Best documentary movie factual errors of all time

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Madonna: Truth or Dare picture

Factual error: When Madonna greets her audience for the kick-off night of the Blond Ambition World Tour in Tokyo, we're actually seeing the second show, not the first.

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Bowling for Columbine picture

Factual error: Moore states when talking about Canada that "13% of the country is non-white, so the Canadians are pretty much like us". He uses that figure while trying to figure why the deaths caused with guns is so high in the US compared to other countries. Problem is the US, as of the last census (2000), was nearly 25% "Non-White". Now 13 and 25 percent don't seem that far away but not only is the US percentage almost double Canada's "non-White" population, but that 25% equates to over 70 million people in the US - over two times the entire population of Canada (which as of their last census was 32 million).

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Fahrenheit 9/11 picture

Factual error: A headline from the Pantagraph (an Illinois newspaper) dated 19 December 2001, is shown in big letters to read, "Latest Florida recount shows Gore won election." In fact, no edition of the Pentagraph has ever featured an article that claimed this. The only time those words appeared in that newspaper was in small print over a letter to the editor dated 5 December 2001.

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Super Size Me picture

Factual error: Morgan says that french fries are one of the seven items on McDonalds menu that doesn't contain sugar. French fries, in fact, do contain dextrose - a form of sugar. This is mentioned on DVD commentary.

William Bergquist

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Earth picture

Factual error: Cranes are shown crossing the Himalayas, then a reference is made that the snow melts giving life to the rivers in Asia, but the footage shown is of the Angel Falls in the Amazon Jungle in Venezuela where there is no snow. (00:50:40)

mace767

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Word Wars picture

Factual error: Near the beginning a Scrabble rack is shown containing tiles with the words "GET A FORD." Scrabble racks are limited to 7 tiles and this is 8. This rack cannot exist in Scrabble.

Wayne C.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Hi. The rack in question was showing an advertisement from the 1950s which featured a Scrabble rack. So, while it is true that GET A ford would not be a legal Scrabble rack...it wasn't from an actual game.

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And Justice for All picture

Factual error: When the helicopter crashes in the water, it is most obviously dropped straight down from a crane. Even though it ran out of gas, the rotor blades would still be turning somewhat.

William Bergquist

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Man on Wire picture

Factual error: In the scenes of the world, when they show the plane flying between destinations, the location of Dublin in Ireland should be at least 50 miles further north along the coastline, as Dublin is not on the south coast of Ireland.

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Catfish picture

Factual error: Just after arriving at Chicago O'Hare Airport and on their way to Ishpeming, the filmmakers are shown riding in a car through a mountainous area. There are no mountains anywhere in this vicinity. (00:34:15)

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In the Shadow of the Moon picture

Factual error: The movie is set in Philadelphia, but the bus at the beginning crashes at a crossroad in front of the fast food joint Admiral Submarine, a recognizable location in Brantford, Ontario, where the movie was shot. (00:05:00)

Sammo

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A Brief History of Time picture

Factual error: Hawking explains how time slows as one approaches a black hole's event horizon. To illustrate this a CGI-animated analog wristwatch is shown ticking away the seconds progressively more slowly. It's the kind of watch that ticks intermittently: once each second the hand sweeps one second-long increment around the dial and then waits one more second to sweep another increment. In the animation, the frequency of the ticks lessens, but the speed at which the hand sweeps each increment stays the same. To be consistent, the sweep-speed needs to slow down just as much as the tick-frequency. (00:36:30)

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Senna picture

Factual error: At the conclusion of the film it is stated on screen: "Ayrton Senna died aged 34. In the aftermath of his death, the FIA appointed Ayrton's friend Prof. Sid Watkins to improve safety in Formula One. There has not been a fatality in Formula One since." While it is true that no driver has been killed at a Formula One Grand Prix since Senna, there were crashes at the Italian Grand Prix in 2000 and the Australian Grand Prix in 2001 which resulted in the deaths of marshals. (01:37:50)

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