Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the movie, you see that the baby Matilda's eyes are brown, but they change colour to blue when she's in the car.
Suggested correction: It was just the lighting. The sun was shining through the window in the morning.
Continuity mistake: In the scene halfway through where the FBI agents are searching the garage, the door on the camcorder opens twice. Once before he turns around, then once more as he turns around and the tape comes out.
Continuity mistake: In some shots of The Trunchbull swinging Amanda Thrip by her pigtails, Amanda's arms are spread out. In others, they are down by her sides.
Continuity mistake: When Miss Trunchbull is in her home searching for the person in her home, she jumps down off the second floor to the first without using the stairs, a chandelier falls to the floor and shatters. Moments later when they show that area again, the chandelier is gone from the floor, in fact it's seen back up on the ceiling.
Continuity mistake: When Bruce Bogtrotter eats the cake and everyone starts to yell out 'Go Bruce,' there are several bits of cake left on the tray. Bruce stands up and moves to the front of the stage yelling. When he gets back, he licks the tray, and all the bits of cake are gone.
Continuity mistake: When Zinnia and Harry are signing the papers for Miss Honey to adopt Matilda. Zinnia signs the paper with one hand in the air in the shots that include Matilda, and Matilda holds down the paper. On a close up shot of the signature Zinnia's finger is holding down the paper, when it should be in the air.
Continuity mistake: When Miss Trunchbull accuses Matilda of putting the newt in the water, the corner of the clock is visible at the top of the screen. You can see that the big hand is on the 5. At the end of the scene, the big hand is on the 2. Surely it didn't take 45 minutes for her to walk back to the desk, have the newt spilled on her, etc.
Continuity mistake: At the beginning, when Matilda is wiping her face, in the long shot the tap faces the left, but in the closeup it is facing the right way. (This is only noticeable on the 2.35:1 widescreen DVD version.)
Continuity mistake: Near the end of the film, where Miss Trunchbull gets beaten with the erasers, she passes out on the floor of the classroom. As she lays there, Matilda causes all of the blinds in the room to rise. The character of Miss Honey can be seen watching them rise, but in the reaction shots she is shown looking down at where Trunchbull should be laying.
Continuity mistake: When Miss Trunchbull is chasing Ms. Honey and Matilda, the sweat stains constantly change between shots.
Continuity mistake: When Trunchbull teaches the class for the first time, the clock above the chalkboard reads 10 minutes to the hour. After approx. four minutes of filming, the clock now reads 10 minutes after the hour. There is no chance that the scene, depicting a single continuous event, would have taken 20 minutes.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Miss Trunchbull charges Lavender, she has two boots on. She misses Lavender and falls through the door. The next shot of her, she only wears one boot. There was no time between shots that she could have lost the one boot and boots wouldn't just 'slip off' as she went through the door.
Continuity mistake: Matilda's eye colour changes from green to blue to brown to green again throughout the different ages in the film.
Continuity mistake: When Miss Trunchbull is talking to Amanda Thripp in the school yard, watch Amanda's left pigtail. When she says, "You mean my pigtails?" Amanda pulls her left pigtail over her shoulder so it is in front of her shoulder. However, in the next shot the pigtail is behind her shoulder and in the following shot, it is in front again.
Continuity mistake: When Matilda's family is speaking out numbers and summing them up, the mum places a can of beer on the table that moves around between shots.
Continuity mistake: On Matilda's first day of school she gets off the car wearing a sweater and holding a notebook but them is shown just wearing her blue dress.
Continuity mistake: When Zinnia removes the hat from Harry's head after Matilda glued it, in one shot the hat is almost removed from the forehead but in the next shot the hat is still on it.
