Best movie plot holes of all time

Please vote as you browse around to help the best rise to the top.

Old School picture

Plot hole: When they are being told they have failed the evaluation, the dean tells them, "Yes, you people did finish with 84%, but another one of your pledges finished with a zero in every category." It then goes on to state that this drops them down to 58%. For one pledge to bring them down 26% there would have to have been less than four pledges, including Blue, i.e. only three actually taking the evaluation.

megamelv

More Old School plot holes
You Only Live Twice picture

Plot hole: Blofeld tells the bad guys that they had Bond and let him get away. The woman says, "But Bond is dead. It was in all the papers." As we saw in a paper near the start, there was a well-publicised photo of Bond, and when she met him he wasn't using any kind of disguise, so how did she not recognise him if she'd seen the papers?

Jon Sandys

More You Only Live Twice plot holes
Kiss the Girls picture

Plot hole: In the scene where Ashley Judd runs away from her attacker and falls into her aquarium he has moved to the bottom of the stairs - there is no way he would have been able to move that full fish tank. It looked to be about a 30 gallon tank - it would weigh about 400 pounds with the stand and even if he slid it with some superhuman strength, glass tanks are notorious for shattering when you move them full. Plus it would've made enough noise to wake the dead - no way she wouldn't have heard it.

More Kiss the Girls plot holes
Tomorrow Never Dies picture

Plot hole: In the final showdown, when Bond is fighting with Stamper, the girl is wrapped in a chain, hanging from a crane and dropped into the sea. After the boat blows to bits, the chain continues to hang down, even though there's nothing holding it. It even keeps hanging after Bond's swum down to untie her. What's keeping it there? Do all stealth battleships come with buoyant chains? With both arms at least partially free, why doesn't she just climb back up the chain?

More Tomorrow Never Dies plot holes
Knives Out picture

Plot hole: The killer shows up at the scheduled appointment at 8 AM. They kill the idiot blackmailer with an overdose of morphine. Remember, that morphine that supposedly killed Thrombey in 10 minutes. Marta finds the blackmailer at 10 AM...alive, and does CPR on them, keeping them alive long enough for the ambulance to come and bring them to the hospital, even if in critical condition. So we went from "kills in 10 minutes, you can't even try to save him" to "after 2 hours, you are still hanging on"? (01:56:10)

Sammo

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

Suggested correction: Marta injected an absurdly large dose. A smaller overdose would not kill in 10 minutes.

I read that objection before. From 10 minutes to 2 hours there's quite a leap that the movie does not explain or address at all, if it were part of the plot they should have said why this difference, on something so time sensitive (of which they got the factual details wrong anyway). Even visually when you look at the dose injected to Harlan and the dose in the syringe for the murder, they do not look different. He even stabs her with the syringe. Which makes sense since he has no reason to leave her there with a small. Controlled overdose in her veins risking that she would be saved as it -almost - happens - it's amazing he got away with it to begin with because she is so dumb to show up for no reason in a derelict place without talking to her accomplice that passed her the toxi report, or anyone.Without a throwaway line from an investigator or anything of the sort ("but you injected her the wrong way, so she was still alive two hours after"), we are just left with an inconsistency.

Sammo

Suggested correction: You've assumed a hell of a lot! Marta said Thrombey was given a dose of 100 mg (instead 3) of Morphine and would die in 10 minutes unless given the antidote. You just asserted that "Thrombey would die in 10 minutes" as if it was fait accompli, while Thrombey didn't die of morphine overdoes at all! (He cut his own throat.) For all we know, Marta's 10-minute assessment was a worst-case-scenario assessment. Fran's age and physique, as well as Marta's CPR, helped negate the effect until the ambulance arrives. If the medics administered the antidote, it could have prolonged Fran's life. Finally, 2 hours is the time after which the viewer is informed of Fran's death, not her actual death time. Most importantly, this happens in the medical world all the time: A person who is supposed to die after 3 days lives for 16 years. There are case-by-case explanations for each one, but they baffle the medical examiners at first.

