Batman Begins (2005) - 41 mistakes

Continuity: When Batman is chased by the cops while he is trying to save Rachel, he reaches the roof of a parking lot and stops. A cop orders him to switch off the engine of his vehicle and get out. Later when Batman is chased inside a tunnel, we see a cop asking on his radio what the Batmobile looks like. The Batmobile then zooms past him and he says "never mind". The only problem is that it's the same cop both times, so he knew full well what the Batmobile looks like when it stopped in front of him initially. Probably caused by the order of those sequences being switched in editing, but still a mistake.

Factual error: The bat signal at the end of the film defies physics. The spotlight is a few feet across and is projecting the signal onto clouds far above. To do this, the light beam should get wider as it climbs up (like a flashlight's beam aimed at the ceiling). Yet the shot of the clouds shows rays of light getting wider as they go downward, like sun rays through the clouds. For this to exist, there's either a bat signal floating far above and through the clouds, or the one on the roof needs to be several miles wide, focusing a beam that narrows as it climbs.

Continuity: When the Tumbler leaps toward the steeply-angled rooftop (the shingled roof with dormers), beyond it is a tall office building on the opposite side of a highway that is running perpendicular to the Tumbler's direction of travel (and parallel to the face of the office building). In order to leap onto this highway, the Tumbler will need to make a hard left or right turn, as going straight will take it across the highway into the face of the office building. But as the Tumbler reaches the end of the angled roof, suddenly the office building has moved far to the left, and the highway is now nearly in line with the Tumbler's direction, running into the distance next to the office building, and passes along the left side of the shingled roof, making it easy for the Tumbler to leap easily onto the roadway.

Continuity: When Bruce is thrown off the truck when released from prison, you can see his bag in the background as he rolls at least 5 feet away to his right. When the angle changes and he's getting up, the bag is right in front of him, if not slightly to his left.

Continuity: When the burning log falls on Bruce, it lands near his feet. Camera cuts and it's now by his neck.

Continuity: After the big explosion, Bruce is shown holding Ducard at the edge of the cliff. Bruce's body is over the edge, only his arm remains on the ice to anchor them. But as he lifts Ducard to safety, Bruce's body is suddenly on the ice, only his right arm is over the edge.

Revealing: Near the end of the scene, when Bruce and Fox are in the tumbler Fox says "We never could get the damn bridge to work, but this baby works just fine" then Bruce turns the wheel to the left but the tumbler turns right.

Continuity: Before Alfred knocks down the man outside the burning mansion, there are several shots from the inside of the building. In one of them, there's a burning table with a globe on. When Alfred and Bruce escape, they enter the room with the piano, and the same table is seen again. There are lots of flames around the table, but the table itself is no longer on fire.

Audio problem: During Bruce's birthday party, the guests sing "Happy Birthday", but the song does not match their lips.

Deliberate "mistake": When Batman flees from Gordon after their first meeting, he leaps across an alley and catches himself on the railing on a fire escape. This fire escape fails, dropping him (as well as the clothing left to dry on the railing). Batman grabs the next railing and again, this second fire escape collapses. Exactly the same as the first, with the same clothing falling off. When he climbs onto the 'third' fire escape, we see he's only come down one level, not two. The scene was artificially lengthened by using two perspectives of the same stunt.

Revealing: When the Batmobile is in the parking lot, there are skid marks under the Batmobile revealing the previous takes.

Continuity: When Batman drives over the cop car, using his batmobile for the first time, he knocks the light bar off. Camera cuts and now the light bar is back on the car.

Continuity: During the board meeting at Wayne Enterprises, before Bruce shows up, as Earle says, "I think after twenty years we can allow ourselves to…", he's walking towards his chair. As the shot ends, he's about two meters away from the chair, but in the next shot where he continues "…stop thinking about what Thomas Wayne would have done", he's already reached the chair and sits down.

Continuity: After Bruce and Rachel kiss, as Rachel says, "He never came back at all", her hand is touching his face, but in the next shot, her hand is gone from his face.

Continuity: When Thomas Wayne dies, in his last two close-ups, there's a crack in the asphalt under his head, as well as another one on his left, that weren't there in the previous wideshot.

Audio problem: After Bruce and Rachel kiss, Rachel says, "But maybe he's still out there somewhere". Her head is seen from behind, but you can see from the motion of her jaw that her mouth is moving before the words are heard.

Continuity: When Bruce is pinned down under the burning log, the position and amount of flames on the log keeps changing, including some consecutive shots. The amount and position of the debris by his head also changes several times.

Continuity: When Thomas Wayne carries Bruce into the mansion, in the first shot, Bruce's legs are pointing outwards. In the next shot, they're hanging downwards.

Continuity: When Bruce and Rachel kiss, in the third shot, the fingers of Rachel's left hand can be seen on Bruce's neck, but in the previous shot, her hand was nowhere near his neck.

Visible crew/equipment: During the first board meeting at Wayne Enterprises, in two close-ups of Mr. Earle, spots of bright green light from the movie camera is reflected in his glasses. The same thing happens when he opens the door and sees Bruce. There is no such light shining in either room.

