Best mystery movie plot holes of all time

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Scream 3 picture

Plot hole: It has already been mentioned that a certain shot reveals that Sidney isn't wearing the bullet-proof vest when she should be. Further to this, most of the shots in the climax sequence make it impossible for her to be wearing one, as you can see the contours of her chest throughout. A bullet-proof vest would flatten the appearance of this.

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Cube picture

Plot hole: Kazam is supposed to be a math genius, something that the plot hinges on, but he makes several mistakes when calculating the number of prime factors to find out whether a room is trapped or not. He says that 462 has three prime factors, when it has four, that 206 has four when it only has two and that 563 has two and 911 has three when both are actually prime numbers.

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Hide and Seek picture

Plot hole: In the end, when Charlie is advancing on Emily while turning his light on and off, the final time he turns it on, Kathrine is in front of Emily. How could she get there so fast without being heard? There's at least 4-5 inches of water that would make sneaking very hard.

James King III

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Death on the Nile picture

Plot hole: According to the denouement sequence shown in the film, Linnet Ridgeway is shot asleep in her bed approximately three minutes after retreating from the lounge. Less than 2.5 minutes pass from the moment Linnet leaves the lounge to the moment when Doyle is left alone by the other guests. It takes another 30 to 45 seconds for him to pick up the pistol, rush into his cabin and kill his sleeping wife. How could Linnet have walked to her cabin, taken off her jewelry, changed into her night-dress, retired to bed, and fallen asleep in 180 seconds? (00:59:00)

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Suggested correction: The sequence never showed when Linnet goes to sleep. We can't be sure how long it is between her leaving and Simon shooting. All we know is in the actual scene she leaves after having already taken a sleeping pill. This is "movie time", not real time. 3 mins can be 30 mins in movie time. The flashback sequence doesn't clarify anything based on her timeline.

This...is not at all what happens. This is the 1978 movie; Linnet is playing cards with the others up until a moment before cutting the game short not by her choice but because of Jackie's interference, so certainly took no pill in advance nor does she take one on screen, and the characters interact with no interruption from that point on leaving no room for an implied 'movie time' elapsing at a significantly slower rate than 'real' time.

Sammo

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The 10th Kingdom picture

Plot hole: When Wolf and Tony find Virginia in the Huntsman's tree house, she tells them that he chained her up, so she can't go downstairs and open the door from the inside. However, after Wolf climbs her hair and enters through the window, the two of them walk down the stairs without any chains stopping her. They couldn't have cut her free with the magic ax because Tony was holding it, and he was downstairs by the door.

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Joe Dirt picture

Plot hole: When Joe arrives at his parents' caravan, he is still narrating in the background even though the shot is no longer a flashback.

Life700

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Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London picture

Plot hole: The secret CIA base at Kamp Woody was underground. Kids searching for years have combed the camp, but never found it, but when Cody is going down the escalator, you can see bright skylights on the roof. If the sun is able to shine through, that means the skylights aren't hidden, and the kids would be able to find the camp.

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The Krone Experiment picture

Plot hole: In the course of the story it's said that at the time the black hole went out of control, it had a mass of "half a mountaintop of granite." But in a flashback scene Dr. Krone is shown growing the mass of the hole by feeding it large numbers of lead bricks in the laboratory. It's a little hard to believe his lab could store, or even afford, enough lead bricks to equal that much mass.

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Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost picture

Plot hole: Sarah Ravencroft's ghost causes a turkey to grow really big. When Thorn casts the spell to imprison Sarah again, the spell also causes Sarah's magic spells to be reversed. After Sarah is imprisoned, the turkey is still super big.

unkajes

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Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country picture Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country mistake picture

Plot hole: The assassin cuts a hole in the glass to kill the Federation president. But with the size of the hole and the placement of the scope on the phaser rifle, the assassin would not have been able to see out of the hole.

Grumpy Scot

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Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 picture

Plot hole: Referring to that blackout night. How come the group can actually film how they put all their cameras and stuff into its hide?

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The Negotiator picture

Plot hole: In the lobby of police headquarters, Danny Roman's lawyer tells him to make a deal with the prosecution. Danny turns to his wife Karen and tells her to wait in the car and he will be right back. Then he proceeds to go upstairs and overtake Niebaum's office. Much later when Chris Sabian is negotiating, Karen arrives on the scene wondering what's going on. How long was she waiting in the car? (00:28:35)

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Suggested correction: This isn't a mistake. Karen (and anyone else still on the property) would have been sent away by the police once they became aware of the hostage incident. She went home to wait for Danny because she doesn't know he is the perpetrator. When she is called back to the scene by Sabian she wonders what is going on because she doesn't know that Danny has taken hostages in the building.

BaconIsMyBFF

So she drove there with him and then just leaves him there? Lol. Can't see her just leaving without him since they drove there together. Even if people went around telling everyone to leave the area, I just can't see her not hanging around and waiting for him.

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American Psycho II: All American Girl picture

Plot hole: The psycho coed murders her lecherous professor (played by William Shatner) by pushing him out a window. In the very next scene, she's driving around with his body propped up in the passenger seat of her car. She weighed no more than 100 lbs., tops, and Shatner was easily at least 250 when this film was made. No way she could have dragged him to her car and lifted his dead weight into the seat, no matter how much adrenalin she was pumped with. Physically impossible.

