the scene where Ferris catches the foul ball, the television shows the stands where Ferris & company are sitting (down the left field line) as being in the shade. When the television shows the close-up of Ferris catching the ball, he is in the sun. When they have the actual shot in Wrigley Field, it is overcast.

Continuity: When driving home from the city there is obviously a fake backdrop to simulate a moving car. The car can be seen to change lanes but Ferris never actually turns the wheel of the car.

Continuity: Sloan's hairstyle changes from parted to the side, to the left and straight back throughout the scene in which she says goodbye to Ferris.

Continuity: When Jeanie and Charlie Sheen are talking on the couch in the police station, Jeanie's legs go from crossed left over right to right over left and her arm goes from resting on the couch to by her side and back again.

Continuity: In the scene where Rooney gets on the school bus, he crosses a grass boulevard to board it. The bus never moves and he gets off, stepping directly on to the sidewalk and there is no grass boulevard there anymore.

Visible crew/equipment: In the scenes where Sloan, Cameron and Ferris are driving to Chicago for the first time in the Ferarri, there is a brief shot of the Ferarri passing a car on a bridge. Look in the bottom right hand of the screen, you can see a perfect shadow of a person on the road. (Original VHS version, it has been taken out of the recent TV versions.)

Continuity: In the shower while Ferris is talking, behind him there is a rack with a wash cloth on it. They show a close up of Ferris picking up the squirting shower head off of the same rack, but the shower head was not there before the close up.

Continuity: When Ferris Cameron and Sloane are driving into Chicago they're speeding and flying by every car, but in one shot you can see a car pass the Ferrari in the background. It happens soon after they go airborne and you can hear the Ferrari's engine roaring as the other car passes them by.

Continuity: After the pinball girl shoots Pepsi through a straw at Rooney, he goes over to the counter and grabs some napkins to dry off, however, you can hardly see the wet spots, until the last shot - and then they are much darker.

Visible crew/equipment: When Jeanie pulls up to the field in her car and she says "I hate him." You can see the reflection of the boom mic and the camera in her slightly rolled up window.

Continuity: At the beginning of the movie, Ferris' mother is examining her sick son and says to Mr. Bueller, "He doesn't have a fever, but his hands are cold and clammy and he says he's seeing spots."  At the end of the movie, when Ferris narrowly beats his parents home and they enter his bedroom, Mrs. Bueller again touches her son's forehead and says, "You're still warm."  I thought he didn't have a fever.

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where Ed Rooney first goes to the house to search for Ferris, you see a gold colour pot and a reflection of a crew member in it.

Factual error: The odometer only goes up by 10 miles between the time Cameron freaks out and when they're back in the garage, but they stop at a famous Chicago lighthouse when Cameron freaks out that actually is 1/2 hour outside the city.

Continuity: When the gang pulls into the garage, Cameron is shown wearing his sleeves up. In the next shot they are rolled all the way down.

Continuity: When Rooney is at the Bueller house, he slips off the water spout into mud. His shoe is stuck in the mud when he pulls his foot out. Yet, there is no mud on his calf, which was also in the mud.

Continuity: In the opening scene where Ferris is seen lying in bed he is facing his bedroom door. His mother moves him onto his back. When his sister comes into the room, there is one shot of him magically on his side again. In the next shot when he says, "Jeanie!" he has returned to his back almost instantly.

Continuity: In the first scene of the movie where Ferris is trying to convince his parents and his sister that he is sick, his left hand changes position several times from shot to shot, going from under the pillow, to next to the pillow, to under the blanket.

Continuity: At the stock exchange the positioning of Cameron's arms go from being on a chair to in his lap to on the chair in a split second.

Continuity: The whole day's time sequence is terribly out of whak. For instance, when Rooney is wiping his face off after being spat on by the "Karate Champ" girl in the pizza joint, Ferris catches a fly ball. Harry Caray's play-by-play call can be heard in the background. He's calls the name "Lee Smith," indicating Lee Smith was on the mound for the Cubs. Lee Smith was a closer and likely would not be in the game until the 9th inning. Most day games at Wriglry start at 1:20 and last at least 2 hours. Therefore, the time would be about 3:30 PM when Ferris caught the fly ball. After that, he had time to make it back down to the Loop for a parade (presumably by elevated train), pick up the car, get back up to the North Shore (probably a decent 30 minute ride) take a dip in the pool, save Cameron's life, and race home to be in bed by the time his parent arrived home (6:00 sharp if you'll recall the father's lines at the beginning.) That's bad continuity. Aside from that, prior to the game, they dined at Chez Quis and went to the Museum (South Loop area.).

Continuity: When Ferris is playing the song on the synthesizer, at first he is using one hand and facing sideways. Cut to another shot and he's using both hands and facing forwards.

Continuity: If you look closely every time a clock is shown you can tell they do not match up. The times match up at the beginning but then proceed to jump back and forth throughout the movie.

Continuity: In the beginning of the movie when Ferris is laying in bed, and his parents are saying bye to him, the position of Ferris' blanket changes from the close up shots to the far away shots.

Continuity: When there is a commotion in Rooney's office and Grace is on the phone a green binder appears on Rooney's desk. It was not there before.

Continuity: When Rooney gets out of his car and walks up to Ferris' front door his jacket is unbuttoned, when he gets to the door it is buttoned.

Continuity: The movie supposedly takes place in April, however based on Chicago's climate, it is quite clear that the actual filming was conducted well into the summer months based on how full and leafy all the trees are, not to mention the ivy on the outfield wall at Wrigley Field which does not become fully developed with leaves until late May at the earliest.