Continuity: When Dr. Crane enters Falcone's cell, he sits down, and as the shots ends, his hands are up as he's putting his briefcase on the table. In the next shot, his hands are suddenly resting in his lap.

Continuity: As Ducard is sliding down the ice toward the cliff, he's on his front, sliding feet first. Bruce is also on his stomach, but sliding head first. Then, just before Ducard goes over the edge, Bruce is instantly on his back, sliding sideways, right side toward Ducard, just in time to take Ducard's hand, saving him.

Continuity: During the first board meeting at Wayne Enterprises, there's a woman sitting on Frederick's left. As he says, "I don't think Thomas Wayne would have viewed heavy-arms manufacture as a suitable cornerstone for our business", in the wide shot, their chairs are about half a metre apart, but in the close-up, the chairs are much closer to each other.

Continuity: When Sergeant Gordon puts the jacket around a young Bruce, the jacket is lying smooth around Bruce in the first shots. In the consecutive shot where Gordon says, "It's okay" for the second time, there's suddenly a huge bulge in the jacket on Bruce's left shoulder, but in the next shot, the jacket is smooth again.

Audio problem: When Rachel seeks out Bruce at the end of the movie, Bruce says, "I was a coward with a gun, and justice is about more than revenge, so thank you." In the first shot, his head is seen from behind, and neither his mouth nor his jaw is moving.

Continuity: When Gordon gives Batman the Joker card, which is in a small, sealed, tight evidence bag, the card switches position in the bag between the shots of Batman taking it and him turning the card around.

Continuity: The woman that shoots Joe Chill pushes the gun all the way against his chest. In the next shot, the gun is at least a foot away from his chest. The scene is shown in real time, and no one moves that quickly.

Continuity: When Alfred holds and comforts Bruce after Bruce's parents are killed, Bruce moves his head towards him and presses his face against Alfred's arm. In the next shot, he moves his head towards Alfred again, this time pressing his head against Alfred's chest.

Continuity: When Bruce is thrown out the door by Falcone's thugs, he lands next to a white pavement stripe. In the next shot, he is much closer to the end of the stripe than in the previous shot.

Continuity: When Rachel drops by to give Bruce his birthday present, his hair keeps changing, especially his fringe.

Continuity: When the young Bruce is trapped at the bottom of the well, there are several shots looking up from the bottom. In the first shot, branches are seen over the well. When the bats fly out of the well, there are different branches, and when Thomas Wayne lowers himself down to rescue his son, yet another set of branches is seen.

Audio problem: When Bruce is thrown into the cell, the metal door makes a loud, distinct noise as it's opened and closed. When Ducard is about to leave, he knocks on the door to signal the guards. In the following shot of Bruce, nothing is heard, but when the camera cuts back to Ducard, the door is fully open.

Continuity: When the thug punches Bruce in the beginning of the film, he grabs Bruce's hair, yanking it straight up. In the next shot, he's yanking it sideways.

Continuity: When Bruce defeats the Ra's impostor, the overhead beams collapse down as Ra's rolls onto his left side, head turned further left toward the floor to shield his face. As this shot ends, the debris settles, and we can see Ra's does not change position. But a close-up shows that Ra's is now flat on his back, head turned to his right.

Revealing: When Rachel is driving to Arkham Asylum, traffic is moving in both directions, but the three lanes of the road are separated by white dashed lines indicating a single direction.

Continuity: As Ducard goes over the cliff's edge, Bruce is dragged over the edge in the distant shots, with only his left arm still on top of the cliff, holding the knife in the ice. But the close-ups (prior to the big explosion) show only his right arm and leg are over the edge with Ducard, while his body remains on top of the ice.

Continuity: As Bruce and Rachel talk inside her car in front of Falcone's building, he takes out his revolver. His hair is rather neat, parted in the middle. Rachel slaps him twice, and each time, his fair falls further onto his forehead from the sides so that it now hangs over his eyebrows. But an inserted shot, just before Rachel says "Your father would be ashamed of you", his hair is back in neat, before-the-slaps condition. After she says her line, his hair is properly messed up again.

Continuity: As Ducard slides down the icy slope toward the cliff, a brief shot from Bruce's viewpoint shows Ducard from a top-down perspective, revealing that Liam Neeson has been replaced by a stuntman with far more hair and no sign of Liam's receding hairline.

Continuity: Almost at the end when Bruce and Rachel are talking where Wayne Manor used to stand, she puts her hand on his cheek/jaw/ear area. The position of her hand changes between shots, from having his ear between her fingers to having her fingers below his ear and so on.

Revealing: When Bruce Wayne is heading to the hearing at the courthouse, he checks his revolver to make sure it's loaded. His intent is to execute Joe Chill for killing his parents, so he would need a working gun. But when he opens the cylinder of the revolver to make sure it's loaded, you can see that all of the bullets have had the primer removed (the end of each bullet casing has a hole in it.) This is done to make each round impossible to fire, for safety on the set.

Revealing: When Bruce is told to execute the man in the ninja temple, watch the blade closely as he raises it up - the edge is ground down flat for the safety of the actors, he wouldn't be able to cut butter with that sword.