Visible crew/equipment: As Ellie runs up the stairs of the observatory after hearing the first audio transmission from space, she runs towards doors with two large glass windows in them. As she opens the doors, a crewman/cameraman is visible in the right window for a brief fraction of a second.
Great sites
Mistakes
During the scene when Ellie is traveling through space, she unbuckles herself from the chair to retrieve the compass. The chair then breaks off from the violent movements of the space pod, and slams up against the ceiling. At this moment, Ellie is in deep space in a completely weightless environment. She is floating, suspended in the pod and the chair itself floats a bit before being slammed upwards by the force of the pod movement. But, some small parts of the chair (bolts, etc.) are seen falling directly down, towards us in obvious full gravity; revealing that the scene was actually shot in normal gravity. Oops. See more...
Contact (1997)
Directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring David Morse, Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Skerritt (add more)
Contact mistakes
Deliberate "mistake": The slow rate of the radio telescopes at the VLA has been greatly increased for the movie. They are actually quite slow and make little to no noise.
Continuity: If the cameras inside the Sphere won't work because of the magnetic field that is being given off by the machine, then why do the cameras on the main structure work?
Contact trivia
John Hurt (S.R. Hadden) and Tom Skerrit (Dr. Drumlin) were both in 1979's Alien. They both died in each movie as well.