Revealing mistake: When Yuri makes his first big sale, the pile of American M-16s in Beirut, the camera does a close up on the pile of weapons. Clearly stamped on the closest rifle is AR-15, the non-automatic civilian version of the M-16.
Lord of War (2005)
1 revealing mistake
Directed by: Andrew Niccol
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Ethan Hawke, Jared Leto, Bridget Moynahan
Factual error: When Yuri is narrating about selling weapons for the US government (this was around the scene when he sells M-16's by the kilo), he mentions Lieutenant Colonel Southern. However, when you see the him, he has Colonel rank, which is a silver eagle. The Lieutenant Colonel rank is a silver leaf, not an eagle.
Yuri Orlov: I'm a one-man genocide.
Trivia: When Director Andrew Niccol was out buying thousands of AK-47 for the movie, he found that the real stuff was less expensive and more readily available than fakes. After the movie he had to resell them, and found himself becoming an arms dealer.