FleetCommand

Two hours is not my assumption or when the viewer is informed of her death; the killer gives the appointment to the victim at 8 AM and to Marta at 10 AM, so as I said, after 2 hours with 0 medical care on her she is still hanging on and with barely a little tap she is ready to dispense important clues. I go by what the movie says also about the 10 minutes overdose time. Of course if you tell me that baffling freak occurrences can happen all the time in medicine and that very precise statements from the movie don't matter because the character can just have gotten it wrong by over 10x and the movie does not acknowledge it at all, well, that's a very respectable opinion; mine is that fiction (a whodunnit, not a slasher flick with a killer surviving multiple gunshots and the like) is not reality and it should respond to higher standards than "I guess she was still alive somehow."

Sammo

I re-watched the movie to verify that Fran was given an appointment at 8 AM. I discovered something new: The bottle that was injected to Fran contained only 5 mg of Morphine. That's 1/20th of what was "supposedly" given to Thrombey Sr. So, yeah, 10x is OK. In fact, 20x is OK.

FleetCommand

No, no; it contains 5 mg of morphine PER ml, it's the concentration, not the total. Go back to the scene when Marta "messes up", the vials are the exact same as the one that Ransom injects (obviously, since they come from Marta's bag after all). It's new for you but I covered that already in the Factual Error about it. It's something that piles upon a previous mistake. She did not give him 100 mg of morphine because it would have emptied the vial (which is more than half full) and because a full vial of ketorlac would have killed Trombe regardless, at that concentration! The movie gets both the props and the medical facts wrong (100 mg of morphine does not even kill most patients, Harlan would have not died in 10 minutes especially since he takes safely big doses of toradol and morphine), but nothing - in the script - says that Marta or Ransom got basic medical facts wrong.

Sammo

Okay! It seems mistake after mistake is piling up. Now, it appears Fran lived 4 hours, during 2 of which she was unattended. Plus, 100 mg of Morphine from a 5 mg/ml vial amounts to 20 ml of liquid. Well, now, everything you say makes sense... or at least most of the things. On the whole, I think it was a complicated situation.

FleetCommand

More Knives Out plot holes
Edward Scissorhands picture

Plot hole: At the end of the film, we see Edward carving ice sculptures in his mansion. How did he get the ice up there? First of all, it takes place in a warm climate and I didn't see a freezer up there in the castle. He couldn't have gotten ice from town because firstly he had scissors for hands and couldn't have gripped the ice. And, even if by some miracle he could, he wouldn't be able to buy any from town because everyone in town but Kim was convinced that Edward was dead, she told everyone that they killed each other. And Kim didn't bring it to him because she told her granddaughter in the end that she never saw him again after that night. So where did he get that ice?

More Edward Scissorhands plot holes
Indecent Proposal picture

Plot hole: At the end of the film Woody shows what a nice chap he is by spending the 'tainted' million dollars at a charity auction. He's just made his problems much worse - he paid his solicitor a large fee to arrange the deal, so he hasn't got a million in the bank. That cheque is going to bounce so fast it will crack the plaster on the roof of the bank, and bouncing a million dollar cheque is a serious criminal offence in the US. (There is no way enough interest could have built up to cover the difference, either).

More Indecent Proposal plot holes
Halloween picture

Plot hole: We see Michael wearing the mask throughout the day, from morning at the Myers House, to mid-day outside Laurie's school, to afternoon when Tommy is leaving school, yet when Laurie and Annie see the sheriff in front of the hardware store on the way to their babysitting jobs (presumably in late afternoon or early evening), the store's alarm is still ringing and the sheriff mentions that one of the items stolen was a Halloween mask.

sam norton

More Halloween plot holes
Jeepers Creepers picture

Plot hole: Near the end of the film, Trish, Darry and Jezelle have a problem trying to escape from the police station, due to the power being cut. But when the beast flies off with Darry, Trish is outside within seconds despite her starting from the second floor.

More Jeepers Creepers plot holes
Super Mario Bros. picture

Plot hole: After Mario and Luigi have defeated Bowser, Daisy's father and the man in New York re-evolve back to their human forms. This makes no sense as it is never explained, and none of the goombas or Koopa troopas ever revert.

More Super Mario Bros. plot holes
The Lincoln Lawyer picture

Plot hole: Despite being obvious witnesses neither the prosecution nor the defense calls the gay couple (the ones that immobilized Roulet) to testify about their involvement (who called them, what they saw, etc).

mauslyon

More The Lincoln Lawyer plot holes
Speed 2: Cruise Control picture

Plot hole: Dafoe and Bullock leave the ship a long time before it hits the tanker and there is a lot more time before it crashes into the town and even more before Alex gets on that speedboat. No matter how fast he could have gone, there is no way he would have caught up with them.