Jean G

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Enola Holmes picture

Plot hole: Enola and Tewkesbury make an unpremeditated decision to visit the Basilwether estate. This decision was made on the spur of the moment, and no-one knew about it. but when they arrive, Linthorn, who is supposed to be in London looking for Tewkesbury, is waiting in ambush to kill them. (01:32:45 - 01:34:31)

FleetCommand

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Suggested correction: Linthorn saw them in London. He travelled back to the Basilweather estate, and waited for them to slowly make their way there.

Enola and the young Tewkesbury were in London two weeks prior to Enola's forced enrollment in a boarding school where she was supposed to spend her next few years! Furthermore, there is no evidence of Linthorn having seen them.

FleetCommand

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Ghost picture

Plot hole: When Carl is helping Molly out after Sam dies, he manages to find Sam's address book in a box, which he needs to launder the money at the bank. So why does he need to convince Molly to take a walk outside so Willie can break in the apartment and steal it? Carl knows which box the address book is in, and could have easily stolen it earlier when Molly was not in the apartment.

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Suggested correction: Carl couldn't have stolen the address book earlier; it's possible he didn't know where it was, and he had to use the visit as an excuse, or it's possible he knew where it was but was thwarted because Molly wouldn't ever give him a chance to steal it, since she wasn't leaving the apartment. And he couldn't steal it later, because Molly wasn't leaving the apartment. His only chance was to lure Molly away so that Willy could come in and get it.

Since he worked at the bank with Sam, he could, without raising any red flags, simply ask to copy a few numbers from the book. Also, while he was walking with Molly, how did he contact Willie and tell him to go in? They didn't have texting back then. And how did he not know Molly had come back, if she had been walking with him? Other than the obvious, fourth-wall-breaking excuse that he didn't want us to know he was the villain yet.

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Disturbia picture

Plot hole: When Kale and Ashley escape from Turner, Kale tells Ashley to make sure the police come. But, when the cop comes, Ashley does not seem to have told him about what just happened, he gets killed before he can request backup, and then the police arrive right after Kale and his mother walk out the garage after defeating Turner. Why did she not inform the cop and wait all that time to call the police?

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Saw V picture

Plot hole: Hoffman is able to implicate Agent Strahm as the mastermind behind the main series of traps in this film by planting Strahm's cell phone at the scene. However, Hoffman is repeatedly shown to be touching things at the scene without wearing gloves, so a forensics sweep of the crime scene afterwards would show Hoffman's fingerprints all over the place and reveal him to be the actual mastermind. Agent Erickson arrives at the crime scene before the two survivors of the traps complete their tests, so the forensics team would have been called in before Hoffman had a chance to remove any evidence that would incriminate himself. As a forensics officer himself, Hoffman should know better.

Phaneron

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Scream 2 picture

Plot hole: It is highly unlikely that the murderer knew Phil was going to put his ear to the stall when he heard the babbling. It is even more unlikely that the murderer is going to get him on the first stab through the stall. (Which also requires a lot of strength). We also have to assume that he spent time hanging out in the bathroom knowing Phil would go there to begin with, and that other two men with weak bladders were doing the same simultaneously forcing the victim to go to the stall to begin with. (00:07:45)

Joel Gordon

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Suggested correction: The killer is incoherently whispering in a strange way in the adjacent stall to lure Phil to press his ear up against it. After stabbing him through it, the killer inspects the knife inquisitively, as if checking to see if he actually got him. While it's still not a terribly plausible scene, the killer's demeanor suggests that he encountered Phil in the restroom by coincidence and improvised the kill, rather than anticipating all of Phil's actions as part of a perfectly executed plan.

TonyPH

The general logistics and planning of the murder are a separate issue - because no, the murder was planned. The entry just says that it's "highly unlikely", putting it mildly, that the killer could guess the exact position Phil would pick to listen to the noise. Just a few inches up or down, left or right, make a huge difference. The killer looks at the knife admiring the results, because if he had any doubts that he got his victim, he'd be trapped in a bathroom with a screaming, wounded, angry Phil and plenty people who could come and help.

Sammo

To be more clear, the correction here is that Phil had heard strange talking/whispering rather than music, which makes it at least a little more plausible the killer would think he might put his head up against the wall at a certain spot. Unlikely for sure, but unlikely isn't a mistake, it's just what movies do. Phil's death was planned yes, though it stands to reason the plan was more "surveil and strike when vulnerable" and less "wait for him in this particular stall we know he'll be next to."

TonyPH

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Contact picture

Plot hole: During the Congressional hearing, it is suggested that the alien signal could have been faked from a satellite - as Ellie only has her own experience to go on, it leaves her believing what happened, but still with an element of doubt. However, as a professional astronomer, Ellie would have immediately dismissed this since a simple parallax (triangulation) would have confirmed that source was at the distance of Vega - a distance far too great for any rocket to reach. (This is mentioned in the book). In fact, this is mentioned early in the film, when the employees in New Mexico calculate the source of the signal while it is transmitting prime numbers.

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Identity picture

Plot hole: When the innkeeper is asked by the rich ex-actress to give her the key to a nice room, he gives her a key telling her that eight is cozy and the key has an 8 on it as well. But a few minutes later, when this woman is about to be murdered, she leaves her room (holding her mobile phone) and the door has a 9 on it. How can a key to the room 8 open the door of the room 9? [Still a mistake, but there's an explanation. In the DVD extras you can see a deleted scene in which she changes rooms because she wasn't happy with 8.]

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