Forrest Gump (1994) - 47 mistakes

Factual error: Jenny shows Forrest a clipping of him in U.S.A Today magazine (first published in September 1982), but on Jenny's grave it says she died on March 22 1982.

Continuity: In the scene where Forrest goes and visits Jenny (and is introduced to his son), there is an iron on the ironing board in the background. It stands up, then down, then up. The child's artwork in the background also disappears.

Continuity: When Forrest firsts meets Jenny on the bus to school, a girl is sitting behind them, then disappears, then reappears again..

Factual error: In the scene where Forrest gets his discharge papers, he is practicing table tennis in a gym. The gym floor has a three-point line on the basketball court. It is a college or high school three point line- 19 feet, 9 inches. There was no three pointer in basketball at that time, especially at that distance.

Continuity: When Forrest finally catches shrimp on the boat, the net drops DEAD shrimp on the deck.

Continuity: When Forrest is running the football field and passing all the players, he passes everyone except the referee, who can be seen moving down the sidelines at a faster pace than Forrest.

Factual error: When Forrest is talking to Jenny at her grave, he says "You died on a Saturday." But 22 March 1982 (the date on the grave) was a Monday.

Continuity: When Forrest Runs towards Jenny in the reflecting pond during the Anti-Vietnam Rally, he runs by the same man twice. Look carefully for the man in the top hat and you will see it is really the same shot from two different angles.

Other: In the scene where Forrest and Jenny reunite in Washington D.C., they embrace in the lake and the camera pans away from the two of them embracing. If you look closely, there's no reflection of their silhouettes on the water of the lake as there should be.

Continuity: When Bubba and Forrest have just arrived in Vietnam, they are walking along a boardwalk and pass a sign. The shot changes and faces them, but the sign is gone.

Factual error: Near the end of the movie when Jenny visits Forrest, it is supposed to be July 4th, 1976. On her TV is the New York Harbour Bi-centennial Celebration, and a shot of the Statue of Liberty shows her with a "gold" torch, which was added as part of her restoration in 1986.

Factual error: In the scene where Forrest's platoon is crouched down along the side of the road and the narration is introducing some of the soldiers, you can see a pack of Marlboro cigarettes in one of the men's helmets. On the side of the pack is "Marlboro Miles". These weren't started until the 1990's.

Continuity: The first time that Forrest runs across the football field, a front view of the coach's head shows him following Forrest without moving his head, coach just moves his eyes. But a back view of the coach's head shows the head moving, following Forrest's movement. Back to the front view and the head is still.

Continuity: When Forrest sees Jenny at the anti-war demonstration in Washington D.C. he runs through the crowd towards the pond. We see that the gap between the people who let him through closes immediately after him, but in the last shot it remains wide open, obviously to allow a more dramatic view of Jenny's and Forrest's reunion. However, when the crowd is shown from the other side there's no gap at all.

Revealing: In the scene where Forrest is describing his heritage, the clip of KKK on horses is taken from The Birth of a Nation. In this clip, you can see tire tracks on the dirt road well before automobiles were supposed to be in existence. Robert Zemeckis decided to leave this mistake in to perfectly match the clip to the original movie.

Revealing: While Forrest is playing the Chinese ping pong player, the camera shows him returning powerful volleys with ease. During one of these returns, his hand and arm bend at an unnatural angle due to the CGI graphics changing a forehand shot to a backhand shot.

Factual error: When Forrest is reading the letter from Apple Computer, the date at the top of the letter says September 1978, but Apple's stock never went public until December of 1980.

Continuity: When Forrest lifts Lt. Dan to carry him out of the jungle, there is a pack slung over Lt. Dan's left shoulder. When the shot changes to Forrest carrying him over his shoulder the pack has disappeared, without time for it to have fallen off. Notice, this pack is separate from Lt. Dan's large field pack, which Forrest does unbuckle before he lifts him onto his shoulder.

Factual error: Forrest begins his run across America the day President Carter collapses in Maryland. This is September 15, 1979. When he stops running, he says: 'I had run for three years, two months, fourteen days, and sixteen hours.' Some time later, he gets Jenny's letter - the day President Reagan is attacked. This is March 30, 1981. So, he could have run only one and a half years.

Factual error: In the hospital, Lt. Dan would not have been in the same ward as Forrest. Forrest is an enlisted man and Lt. Dan is an officer.

Continuity: When Jenny comes to see Forrest when he's mowing the lawn they hug. Jenny's left arm is down on Forrest's back in one shot, but up around his neck in the reverse shot.

Continuity: In the scene just after Jenny shows up while Forrest is mowing his yard, Forrest and Jenny are walking and they happen upon Jenny's old house, where she lived with her father. She starts out by throwing her shoes, which she is carrying in her hand, at the house. The shot changes to view her from behind as she is throwing rocks, and she is standing on or just in front of a patch of grass in the driveway. As the shots change from in front to behind her, her position in the driveway has moved back from her original position, which is farther from the house by several feet, and when she finally collapses to the ground in tears, the patches of grass in the driveway have disappeared.

Continuity: When Lt. Dan gets lifted off the bed by the male nurse, the handle he was holding on to disappears when the camera cuts to Forrest - it was so low that it should be in the picture.

Continuity: In the scene where Lt. Dan thanks Forrest for saving his life and "makes his peace with God", before he jumps overboard off the shrimp boat, the water is flat calm. In the next shot when he does jump and is doing the backstroke, the water is slightly choppy or rippled.

