Continuity mistake: Where Swazye and Moore are at the pottery wheel, seconds after their hands and arms had been smeared with clay, they're clean.
Suggested correction: The director explained this in the commentary. The scene where they are clean isn't meant to be immediately after the clay pot scene. It was just the same evening.
Continuity mistake: When Peyton returns to his lab after its destruction, a burnt picture of him and Julie is on the floor. The destroyed picture shows half of Peyton's face missing. After finding a new place to stay, when the picture is put into the scanner, more of Peyton's face is visible. (00:28:10 - 00:30:40)
Continuity mistake: When McClane is fighting Col Stuart there is an up close shot where McClane kicks the Colonel and the Colonel grabs his leg. When the camera cuts away he is holding McClane's arm instead of his leg. (01:48:40)
Continuity mistake: At the start of the movie when the gun store is being robbed, one of them fires a portable rocket launcher at the police car, causing it to roll over and spin. As it comes to a stop just outside the store, it's visible that the driver's side window has been blown out, and the vehicle interior is visible, however when the same guy prepares to fire the bazooka to finish it off, the window has returned and is completely intact.
Continuity mistake: When Mel Gibson is getting the bullet pulled out of his backside, watch his trousers throughout the scene. First they're around his knees, then his ankles, then around his waist.
Continuity mistake: In the beginning of the film John and Detective O'Hara are driving. She suddenly gets really sick, so John stops the car so she can get out. She runs and then throws up. When she comes back to the car she trips on a log that was never there before. (00:19:45)
Continuity mistake: When Chucky is threatening Mattson in the car with the fake gun, between shots as he shouts threats at Mattson, Chucky's grip on the gun and the angle at which he has it pressed against Mattson's cheek keeps changing. (00:18:30)
Continuity mistake: When the reporters surround Harrison Ford, there are no tapes in the tape recorders.
Continuity mistake: When Buster and his wife Virginia, first get in their 4x4 truck to head down the road, they discover that broken tree limb. Before he yells "stop!", the only part of the road not covered in snow is the tire tracks. After he walks back up the hill (and Annie drives by), the road has no snow on it.
Continuity mistake: When Michael enters the room where he sees Kay looking nostalgically at the old photos, he is carrying and offers to her pieces of cake from a cake that hasn't even been cut yet. They are the exact size and dimension of the cake slices that will betaken from the celebration cake which is not cut until several scenes later.
Continuity mistake: When Richard Gere is driving through the city in his Corvette convertible, he starts with the top down, then you see the car with the hard top bolted on, then again without.
Continuity mistake: When they are in the library after they found out Stan committed suicide, it shows Beverly stand up but when it cuts back to her she is sitting down and stands up.
Continuity mistake: As Harrigan is walking away from King Willie in the alley, Willie turns toward him to say, "Prepare yourself." His face is well-lit. In the next shot, Willie is facing away in the background and his head is entirely in shadow. He's turned and lit again for his next line. (00:47:00)
Continuity mistake: A few minutes before Quaid kills his "wife", there's a shot of her with bright pink lipstick. Immediately before he shoots her, her lipstick is burgundy. (01:03:10)
Continuity mistake: At the end, when Jack shoots the main bad guy, he had already double-tapped somebody, but then shoots at least 5 more shots from a 6-shot revolver.
Continuity mistake: When Bernie pays a visit to Tom after he decided not to kill him, Bernie has a pistol lying on the small table next to the armchair he is sitting on. When Bernie is talking first the gun is white, but when the shot changes to Tom and back to Bernie the pistol somehow turns into a black one.
Continuity mistake: When Harry Maddox is about to go for a ride with Dolly Harshaw, he reaches for his shirt and is mesmerized by the legs of his other love interest, Gloria Harper. Gloria catches Harry admiring her, with her head turned backwards, cigarette poised near her lips. In the frames immediately preceding this moment, she clearly does not have a cigarette, lit or unlit, anywhere near her.
Continuity mistake: When the nurse is wrapping a tensor bandage (also known as an Ace bandage) around Kinderman's hand and wrist, the way the bandage is wrapped changes between shots.
Continuity mistake: When Segal and LeBrock are being chased across the field, and they drive the jeep through a gazebo, Segal is driving. However for a split second as the jeep passes through the gazebo Segal is in the driver seat of a right side steered jeep. The license plate also switches sides but reads correctly (left-to-right) indicating that the shot is not mirrored.
Continuity mistake: Rachel's father kills himself after returning home from the Vietnam war (presumably in the early 70's) addicted to morphine. The problem with this is that he kills himself in a 1978 or '79 Ford pickup - Ford did not produce any pick-ups with square headlights until those years.