Revealing mistake: About 30 seconds into the movie, when the camera is panning down the flight status board, the letters are flipping through to form the correct words. However, the board is digitally animated, and some of the sequences of letters scrolling (such as one square going from L to M to N) loop without making any sense, like in the line above the yellow "The /Terminal" (U, V, W, U, V, W, U, V, W.). (00:00:30)
Continuity mistake: When the officer is trying to take Viktor's passport, Viktor's grip changes position on the passport from one shot to the next. The first shot he is gripping it more to the middle of the passport with his fingers underneath and in the last shot he is gripping it at the corner with his finger down the edge. (00:04:45)
Factual error: When Viktor is talking to Dixon, you can see high-rises out of his window. No such buildings exist around JFK. (00:05:05)
Continuity mistake: When the head customs agent is trying to explain to Viktor what is happening, he starts to unpack his lunchpail. The lunchpail is a bit away from him on the table, and he sets the food in front of it, including a rather large bag of chips/crisps. The angle changes, and the chips/crisps have magically moved to behind the lunchpail. (00:05:30)
Continuity mistake: As the CBP agent is explaining the bag of chips and the apple, Viktor says "Big Apple, Big Apple". Look at the desk and it is perfectly clean. There are no crumbs on the desk. Just before the CBP agent slams the apple onto the chips we can now see a few crumbs already on the desk. (00:06:25)
Continuity mistake: After the CBP agent smashed the potato chip bag with the apple, the shot is switched from beside the agent to Viktor's viewpoint. The number of chips and distribution of those chips on the desk change. (00:06:35)
Continuity mistake: In the scene in Dixon's office, where he's trying to explain to Viktor that his country has fallen in a military coup, he uses an apple and potato chips to make his point. When the bag of chips pops open it sprays broken bits of chips all over Viktor's torso and lap. Although Viktor does brush some off, in the next shot he stands up to leave and there are no chips on his clothes or lap. You could believe he brushed them away off camera, but don't even see any on the floor around him. (00:07:05)
Continuity mistake: As Viktor is first running around the airport looking for televisions showing information on Krakhozia, he heads for the staircase to the second floor. A woman in dark clothes and a light scarf is walking in front of the escalator and another woman in a tan sweater and black pants is walking down the stairs as he approaches, but they disappear in the shot from above. (00:11:20)
Continuity mistake: When Gupta is walking away from Viktor after their first meeting over the trash can, Viktor's hands switch from in front of him to at his sides. He doesn't have time to drop them. (00:15:20)
Continuity mistake: This mistake occurs on Viktor's first night of sleeping, before he takes the chairs apart, after he sees the news and all that stuff. When he is trying to get comfortable in the row of chairs, in the first shot, he is stretching and places his fist under his chin. In the shot IMMEDIATELY after that, is hands are folded neatly and resting on his lap. (00:16:30)
Continuity mistake: When the retiring official and Dixon are walking together and talking about the yacht, the objects in front of the wall on the left change completely between a side shot and a front shot. They walk past copiers, but the next shot shows a desk and file cabinets. (00:18:45)
Continuity mistake: When Dixon and Viktor are riding down the escalator the amount of foam in Dixon's Starbucks cup is a small amount at the top of the escalator but a much larger amount when they reach the bottom. (00:24:05)
Continuity mistake: As Dixon is explaining to Viktor about the gap in the door guard on the escalator, Dixon's hand changes position in an angle change. (00:24:15)
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Viktor first meets Amelia, when he advertises Payless Shoes, Amelia is going up the escalator. In the shot when he says "Sensible Heels", Amelia turns her head and keeps it turned until the shot changes. When the shot changes, Amelia turns her head again. (00:28:30)
Continuity mistake: When Viktor is making his cracker sandwich we see a closeup shot with a lot of packs of ketchup, relish and mustard in front of the mustard and cracker layer he just made. The camera then switches to a wide shot and the packs are no longer in front of the napkins but off to the side. (00:36:10)
Continuity mistake: When Viktor is making his cracker sandwich he makes the mustard layer in the center of the napkin. This can be seen in he closeup shot. When the camera switches to a wide shot the mustard layer has moved to the corner of the napkin. (00:36:10)
Continuity mistake: After Viktor has to resort to eating crackers and sauce again, Amelia waves in his direction. After he stands up, her boyfriend Max bumps into him and knocks the cracker sandwich out of his hand. We can see the splat of sauce on the ground with broken crackers mixed in. A few seconds later they have a shot of Viktor looking down at his spilled lunch and the crackers, which are whole, and sauce look much different than they did in the previous shot. (00:36:40)
Deliberate mistake: The driver's licence "Viktor" has does not belong to him. When he hands his visa claim to the officer, he's using a driver's licence to fill all the forms. The licence is actually a driver's permit of The Republic of Belarus. It belongs to totally another person(Gulinara Nadyrauna Gulina, she is not Slavonic at all), the permit is issued in Homel, a southern Belarusian city, on 30/07/1997- probably this person either has lost it or it was taken away for some reasons, but it is still valid(30/07/2007). However, the Cyrillic and latin letters do not match at all, as one can notice- surname Gulina is much shorter than Navorski, even given the fact that Cyrillic and latin writings differ, it should not be so. (00:42:25)
Continuity mistake: During Dixon's attempt to get Viktor to claim fear of return to Krakhozia, the phone cord and files on Dixon's desk change. (00:44:50)
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Amelia is on the phone crying, the shot before Viktor starts walking to her has him turn his head, and move his body a little. His head and body are not aligned, though. At the beginning of the next shot, when he starts walking over to her, his body starts out perfectly straight. (00:47:40)
