Notting Hill (1999) - 42 mistakes

Continuity: When William takes Anna back to his flat, after the orange juice incident. His shirt is stained, she comes into the flat and changes. Then she leaves. When she returns to get her books, his shirt is still stained but after she kisses him the stain is gone. An impressive kiss...

Continuity: Every time they show the outside of the bookstore, on the left you see the same adult drying a child's tears.

Revealing: In the scene where they are all having a farewell dinner at Tony's restaurant. At the end of the meal they are all scattered around the restaurant, the camera is on Bella and Honey and in the background, outside the restaurant, 4 extras walk past, 3 at the front and one behind. The next shot is at the window where Max and William are sat, again the 4 extras walk past in exactly the same order and positions. They are the same people because one of them has a pink top on and you see that twice.

Continuity: At the bookstore, in the wide shots the surveillance monitor is sitting in the center of four large books, yet in the close-up of the monitor, showing Rufus, the shoplifter, there is another book lying on the larger books, to the left of the monitor.

Continuity: When William is interviewing Anna in the hotel suite, behind the lever door handles, there are two wide, brass, open lattice finger plates, which change to narrow, brass, closed lattice finger plates.

Continuity: When Anna visits Will's place for the first time there is a plant and an open window when you look from the entrance into the apartment. Later, after she has left, there is no plant and a shutter pulled down.

Continuity: At home when William is sitting at his desk opening up to Spike about the female problem, the items on his desk change their positions between the wide shots and the close-ups.

Continuity: When Anna muses over the size of Will's feet he is reading the newspaper. Check the picture on the back of the paper - it changes although there is no sign that he turns a page.

Continuity: In one scene in the bookstore, there are three copies of a guide to Germany on the table next to Hugh Grant. In one clip, there are three spines, in the next two of the books have been turned round.

Continuity: When Anna comes down the stairs at night to join Will she is peeping around a partition wall. Next we see them kissing, and the wall is gone.

Continuity: When Will leaves his bookstore to get a sandwich and some orange juice there is a poster stand in front that hadn't been there when he arrived.

Continuity: In the scene where William visits Anna on the set of her period film and they have a discussion near the trailers, the same man pushing a trolley is in not one but three cuts back to Anna.

Continuity: When Will detects Rufus the thief on the monitor only the picture in close-up shows him in action. All other shots show him at a different place on the left side of the screen.

Continuity: In the second scene at Will's bookstore a bus with Anna's face on it is passing the bookstore twice in successive shots.

Continuity: When Will leaves after the interview his formerly brown jacket is grey and his hair is differently combed.

Continuity: Despite the passage of time, every time we see the back of the door in the book shop the same post is visible in the basket.

Continuity: At the birthday party of Will's sister Bernie's tie knot moves down from one shot to the next.

Continuity: When you see the entrance area of Will's bookstore from inside for the second time the shelf is shifted to the left, and the things things on it are rearranged, e.g. the latitude scale of the left globe is turned.

Visible crew/equipment: When Hugh bumps into Julia and spills orange juice over her, she raises her face and you can see a boom mic reflected on her left lense, and crew members on the right one.

Continuity: The guy that steals a book has his hair either combed or messy depending on the angle.

Continuity: On the surveillance monitor there are lying two books, the upper one with a black binding. In a close-up of the monitor you see only a part of the book with the black binding, and the other book is gone.

Plot hole: At one point, driving down Haymarket, they turn left into a side street to take a shortcut round Trafalgar Square. The next scene shows the Rhys Ifans character stopping the traffic next to Admiralty Arch to let the car come out of a side street. However, to get to the street out of which they are shown as emerging, the car would have had to drive all the way round Trafalgar Square and turn left off Cockspur Street, almost back where they started.  The street they turned into off Haymarket comes out on Pall Mall East and the only way to go is along the north side of Trafalgar Square. So unless there's a wormhole between the two streets, the shortcut was anything but.

Continuity: The spring closing the front door when Anna first enters the flat (orange juice scene) is upside down when she next enters the flat (escaping the journalists).

Factual error: When Hugh Grant enters The Ritz from the street outside he walks to the lift with the Time Out journalist behind him. The green, digital number on the wall indicates that the lift is on level 5. It is not possible that they walked into The Ritz on level 5, not the ground floor, and then tried to travel up to the third floor, as the journalist requests.

