Continuity: Steve and Jasmine are asleep and the house starts to shake. There are 3 pictures on a night stand. Two of the three fall. When they wake up the 2 pictures are back up.

Continuity: During one of the big building explosions we see a police officer on a horse. He turns on the horse, and then the camera cuts to the next shot and we see him turning on his horse again.

Continuity: At the end of the scene when Jeff Goldblum's ex-wife tells him she has never stopped loving him she is standing in a doorway. The close-up shot shows her arms are folded across her chest, but when it cuts to a longer shot her hands are on her hips.

Continuity: When the President ( Bill Pullman ) is evacuating the White House close to the beginning, in the first shot you can see him and his daughter just in the doorframe, in the following shot they are about 5 foot away from the door.

Continuity: In the middle of the of film when we see David and the Doctor inside the alien aircraft having a look around, the camera shot cuts to a front view of them, if you look to the right two other scientists walk in, and the scientist with the mustache and beard stops and looks and the other walks a bit further and peaks over, in the following shot you can see this action again.

Plot hole: When Air Force One is taking off, the fireball should not be that close. The heat from the fireball would keep the wings from getting any lift as hotter air is thinner. Since the fireball is hot enough to explode steel and concrete it would surely have ignited the 45,000 gallons of fuel in the wings and melted the rubber tires. Had the plane actually been able to get its tires off the ground, the 'rolling' effect of the fireball and the rapidly rising heat being below and behind the plane would have caused it to do a 'negative angle pitch-over' or forward somersault right into the runway.

Continuity: When Connie starts to give her speech at the white house press conference, the shots of her on TV show General Grey standing right next to her, but when they show the conference in the press room, he is a couple of steps behind her.

Revealing: When the aliens attack LA. There is a shot of red and sliver cars. The same cars fall three times onto other cars, from three different angles.

Factual error: The missile launched by the B-2 is made-up. The nuclear missiles carried by the B-2 are powered by a small jet engine, not a rocket motor. The last air-launched, rocket-powered, nuclear missile was withdrawn from USAF service in 1990, before B-2s had even been delivered to the Air Force. Plus, these missiles are very accurate and have a range of hundreds of miles. Why get so close? Finally, the B-2 pilots have no flash blindness protection. No blackout panels on the windows, or special goggles that darken when exposed to bright light. The tinted visors on their helmets isn't good enough to block out the flash from a nuclear detonation.

Continuity: When they all board Air Force One, Jeff and his dad are led to a rear section of the plane. The corridor they walk down is on the left of the plane and when they emerge it's on the right, as though they used the same section for both shots.

Continuity: During the First Lady's death scene, Connie is across the bed when she is asked to take her daughter out of the room. But in the very next scene, she is standing right next to her daughter.

Continuity: When Will Smith ejects from the plane he is clearly strapped into his ejector seat, but when he lands the ejector seat is nowhere to be seen - it's not on the floor and he's not sitting on it. Then shortly afterwards it magically appears under the parachute.

Factual error: In the scene where they show the Israeli air force with the Arabs, they show Israeli F/A-18s. The problem is that the Israelis do not own or operate any US Navy equipment - only Airforce such as F-16s.

Factual error: The firewall that destroys Washington DC is all wrong - When the destroyer blows up the White House, as in NYC and LA, it would have created a ring of fire that would have spread outwards. The White House is in a North Westerly position from the Capital Building, so when the fire wall hit the Capital Building, it would have hit from the side - but, instead, it hits from the back/front...

Continuity: If you watch the DVD Version Director's Cut, you'll see a scene where Dr. Okun shows David the inside of the cockpit. When Okun shows him the scrolling green lines on the console he says that they don't know what they are. David says it's the same thing as their countdown signal and they always move together. Yet when Will Smith is flying the ship through the tunnels, the lines go horizontal, spread apart, and even turn blue in some parts.

Factual error: Even allowing for dramatic licence, the scene where Will Smith flies an FA18 down a canyon is absurd. Pulling such manoeuvres at that speed would rip the wings off his aircraft and squash him like a pancake against the cockpit wall. He isn't even wearing a g-suit.

Continuity: When Will Smith goes out to get the paper, the paper has a string around it to keep it closed, yet he opens it up as if it was only folded.

Factual error: In the White House they mention "an AWAC".  The aircraft (E-3 Sentry) is known as an AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System), it is not plural so you don't drop the S.

Continuity: As LA is destroyed, you see Will Smith's girlfriend sitting in her car. As she turns around in her seat to see the fire ball coming at her, you see the entrance to the tunnel is an arch. As she runs through the tunnel, the ground is level. But the morning after, she has to climb up to get back out of the tunnel entrance, which is now a complete circle. It looks as if she's coming out of a large drain pipe.

Continuity: At the end when Will Smith and Goldblum are released from the clamp in the mothership and are leaving, Will Smith never puts on his seat belt. Surely from all the twists and turns, not to mention the little nuclear explosion, he would have been tossed around just a little.