Best movie factual errors of all time

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Shooter picture

Factual error: When Swagger is fleeing from the police in the car wash after being shot, the radio says that he is at a car wash at 9th and Girard. There is no such intersection. On Girard Ave, 9th street picks up south and north of that street.

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The Informant! picture

Factual error: The movie takes place during the 1990s, but throughout the movie cars are shown with Illinois license plates with "Illinois" written in cursive. These plates were not introduced until 2001. (00:24:45)

illiniman14

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Olympus Has Fallen picture

Factual error: Near the finale, Kang sends a command to all US based missiles to self-destruct in their silos, thereby detonating their warheads. Ignoring for the moment why "self-destruct in silo" would ever be a desirable scenario programmed into ICBM protocols, detonation of a nuclear warhead requires an extremely precise sequence of events, none of which would include a nearby, conventional explosion. (01:38:20)

stevewaclo

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The Mummy picture

Factual error: It is roughly 120-135 dB inside of a C-130, especially one that hasn't been specifically modified. It is so loud that it is painful to be in the cargo hold without hearing protection (besides it being outside of military regulations) and you certainly couldn't have a normal conversation while it was in flight.

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The Outsider picture

Factual error: At the point where Jared Leto is released from prison he is picked up in a 1960 Black Chrysler Imperial. As the camera rises it shows the date as 1954. The car is used a few more times in the movie.

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Hobbs & Shaw picture

Factual error: The grenade booby trap in Hattie's flat gets triggered, with the pin coming out and lever comes off. Once that happens the fuse is set and there's no way to stop it exploding, but Shaw puts the pin back in and renders it inert again. (00:25:50)

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The Godfather picture

Factual error: In the scene when Michael visits his father in the hospital in 1945 there's a NYC Fire Dept. sign on the wall with the name of the Commissioner, Robert O. Lowery, who was commissioner from 1966 to 1973.

Ray Palermo

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The Equalizer picture

Factual error: In the big battle scene at the Home Mart store after Robert turns the power off to the building, you see Robert grabbing welding canisters. When Robert has Ralphie turn the power back on, it cuts to one of the bad guys in the break-room, and a digital microwave starts counting down. A digital microwave could not have any memory of any prior cook settings, let alone any way to set it, since the power was already out. (01:55:40 - 01:56:35)

wb6vpm

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The Meg picture

Factual error: Lori takes a screwdriver towards her left-hand side of her abdomen. The doctor says it just missed her liver, and she has lost a lot of blood. The liver is on the right side of the body and nowhere near where she took the injury.

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Halloween picture

Factual error: There's no way that the knife that killed Bob was long enough to go through his body and impale the wall behind him. And a butcher knife cannot "pin" a human body to a wall and just stay put, they aren't strong enough.

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Kingsman: The Secret Service picture

Factual error: When the barracks are completely flooded, Eggsy uses his bare fist to punch through a large two-way mirror to escape. The fact is that any glass (or plexiglas) thick enough to contain hundreds (or thousands) of tons of water without bursting would be as impenetrable as concrete to Eggsy's bare fist. He would need a chisel-tipped jackhammer to penetrate such a mirror.

Charles Austin Miller

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Twister picture

Factual error: When they are at Aunt Meg's the first time, they get word that a tornado has been spotted and somehow they already know its rating. Tornadoes get their ratings from the amount of damage they do. This is determined after the tornado is gone.

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

Suggested correction: The scale back then was based on the size of the tornado, it's only more recently it is based on damage. So during the time of the movie, the scale was being used correctly for size not damage.

The Fujita scale was introduced in 1971 and was in use during the 90's when this film came out. The Fujita scale measured the damage caused by a tornado to man-made structures after ground or aerial surveys, it was not a measurement of tornado size (an F5 tornado is a tornado that's rated on the Fujita scale). It is true the Fujita scale was replaced by the enhanced Fujita scale in 2007, but that was only to align the ratings to the damage better, it did not change rating tornadoes from size to destructive powers.

Bishop73

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Panic Room picture

Factual error: After the intruders flood the panic room with propane, Jody Foster's character gets a lighter and ignites the propane causing it to burn along the ceiling. This would be impossible as propane is heavier than air and would sink to the floor rather than rise up to the ceiling. Lighting a flame in that room should have caused anyone in the room and on the floor to be engulfed in flames almost instantly.

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Bohemian Rhapsody picture

Factual error: In a scene in 1980, Brian May is teaching everyone the beat for his new song "We Will Rock You." However that song was released in 1977.

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Aladdin picture

Factual error: The animators have clearly tried to make all the writing in the film look Arabic. However in one scene we see the faces of Jafar and the Sultan as they read a scroll. Their eyes move from left to right; Arabic is read right to left.

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Super 8 picture

Factual error: After the train crash, the teen characters discover cube-like items. One of them states it looks like a Rubik's Cube. The movie itself takes place in 1979, but the Rubik's Cube, although invented in 1974, was not licensed to sell in the USA until 1980. It was not even called a "Rubik's cube" until 1980 (prior to this, it was known as a "Magic Cube"). (00:21:55)

spectrauru

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Prometheus picture

Factual error: Carbon dating cannot be used without knowing the amount of C14 in the atmosphere and its evolution in history. Using this method just after arriving at an alien planet is impossible.

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Friday the 13th picture

Factual error: At the climax of the movie, Alice swings the machete at Mrs. Voorhees and decapitates her. When the blade makes contact with Mrs. Voorhees' neck, her head flies off at an incorrect angle, as though the cut began on the opposite side.

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