Other: The two cappucinos that Will brings back to the bookshop, which are then consumed during conversation, are obviously empty cups. The supposedly hot drinks are gone within seconds with no residue on the drinkers' faces.

Continuity: In the scene just after Anna opens the door and all the photographers are outside, Spike walks to the front door in his grey underwear. Just before he opens the door the underwear is covering only one butt cheek (his left). The next shot outside the house the underwear is adjusted and covers both butt cheeks but then when he enters the house and is checking himself out in the mirror, his butt cheek is exposed again.

Continuity: In the scene just before Anna goes into the bookshop with the painting there is an outside shot of the building. In front of the school you can see the woman kneeling down in front of a child but also if you look through the window and door of the shop you can see Will walking in wearing a blue shirt. In the very next scene he is sitting at his desk wearing a pink shirt.

Continuity: The orange juice stain on Will's shirt changes size and shape from shot to shot throughout the whole scene.

Continuity: After Will gets the sandwich and orange juice he turns around. Now his shirt is not tucked in properly in front, in contrast to the shot before.

Continuity: During Rufus's entrance to Will's shop the hair over his forehead is arranged in at least three different ways.

Continuity: At the beginning of Honey's birthday party Bella's blouse first reveals the right, then the left shoulder in successive shots.

Continuity: In the scene where Julia Robert's character first goes to Hugh Grant's character's flat, there's a chalkboard that's telling Spike to clean up. It's quite small writing, but in a close-up of Hugh Grant when he's directing her upstairs it's clearly larger. It then goes small again until she comes downstairs, when it goes large and stays that way.

Continuity: After William leaves the movie set, in the next shot he goes back to the book shop. Seen through the window is the table with the books and globes. Then when Anna is standing near the window, we see that there are completely different kinds of books on the top shelf now.

Continuity: For some time during the interview Anna's collar is above the lapel although she sits quite still.

Audio problem: Anna is at Will's place to take refuge from the press. In the morning he opens the door, unaware of any trouble, and faces a yelling and hooting crowd of reporters. Then he shuts the door, and you don't hear a thing, although the door looks anything but soundproof.

Revealing: In the scene where Will and his friends are driving to catch Anna at the press conference, Spike jumps out of the back of the car to halt traffic and let their car through. When he closes the back door, the sound effect of a slamming door is loud, but the door doesn't shut - you can see it bounce back up.

Continuity: When William initially walks into his bookstore after he takes the mail from Martin, on the bookcase he approaches to his right we see close-up some of the books on three shelves, one of which says 'Siberia', and also the two small posters, the bottom says 'Mukiwa' and the top says 'Lonely Planet', tacked to the side of this bookcase. When Anna browses that same bookcase, she looks at the book 'My Turkish Delights'. The books that are on the shelves of the bookcase, and only the top poster that is tacked to the side are now completely different.

Revealing: The Time Out reporter who is following Will to Anna's suite is taking fake sips from an obviously empty plastic cup.

Continuity: In the 3-shot sequence where Honey is opening her birthday gifts, the shots show the following: 1. Hugh Grant puts a necklace on Honey and she is wearing the hat; 2. She has just opened the hat and is not wearing the necklace; and 3. She is wearing the hat and no necklace. In the following sequence (the competition for the brownie), she is wearing the necklace and no hat.

Plot hole: After Hugh Grant visits Julia Roberts in the Ritz Hotel, he is seen entering a bus to return to his flat. The camera pans back to reveal her photo on the rear of the bus, forgetting that the bus is heading east down Piccadilly, and away from Notting Hill.

Continuity: Anyone familiar with Notting Hill will know that the rooftop terrace scenes with Spike and William and later with William and Anna, were not remotely in the same neighbourhood as William's flat with the infamous Blue Door.  The rooftop scenes were filmed most likely on rooftop between Ladbroke Grove and Stanley Gardens, while the flat with the Blue Door is located on Westbourne Park Road.

Continuity: When Hugh character takes Julia Robert's character back to his flat, after the orange juice incident. She isn't wearing her sunglasses in the next shot she leaves the building and she is wearing her sunglasses again.