Factual error: Mel Gibson sits around the campfire at the railway camp with the lads, reading newspaper reports of the April 25, 1915 landing at Gallipoli. The 3rd Light Horse Brigade (including the 10th Light Horse Regiment from Western Australia) landed at Gallipoli on 20 May 1915. This would have given him less than 3 weeks to enlist, train, travel to Egypt by ship and land on the Peninsula. A bit of a stretch. In reality, the 10 Light Horse regiment was raised in October 1914, with the 1st-3rd reinforcements departing Fremantle February 19-22, 1915.
Other mistake: When Stryker is killed at the end, it shows him lying on his back. Then, it cuts to a shot that shows the name on the back of his uniform. Who turned him over? (01:48:06)
Factual error: Toshiro Mifune's character, Kikuchiyo, travels to the bandits' camp and steals one of their two remaining fuselock muskets. Shortly afterward, the bandits fire twice at the samurai within five seconds with their last firearm. A fuselock takes as much as two minutes to reload, prime, and fire.
Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where Jeremy Kemp and George Peppard are playing daredevil in their planes and Kemp's plane hits a brick tower there is a shot of the plane plummeting to the ground. The alert viewer can see the shiny metal wires that were used to support and guide the plane on its way to the ground.
Visible crew/equipment: In the scene near the beginning of the film, when the 2 brothers are fixing to leave to join the army. After the mother gives them the flag, the shot changes to the 2 brothers. You can see the boom mic and the camera in the reflection of their shiny brass buckles.
Continuity mistake: When Parkis the detective comes to give his first report Maurice is shaving. The shaving cream on Maurice's face keeps appearing and disappearing throughout the scene, most obviously when he looks aroud the corner. (00:23:40)
Factual error: The Forum shown in that film is smaller than in real life. Also, Cleopatra is shown passing through the Arc of Contantine, a monument that was built centuries after her death.
Continuity mistake: The shadows in the scene with Lawrence sleeping on his camel are short because it's the middle of the day. In the next shot you see long shadows on the sand. When Ali wakes up Lawrence they are short again. (01:01:41)
Revealing mistake: When Chris Tucker is found dead from an apparent heroin overdose, you can see him still breathing on the chair.
Factual error: I normally wouldn't bother with this sort of nitpicking, but this film specifically claims to be historically researched - and it's full of historical blunders. For a start, the film is set as the Empire withdraws its last troops from Britain - which was in 407 AD. Now Artorius Castus was a real Roman officer who really did command Sarmatian foederati at Hadrian's Wall, but he died around 200 AD. Cerdic was a real Saxon warlord who did go raiding the Britons with his son Cynric, but he did this in the early 500s. Pelagius really was tried for heresy, but he was acquitted and died of old age; the trial was a decade after this setting, and in the fifth century you couldn't be executed for heresy anyway. Also in the fifth century the Pope had no authority over Imperial troops. I could go on and on but that will do for now.
Continuity mistake: When Leonidas, and presumably all the other Spartans, use their spears to clear their shields of arrows after the arrow shower from Persian archers, the tips of the arrows are still visibly left on all their shields. In the next shot, when the Spartans regroup for the Persian cavalry charge, the arrow tips are gone. (Granted, this is a highly stylized movie based on a comic book, but that does not change the fact that this is a continuity error.)
Revealing mistake: When the boat is supposedly surrounded by a swarm of flies, they're really just relatively few flies trapped between two panes of glass in front of the camera lens. Evidence: whenever the camera moves, the "swarm" moves with it against the background, and you can even see some of the insects walking on the surface of the glass.
Continuity mistake: In the first scene of their "training" for the big mission, the text "Somewhere near Galveston, TX" shows up as a subtitle on the screen. As it does this, there is a nice, dark aerial shot of mountainous terrain which is supposedly to hide the troops from any outsiders. The problem is, there are no mountains within hundreds of miles of the Island of Galveston. The whole terrain in this area is so flat that you can practically see from one side of the island to the other. (00:21:45)
Revealing mistake: Blank firing adaptors are visible on the bow machine guns of Oddball's Shermans as they shoot up the rail yard. (01:00:05)
Continuity mistake: When the German NCO begins to walk up the sand dune he has a stick grenade in his right boot. Next shot half way up the dune, the grenade has changed boots.
Visible crew/equipment: At the surrender of the fort, as the English are marching out, Monroe, says "The fort is yours, Monsieur." Right as he speaks, look between the two horses' heads. In the distant valley you can see what are either two tourist busses or perhaps mobile catering vans. (01:05:40)
Continuity mistake: When the advocate announces to his mother that he intends to marry Malena she gets mad at him. When he runs down the walkway she throws first her stick after him, then her shoe, but if you look closely she is still wearing both her shoes. (00:51:00)
Revealing mistake: After Lansbury makes her clothes start to move, her nightgown attacks someone and you can notice the strings that make the gown move.
Factual error: Approximately 2 hours and 10 minutes into the "restored" full-length video version, there's a birthday party for little Lisa Dickinson, and the Alamo defenders sing "Happy Birthday" to her. The Alamo battle happened in 1836. According to David Ewen's "All the Years of American Popular Music," the song "Happy Birthday to You" was composed and copyrighted by sisters Patty and Mildred J. Hill, first as "Good Morning to All," in 1893.
Factual error: The rifles the British soldiers carried in the film were Lee Enfield rifle No. 4's, these did not go into production until WW2. They should have been using an earlier version of the Lee Enfield rifle.