The American President (1995) - 15 mistakes

Continuity: In the meeting room with the White House Chief of Staff, Sydney is giving a self-righteous speech about the President being president of Fantasyland. When the President walks into view, she immediately stands up from her chair. Then in the next shot, she immediately stands up again.

Continuity: When Sydney is at her sister's apartment and they are talking, the paper goes back and forth from being pressed and vertical to distorted and wrinkled.

Continuity: When the President is asking Sydney for a date over the phone, in the first two shots the phone cord is under the President's arm and in the last shot, the phone cord is over his arm.

Continuity: When they are arguing in his bedroom, her scarf and coat are closed at one point, then open, then closed.

Continuity: When the President comes home, right before Sydney tells him that he lost her vote, he is walking up the stairs and unbuttoning his jacket. However, in the next shot, he goes to kiss his daughter, and his jacket is buttoned again.

Factual error: In the scenes of the dinner honoring the President of France, they descend the stairs into the entrance hall and cross towards the State Dining Room. The remaining scenes of the dinner take place in the much larger East Room, completely on the other side of the White House, recognizable from the larger chandeliers and greater size of the room.

Revealing: In the opening scenes, when the President is walking with Rothschild and his other aides, he leaves the building to walk to the West Wing. In this early morning shot, one would expect the sun to be the only light, but each actor has numerous shadows.

Other: This error occurs during the scene in which the President and Lewis Rothschild are riding in the limo, just after the President has broken a date with Syndney. The background scenery, visible through the windows of the car, is noticeably in slow motion, even though the car (and the people inside it) are moving at regular speed.

Factual error: When Sydney arrives at the Christmas Party, President Shepherd and A.J. MacInerney ask where she's been. She says she was stuck at Dupont Circle and they ask why she was on the Hill. But to get from Capitol Hill to the White House, one would not drive anywhere near Dupont Circle.

Continuity: When the two aides are discussing the President, the aide with the beard plops Alka-Seltzer in a glass. It fizzes and then the next shot he's drinking plain water again.

Continuity: In the first scene where President Andrew Shepherd encounters his daughter practising the trombone in her room, he talks to her about a parent-teacher conference and hands her a book. In the shot where he hands her the book, it is right side up for the girl to open easily. In the shot where she receives the book, she has to turn it around to open it.

Continuity: When Sydney is at her sister's apartment and talking about how foolish she was in the Oval Office, the phone rings, and the sister lifts up the salad she is preparing in the salad bowl. In the next shot, she lifts up the salad bowl again.

Continuity: In the scene where Michael Douglas first calls Annette Bening for a date, he has a glass of beer in front of him. She replies the president has a nice butt and hangs up. He immediately re-dials, but now has a cocktail in his hand and the beer is gone.

Other: The scene showing the Capitol Building is a still shot. There are birds flying in front of this scene, but the water and birds actually in the scene aren't moving.

Continuity: The morning after the President and Sydney have spent the night together for the first time, while Sydney is getting dressed to leave, the collar of her turtleneck sits flat in the front (around her neck), but in the next shot the same collar is dog-eared in front, then goes back to sitting flat.