Continuity: In the scene where Forrest is attacked by boys who are throwing stones he is hit underneath his right eye. In the next shot you can see Forrest bleeding from a wound on his forehead.

Audio problem: During the football match when Forrest runs and bumps into the band players, we hear what sounds like cymbals crashing/dropping to the ground. But if you look at the band players he knocks over, there are no cymbals anywhere near them.

Continuity: After Forrest gets his medal he meets Jenny at the anti-war demonstration. When she goes to the bus to leave they are standing talking. In one shot his medal is tucked inside his jacket, but in the next shot (right before he takes his medal off) it is on the outside of his jacket.

Factual error: In the scene where Forrest Gump is wheeling Lt. Dan across a street between a bunch of taxis, the car they go behind is a 1973 Chevrolet Caprice (see the tail lights). However, several scenes later we know the year is 1971 because it is New Years 1971 because we see the TV flash 1972 as the year changes. And there weren't any 1973 Chevys made in 1971.

Continuity: When the platoon is walking down the trail and he says they are always looking for a man named Charlie, he has a pack of matches in his helmet from his rations. When they get on their feet, he has a pack of napkins next to the matches.

Continuity: In the scene where Jenny is adjusting Forrest's tie before their wedding, a man wearing a brown jacket can be seen on the porch behind them. Then in the next shot when Forrest sees Lt. Dan approaching, the man is gone.

Continuity: During Forrest's first football game, he is standing staring off into space when they receive the kickoff, his teammate runs over to him, hands him the ball, and tells him to run. Forrest says, "Okay". The camera cuts to the coach on the sideline who is yelling for him to "run!, run!", while at the same time his head is turning as if he is watching Forrest run past him. But the next camera shot shows Forrest running, but he has not yet gotten to the point on the sideline where the coach and the team are standing.

Continuity: When young Forrest goes to young Jenny's house and he finds her in the backyard, they run away from the back of the house to get away from her drunken father. They kneel down in a patch of corn and pray to turn into birds and fly away. The camera then pans up over the corn and you can see that they are in the corn field in front and just to the side of the house, not the back of the house.

Continuity: When Forrest comes home after being discharged from the army, his mother greets him outside and it's overcast. The shadows on the ground are very faint. But in the shot from inside the house, it's suddenly sunny outside and the shadows are very dark.

Continuity: When the school principal shows the poster with the IQ requirements for regular schooling to Forrest's mother, the grip on his pencil changes back and forth in shots from the front and from behind.

Continuity: In the scene were Forrest is getting on the school bus for his first day at school, he is standing at the door talking to Dorothy Harris, the bus driver. The shot from behind Forrest shows Dorothy's right hand on the gear shift knob. In the next shot, from inside the bus looking down at Forrest, her right hand is on the door-open lever. This shot changes several times, and each time her right hand is in those two different positions.

Factual error: In the scene where Forrest gets his discharge papers, the sargeant calls him PFC, that is private first class. However, if he had served one tour in Vietnam, he would have been automatically promoted to SP4, that is one rank above PFC. When he is in uniform at the rally in Washington, he is wearing three stripes on his shoulder - that is sargeant, a rank he could not have earned after being discharged.

Continuity: In the scene where Lt. Dan is waiting on Forrest at the dock, and Forrest jumps overboard off his boat to swim over to meet him, Forrest's hair and face are mysteriously dry for him to have just come out of the water, as if he towelled off his head before climbing the steps up to the platform.

Continuity: When Forrest sits down at his dying mother's bed, the pillow behind her back moves up significantly between shots.

Continuity: Young Forrest is about to step in the bus. He says to the bus driver, "My name's Forrest, Forrest Gump." That moment we have a back view of the bus driver's head and she exhales a big puff of smoke. A split second after we cut back to a front view of her and there's no smoke, instead she immediately exhales the smoke again.

Deliberate "mistake": In the scene where Forrest sees Lt. Dan on the dock and jumps off the boat to greet him, the boat keeps moving straight ahead down the bayou. Then, less than a minute later, it crashes into the dock next to Forrest and Lt. Dan. There's no way the boat would've been able to make a circle, move past Forrest and Lt. Dan, and steer itself into the neighboring dock.

Factual error: While Forrest is in the hospital after being wounded in the firefight that killed Bubba, the lunar landing of 1969 is shown on a tv in the background. Later, when Forrest visits Bubba's grave, Bubba's date of death is shown on the headstone as 1967.

Continuity: When Forrest is in Vietnam and they are all under attack in that little bunker, pay attention to Lt. Dan. In one shot there is a gun behind him, but a few shots later it is gone.

Continuity: When Forrest was running in the first football scene, it shows cheerleaders and a couple of football players on the sidelines, then the next scene in closer view of Forrest running it shows the same cheerleaders and players in the same exact spot as if Forrest ran that same part of the field again.

Continuity: When Forrest gets hit by a stone and falls on the ground a red school book is lying on the ground next to him. When he gets up he doesn't pick it up, and when he runs away it's not on the ground either.

Factual error: When Jenny introduces Forrest to the guy from Columbia SDS during the anti-war rally, she also introduces Forrest to a Black Panther. In real life (only a grad student would actually know this) Columbia University SDS was dominated by the Maoist Progressive Labor Party, and for ideological reasons, the Black Panthers and Progressive Labor despised each other. It is very unlikely that they would be hanging out together, as they are in the film.

Revealing: Every time Forrest recalls an assassination attempt, we hear the exact same gunshot sounds.

Audio problem: John Lennon's lips don't sync with what he's saying.