Best crime movie continuity mistakes of all time

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The Talented Mr. Ripley picture

Continuity mistake: When Tom, as Dickie, rents a place in Rome, and after Tom kills Freddie, the police are all over him. Marge comes calling and Tom, as Dickie, asks the policeman to ask her to come back later, which leaves Tom alone with the detective. But as we see Marge creeping up the stairs, to see Dickie, suddenly, the policeman is with Tom and the detective, even though the policeman had left and Tom had closed the doors, so the policeman should not have been there.

kh1616

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Thunderbolt and Lightfoot picture

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Thunderbolt and Lightfoot are in the car with the crazy driver. The car goes over the embankment and as it flips you can see a wheel break off. A short time later they both drive off in the same car, with the wheel attached again.

Mr Manchester

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The Ox-Bow Incident picture

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Gerald Tetley confronts Major Tetley (his father)and talks about how his father gave the order for three innocent men to be hanged. His father listens till Gerald finishes then walks to a door feeling guilty, opens it and goes inside the room. The shot is focused on the door. A shot rings out and the Major has killed himself. Meanwhile we still see the door, then it opens and within a second the shot goes back to Gerald. (01:10:10)

keiko

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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri picture

Continuity mistake: When Mildred and her son pull up in the station wagon, there is a drink thrown at the car that hits the windshield. She gets out and confronts them, and then walks back to her car, with no evidence of anything having hit the windshield. It would be running down the glass and was a pretty thick substance. (00:59:00)

ckbyers

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Taken 2 picture

Continuity mistake: Bryan is cornered in an Istanbul alley and engages in fierce hand-to-hand combat with Albanian gangsters. Bryan takes one of the gangsters hostage, holds a gun to the gangster's face and threatens to kill him. Another gangster doesn't even hesitate to shoot Bryan's hostage in the back multiple times, and the guy drops down dead at Bryan's feet. Bryan is frozen on the spot. Camera cuts to another Albanian gangster entering the alley, holding Lenore hostage. Camera cuts to close up of Bryan, who quickly calls his daughter Kim to warn her. Camera cuts back to a full view of the alley, and the dead guy at Bryan's feet has completely vanished.

Charles Austin Miller

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Prisoners picture

Continuity mistake: In the shot where Holly is done injecting Anna with the syringe and stands up to shoot at Detective Loki, the syringe and two "medicine/poison" bottles are all close together next to Anna's hair. Next three shots showing the room far out with Holly getting shot and killed has the two bottles next to the edge of the rug and very far from Anna's hair, as well as the syringe which is slightly closer, but far away. The next shot of Loki picking up Anna has the syringe and bottles in their original position next to Anna's hair.

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Taxi Driver picture

Continuity mistake: In the scene where the man has DeNiro pull over to the curb and says he is going to kill his wife with a .44 gun, there is a close up of the meter clicking over to $2.75. In the next shot from the backseat, the meter reads $0.65.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: The reason for that is because after Travis stopped the car, he turned off the meter. Then Scorcese's character asks what he's doing, and to put the meter back on. The $.65 indicates "$.65 first 1/6 mile" as clearly painted on the cab.

As the text of the original mistake stated, there is a close-up of the meter. A biiig one, that follows by quite a few seconds the meter being turned off. You can see the 0.65 before that close-up, you can see it after, it then changes to 0.75 and so on. This correction is totally wrong and the original post is correct.

Sammo

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Nancy Drew picture

Continuity mistake: When Nancy defuses the bomb, leaps into the air and falls down, her head is rested on her arm when she is lying on the floor (in the first scene). In the next scene, her hands are both together and her head is on the ground. (00:50:50)

Abigail Jones

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Memento picture Memento mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the scene in which Leonard writes on the back of his picture of Teddy, "He is the one. Kill him," we see a shot of Leonard placing the picture on top of his tan jacket on the bed as he goes to write on it. Then, it goes to a close-up of the picture in which the jacket has disappeared and the picture is lying directly on the blue bedspread. It actually happens twice within that same scene. (00:15:15)

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The Departed picture

Continuity mistake: When Ellerby attacks the guy for not installing the cameras in the right place, he knocks off a map from the board. A second later Ellerby is still going after him, and the map is fixed.

BillyBlake

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Entrapment picture

Continuity mistake: When she goes through the lasers it takes 2 minutes to get to the mask, but it only takes 30 seconds to get back.

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Saving Silverman picture

Continuity mistake: When Silverman and the nun are on the beach after she throws him over, her legs are covered in sand but when they get up she is completely clean. (00:50:55)

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Passenger 57 picture Passenger 57 mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Liz Hurley shoots one of the FBI agents seated next to Rane, in the background the other agent can be seen with make-up on waiting to be shot next. Then the angle changes and his blood has vanished.

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A Clockwork Orange picture

Continuity mistake: When Alex and his droogs come in on Billy Boy making ready to rape the young girl, the first shot shows the lacing of a shoe or sandal on the girl's left calf, but afterward it jumps to her right.

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Sweeney Todd picture Sweeney Todd mistake picture

Continuity mistake: While Sweeney is upstairs with Pirelli, Mrs. Lovett gives Toby a meatpie downstairs. On a closeup, half the pie is gone, but when the shot widens right after, only a couple nibbles are gone from the cake.

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License to Drive picture

Continuity mistake: When mom finds the failed test in Les's pocket, it is folded into eighths. Later, when dad shows the failed test to Les, it has only been folded into thirds.

William Bergquist

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Judge Dredd picture

Continuity mistake: When Dredd is talking to Hershey in her wrecked apartment the cut above his eye runs across his eyelid but later on when he's talking with Rico in the Janus lab the cut follows his eyebrow and doesn't touch his eyelid.

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