Factual error: When Mark types email addresses in to tell people about facemash, he writes to several people @harvard.edu. At the time the movie takes place, undergraduate email addresses were all of the form username@fas.harvard.edu. Furthermore, the network brought down by facemash would have been referred to as the FAS network. (FAS stands for Faculty of Arts and Sciences; the eponymous network covered all buildings within the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.).
Factual error: Lauda is an Austrian. Yet when his name appears on scoreboards with his country abbreviation, it shows AUS, which is for Australia. AUT is for Austria.
Factual error: When Patton orders his driver to drive to the Carthaginian battlefield he addresses him as "sergeant". He is, however, wearing corporal's chevrons. A famous stickler for discipline and ceremonial, Patton is not likely to have made a mistake like this.
Factual error: During the battle at the Marshalls-Gilberts, the movie shows mountainous terrain. The real Marshalls and Gilberts are atolls with very little terrain.
Factual error: Tom Cruise says of the song 'Sitting on the Dock of the Bay' "my folks loved it". However, his father died in 1965, his mother died "shortly after him", and the song wasn't written until 1967.
Factual error: On the plane, while being escorted by FBI agents, Frank Jr sees New York's LaGuardia Airport and says, "There it is, LaGuardia Airport, runway 44." A runway numbered 44 is impossible. No runway can be numbered over 36 because there are 360 degrees in a circle. (01:58:25)
Factual error: The type of book that Eli is protecting would actually be just a fragment. The complete Bible, in braille, occupies as many as 18 volumes.
Factual error: In the poster shot and in the film, the wave from the Atlantic carrying the carrier JFK into a collision with the White House comes crashing in from the west because the south portico of the White House is seen. The Atlantic Ocean is east of Washington, so the wave should come from the other direction. And even a wave coming from the east could not have made the JFK (CV-67) crash into the White House because the carrier was retired in 2005 and is berthed in Philadelphia, which is northeast of Washington DC. (01:30:10 - 01:30:40)
Factual error: The opening shot (of the New York Stock Exchange's trading floor) has the subtitle "1985," which might lead one to expect that at least the action in the first few scenes takes place in the year 1985. However, when Charlie Sheen is talking to his Nimrod broker buddy the Nimrod jokes that the day the Challenger exploded, Gekko was on the phone "selling NASA stock short." The Challenger exploded in January, 1986, not 1985. [An explanation for this: Wall Street, as conceived and filmed, was supposed to be set in 1987. However, near the end of 1986, The Ivan Boesky insider-trading scandal hit, many rules were changed, and acknowledging those events would have undone much of the plotting of the movie. So the movie was shifted back in time to 1985 (before the scandals, and also before the Challenger disaster), thus creating this major goof].
Factual error: In the office motel of the Dallas Buyer's Club, a calendar behind Ron Woodroof's desk shows a newer model of a Lamborghini Aventador (2011-current) but the story takes place in 1985.
Factual error: The plastic explosive used on the cockpit door was C-4. When shot (as shown), C-4 does not explode; it requires the use of a detonator.
Suggested correction: You can see him applying a detonator prior to him shooting it.
If he applied a blasting cap (detonator) he should have used it then. Just putting a detonator into C-4 doesn't all the sudden make it vulnerable to being shot, he would have to actually hit the blasting cap's wire, which is about 5mm thick and relatively short (and it would have to be one that's sensitive to gunfire). Not a very probable shot, even less so when he doesn't even look when he shoots.
Factual error: A copy of Miles Davis' album "Tutu" is sitting on a counter. Odd since the recording wasn't made until 1986.
Factual error: It's late 18th, possibly early 19th century and, as Jane and her sister walk along the beach, a construction crane is visible on the horizon.
Factual error: This movie is set in 1935. Back then, executions were done by hanging. The Louisiana Legislature changed the method from hanging to electrocution in 1940.
Factual error: There is no possible method of "fusing" the genetic material of a common housefly (Musca domestica) and a human. The housefly has twelve chromosomes, humans forty six. There is no way to combine the two in order to produce a viable organism. Thirty four of the human chromosomes would have no matching chromosome to "fuse" with, meaning the physical characteristics coded by those genes would not form. The Brundlefly would be missing three quarters of his human body.
Suggested correction: There's no possible way of teleporting physical objects either, but it happens in this movie. This is science fiction. These kinds of "factual errors" are not valid.
The film presents no scientific explanation for "teleportation" but does for "genetic merging." Teleportation is possible in this film's universe, but "genetic merging" is impossible in any universe.
Factual error: When Zach and Nomi are talking on stage after Nomi's disastrous experience at the boat convention, Zach places a call to Phil Newkirk. There are several problems with the call: the cell phone doesn't appear to be on (he raises the antenna at the beginning and end of the call, but he never presses an "on" or "off" button); Zach doesn't punch in enough numbers for the call to appear legitimate (too many numbers for speed dial, but too few for a local seven-digit phone number [also, since he was using a cell phone it's unlikely that he dialed a hotel extension number]); and the pauses between his words and Phil's response on the other end of the line are too short to be believable.
Factual error: The final scene of the movie has Col. Kirby and the little Vietnamese boy supposedly on the beach at Da Nang, Vietnam. Kirby is saying, "The future of 'nam is you, kid", and the camera pans out to the sea and the sun is going down. The sun's sinking in the east...
Suggested correction: Nowhere in the film are we told where in Vietnam the Green Beret base is, just that it is in South Vietnam (of course). South Vietnam has a Western coast, along the Gulf of Thailand, along which anyone can watch the sun set over the sea.
Around the 18:00 - 18:30 mark a character welcomes John Wayne to Da Nang. This base is returned to throughout the film, including the infamous sun setting in the east scene. Da Nang's beaches face to the Northeast. Only when you get south of Nha Trang does the Vietnamese coast begin to offer a south to southwest horizon on the ocean.
Factual error: Even though this film is set in 1965, Burlington Northern locomotives can be seen. The railroad was formed in 1970. Also, an EMD GP40-2 can be seen at the beginning of the film, but the first ones were built in 1972.
Factual error: The film takes place in a private boarding school the 1950's, however one of the students is studying from a 1980's chemistry textbook. The obvious giveaway is that the spine of one book shows HBJ as the publisher. Jovanovich was not added to Harcourt Brace until the 1970s.
Factual error: In the scene where Vince returns to his dorm room and finds Dennis Franks has moved in, Franks informs him that Coach Vermil is mixing the veterans with the rookies. In 1976, Dennis Franks and Vince Papale were both rookies.