Continuity mistake: After the guy with the patch and the monkey greets the Nazis, Marion and Indy are seen walking through town, passing by an arched door. A frame later, from a different angle, they are passing by again and the amount of people around has increased.
Continuity mistake: Just before they swing over the chasm to retrieve the statue, the man accompanying Indiana Jones (Satipo) is holding a flame torch. When they swing over the chasm, Satipo is no longer holding the torch.
Suggested correction: That's because he simply discarded the torch. He probably dropped it when he saw the corpse come out of the wall or did it later as they were walking further. It's also not "just before they swing"; there is a long time passing between him holding the torch and seeing him without it.
Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the movie, Ted Grossman runs away. Then Indy, Satipo and Barranca enter the scene. In the next shot, the position of Satipo's arms has changed. (00:01:38)
Continuity mistake: Just as the ghosts fly out of the Ark, a soldier can be seen on the left side of the altar, with nothing in his hands. Two shots later, that soldier is now carrying a banner.
Continuity mistake: As the ghosts dance around the pole to which Indy and Marion are tied, large clouds can be seen in the sky behind them. However, after a ghost circles Dietrich and passes in front of the camera, it can be seen in the background that the clouds behind Indy and Marion have disappeared.
Continuity mistake: As the ghosts dance around Dietrich, Belloq, and Toht, the Frenchman slowly looks up as the column of mist ascends upwards from the Ark, almost looking straight ahead. In the next shot, Belloq is looking down again; the shape of the mist has changed, and the column of mist is now moving to the right.
Continuity mistake: As the truck pulls up next to the Command Tent, four soldiers lift the Ark's box and a fifth soldier, positioned between the two wooden posts of the Ark's box and to Gobler's right, picks up the sticks that Indy and Sallah had used. In the next shot, that soldier is now to the left of Gobler and the Ark's box. (01:21:40)
Continuity mistake: The distance between Otto and the Nepalese changes between shots, just as Toht begins saying "Surely he told you..."
Continuity mistake: When Indy sits down in the seat of the plane look behind him, there is nobody holding a Life magazine or fitting the description of the man later shown watching him from the other seat.
Suggested correction: This is not true. Dennis Muren enters just before Indy and sits down. The camera focuses on Indy, giving Muren enough time to grab the magazine and cover his face.
Continuity mistake: In front of the idol, Indy shows Satipo the trap on the floor. Satipo's head position is different in all 3 shots in barely 2 seconds: First he's looking downwards, then straight, then his head is turned sideways, and then back to straight. (00:08:20)
Continuity mistake: The amount of moss behind the idol increases between shots.
Continuity mistake: Or perhaps just algorithm: When Indy and his friend are delving through the webbed cave in search of treasure, the friend turns a bit to reveal a pile of tarantulas suddenly covering his shoulders, descending his chest, the same as Indy, who suddenly turns, revealing his backside covered in them. When cut, prior, their backsides were empty. The spiders didn't just fall from the ceiling onto their backs; we would have seen this. Purely for creep factor and nothing more.
Continuity mistake: When the portal opens over Geheimhaven, you can see that in the sky and inside the portal there are a lot of blue clouds. Two shots later, in the shot inside the portal when the fire turns on itself, the clouds have disappeared and the portal's interior is now the normal night sky (black and with one star visible).
Continuity mistake: When the Ark is 'sucking' all the fire, the klieg on the left of the screen points towards the altar. Two shots later (and after the Ark closes), that klieg points towards Indy and Marion.
Continuity mistake: Arnold holds a hot stick of metal to Marion's face in her bar, threatening her. In the opposite angle, the metal is nowhere to be seen when it should be right next to her face. Cut back to the other angle and we see it again.
Suggested correction: This entry is incorrect; the poker is always on screen, it never disappears.
Continuity mistake: In the marketplace standoff between Indy and his would-be attacker, in shots from behind Indy, he's facing one way, but in frontwards shots, he's facing a different way and when it cuts back to behind him, he's facing the other way again.