Alex Papadakis

More Speed 2: Cruise Control plot holes
Despicable Me 3 picture

Plot hole: Bratt's bubble gum is strong enough to withstand projectiles like bullets, lasers, and even strong enough to carry a tanker into the sky but can't withstand Gru's body weight when he crashes into it before "happy birthday Dan".

jbrbbt

More Despicable Me 3 plot holes
The Parent Trap picture

Plot hole: The parents meet and get married on the QE II and then we jump to the girls getting to camp 11 years and nine months later. We learn their 12th birthdays are on October 11, so at the time of the camp (which must be around July/August) they are 11 years and around 9 months old. They should only be 11, given it takes 9 months to grow a baby, but instead they're nearly 12.

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

Suggested correction: Elizabeth James got pregnant sometime within the 11 years. Their parents sent them to camp in July because in October they both turn 12. So they are 11 years 9 months old.

The mistake is valid, but perhaps not specific enough about why. The opening scene takes place Jan 8, 1986 (as seen on the marriage licence). Then it says 11 years and 9 months later, which would mean in the next scene it's October 1997 (when it's July 1998). It's 11 years and 9 months after the twins' birth and/or the parents' divorce. But we're not actually shown that part.

Bishop73

More The Parent Trap plot holes
Fantastic Voyage picture

Plot hole: Even if the white blood cells will attack and destroy the sub and the body of Doctor Michaels the atoms would still remain and take normal size after the critical 1 hour is up. This would also apply to the laser gun which they forgot or left behind on purpose, as well as several dozen litres of saline solution which were miniaturised and pumped into Benes' body. He's in a lot of trouble.

More Fantastic Voyage plot holes
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull picture

Plot hole: Hiding in a fridge (or anything else) in order to be conveniently blown out of the way by an exploding nuclear device is absurd beyond belief. The fridge is just so much extra reaction mass and would be vaporised by the expanding nuclear explosion - it wouldn't be daintily picked up and thrown a few kilometers to safety. If it was, why doesn't it land in a shower of similar artifacts which have also been dislodged and thrown around? Incidentally, even if it was thrown out of the way as shown, anyone inside it would be turned into a smear of strawberry jam by the acceleration required to beat the shock and heat wave of a nuclear blast, and then liquefied by the deceleration involved in hitting the ground at that speed.

More Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull plot holes
Brave picture

Plot hole: During the scene where Merida gives her speech on "breaking tradition", her mother, as a bear, moves silently behind the majority of the crowd, so they don't see her. Fair enough. However, Merida and her father's clan are all looking in the same general direction (towards the crowd) while she's speaking - how does no one from Merida's clan see a bear moving at the back of the room?

More Brave plot holes
Ice Age picture

Plot hole: In the Ice Tunnel scene, Manny, Sid, and Diego come to a stop on the vertical block of ice. It breaks, and they slide through a 'field' of icicles sticking out of the ground. Their 'sled' is shaved down to nothing, indicating that the icicles are sharp. After going through the same tunnel as the baby, how did the baby make it through that field? (00:46:53)

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

Suggested correction: A possible reason for the sled slowing down is not due to the ice tunnel but the sheer several tons of weight the sled had on it while it was sliding through the tunnel.

Good point. Without the weight, the icicles would had slowed down the sled instead. And since the baby hardly weighs anything at all, it wouldn't have been able to slide through the field, it would've just collided with the front icicles and stayed there. But it still leads back to question of how the baby got through the field.

Rassdyt

Not true, their "sled" is destroyed by the icicles.

More Ice Age plot holes
Now You See Me picture

Plot hole: Each of the four magicians are given a tarot card that has a date (March 29), a time (4:44pm), an address (45 East Evan St), and a city (NY). When they enter the building on that date, they know which apartment to go to. The problem with this is that it was never stated on any of the cards which apartment to go to once they reached 45 East Evan Street. (00:08:40 - 00:10:05)

Casual Person

More Now You See Me plot holes
The Transporter picture Video

Plot hole: When Frank Martin steals the Mercedes, how does Lai manage to open the rear door, get in the back and hide - all with her hands bound behind an office chair? Not to mention actually closing the door and hiding herself (and the chair) in the rear footwell long enough for Frank to drive off and not notice her until they are out on the road. (00:29:25)

More The Transporter plot holes

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.