Continuity mistake: When Miss Trunchbull walks out of the school doors, on Matildas first day, the doors close twice. Once in an overhead shot and then again in a close view of the Trunchbull's feet. (00:22:45)
Continuity mistake: Near the end of the film, when Matilda is having tea with Miss Honey, Matilda's mum comes to the table and tells her to come with her, and she grabs a plate of cookies, puts them in a bag, and puts the plate on the table. Yet in the next shot the plate is gone. (01:25:20)
Continuity mistake: When Matilda is talking to her mum about her first day of school, and her mum is on the phone, Matilda holds her books against her chest, and between shots (both of her arms are against the books) her arms go from, the left arm being above the right, to vice versa then to back. (00:31:55)
Continuity mistake: When Miss Trunchbull walks out of the school doors, at Matilda's first day of school, she walks down the steps and everyone runs a far distance away and the crowds of children are fairly scattered and distant. Yet in the next shot of the Trunchbull's feet, there's suddenly a large definitive crowd standing much nearer to her. Then as the Trunchbull walks down the stairs, in an overhead shot the crowds of children back far away from her, yet in the following shot the crowd is back to standing right by the stairs. (00:22:35)
Continuity mistake: The cream on top of the cream tart, which lands in front of Matilda in the restaurant moves and becomes more perfected between shots. (00:17:35)
Continuity mistake: When Matilda is on the counter and there's spinach sauce all over it, in a wideshot as Zinnia runs to her, Matilda has the jar of spinach sauce in her hand. Yet in the next shot she suddenly doesn't. (00:02:25)
Continuity mistake: In the showroom, there is an old car covered in dust with "$100" witten in the dust. Harry then adds two more zeros after this. Through the garage scene, the two zeros noticeably change. They go from drawn far apart and unperfectly round to touching each other and perfectly round. (00:14:20 - 00:15:50)
Visible crew/equipment: When The Trunchbull lifts her car back to her house and gets frightened by a black cat, a camera is reflected in her car on the left side of the screen for a moment.
Continuity mistake: At his showroom, when Harry applies glue all over the bumper, the position and amount of glue changes greatly between the wideshot of him, and the closeup of the 'Super Super Glue.' (00:14:25)
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: At 1:03:33 It seems Matilda's hair is sweaty/wet at first but in the next shot when she and Ms. Honey crawl away from the Trunchbull's house, it's back to normal. (01:03:30)
Continuity mistake: When Matilda is reading near the beginning and her father says she's four, after she's talked to her parents, she walks away, and she's facing the door when her mum says that there's something wrong with her. When Matilda is having flashbacks to help her use her powers, she is still stood there, facing into the mirror whilst her mum says that. (00:08:32 - 01:09:02)
Factual error: When Miss Trunchbull gets pushed onto the globe by the boy she just threw out the window, it shows Japan south of Asia. Japan is really east of Asia.
Suggested correction: Japan is shown correctly, with Korea west of the south part of Japan, China west/southwest of Korea, and the Philippines to the south of Japan. You can also see the Russian island and peninsula just north of Japan. It is a real globe.
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.
