Factual error: In the scene where Will Smith's girlfriend is running in the tunnel, she kicks open the door just in time to save herself, her son, and the dog. The terrible fireball then goes right by them. They are just inside the open door, with fire and debris flying right past it. While the fire and debris might not spill in, the heatwave would still fry them.

Continuity: In the scene where Jeff Goldblum is getting the alcohol out of the fridge, he opens the fridge door and it is full of food.  When his ex-wife puts the bottle back in the fridge, it's virtually empty.  It's full again when Jeff reaches back in to get the bottle back.

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where Jeff G. is talking to his ex-wife over the cell in the white house, watch behind her as she paces around the hallway.  At one point, you will see a camera man (complete with water bottle and utility belt) on the lower left portion of the screen.  He's on the floor behind her and accidentally gets exposed to the camera when she steps to the side.  He quickly scrambles away.

Continuity: Several times during the last air battle, the President shoots his missiles, but a view of his plane shows that it still has all four missiles.

Factual error: The Capitol's dome crumbles like stone, but it's made of iron.

Continuity: In the Area 51 hangar, when Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum are trying to take off in the alien Attacker, we are clearly shown how the ship flies: Pull back on the controls, you go forward, push forward on the controls, you go in reverse. Later, in the mothership, after they have launched the nuke and are released, Will Smith pulls back on the steering wheel, which should send them flying forward, but the external shot shows them flying backwards.

Revealing: When the President's assistant is waiting for him the first morning she is reading U.S.A Today. On the back there is a weather map and it is blue and green, the colours for cold in U.S.A Today. It was a hot July day!

Factual error: When Will Smith is flying through the canyon he says "Hope you got air bag" and pulls a lever to deploy the braking chute on his FA-18. The chute is then detached and lands onto the attacking alien craft. FA-18's DO NOT have a braking chute, they rely on using an arrestor hook for carrier landings and a dorsal airbrake when landing on a runway.

Factual error: When the dad stands up to talk about his flight experience and says that he was taken by aliens 10 years before, everyone reacts with tired groans as though they are sick of hearing his tall tales. Well we know there are aliens, so why would they not believe him?

Continuity: When Jeff Goldblum is getting drunk and he's talking to his ex-wife, at one point he slams the bottle down on the counter and a little liquor sprays up out the opening, then they talk for a second, and he picks the bottle back up to pour himself more, but he now needs to unscrew the cap which was just lying next to the bottle.

Revealing: When Jeff Goldblum is throwing a tantrum in the hangar housing the captured alien craft, he knocks over several plastic garbage cans, one of which is clearly labelled "Art Dept" - kind of odd for a top secret underground government military research facility...(unless the can is from the Aircraft Recovery and Transport department that brought the alien ship into the hangar, in which case, it's just fine ).

Factual error: When the aliens attack Novosibirsk, Russia, a map of "Russia" in Russian letters is displayed on-screen from what is supposed to be a Russian news broadcast. In fact, it's a map of the Soviet Union, St. Petersburg is incorrectly labeled as "Petrograd," Moscow is too far east, and Novosibirsk is very badly misspelled.

Continuity: When Will Smith is dragging the unconscious alien across the desert, the sky alternates between overcast and perfectly sunny depending on if it a close up or far off view of Will.