Best drama movie plot holes of all time

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About Time picture

Plot hole: When Tim takes his sister Kit Kat back in time, she gets a sudden brain change as she realises she's now going out with his friend and finds him attractive in the changed timeline. However, Tim has no idea anything's different in his life until he gets home and discovers his daughter has become a son.

Jon Sandys

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Twister picture

Plot hole: Throughout the entire movie, barns, houses, cars, 18-wheelers, etc. are demolished and lifted into the air like they were made of paper. And yet Jo and Bill pass through one tornado after another with nothing more than their hair getting messed up a little. You'd think the debris alone flying into their faces at 100 miles an hour would be enough to give them a few injuries.

Krista

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The Lion King picture

Plot hole: Scar tells the pack he didn't make it to the gorge in time to help Mufasa. However Zazu was with them at at the gorge. He could have easily told Sarabi or any of the other lions on the numerous times he spoke with them, exposing Scar.

Ssiscool

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Suggested correction: Actually, Zazu wouldn't honestly say that Scar was lying; he left Scar at the gorge, but for all he knows, when Scar talks about not getting to the gorge in time, Scar could just mean that he couldn't find a safe path into the gorge to help Mufasa and Simba escape.

Joey221995

So Scar would say he couldn't get to Mufasa in time. Not the gorge.

Ssiscool

Suggested correction: Zazu wasn't with them when Scar said so. He was with Rafiki. He couldn't have heard what Scar was saying.

Suggested correction: But it wouldn't have confirmed that he killed Mufasa.

It would prove that Scar (who had the most to gain from Mufasa and Simba's deaths) was lying about the circumstances surrounding their deaths. But no-one brings it up.

It would prove Scar is lying about the events of Mufasa's (and Simba's presumed) death, and given Scar gained the most from it, the other animals should be extremely suspicious of him.

Anson Gordon-Creed

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Robocop 3 picture

Plot hole: The opaque red lined map that Otomo retrieves from his first fight is ridiculous. Why would people who know where the hidden base is be carrying around a map on them (which shows a route so basic that they'd have to be brain-dead not to be able to remember it anyway) just so that conveniently one of their enemies can get it?

GalahadFairlight

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Money Train picture

Plot hole: When Charlie sets out to hijack the money train, he jumps off the platform onto the tracks as it arrives, in plain sight of the driver and other passengers at the station, and only puts his mask on once he's in position on the tracks. The train conveniently stops right over top of Charlie, allowing him to enter through the conveniently-placed grate on the train's floor. (01:17:15)

Jay Runkle

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Escape from the Planet of the Apes picture

Plot hole: While it is essential to the story, there is a problem with apes in the space ship. While it is the one that took Taylor to the future, there is no way the chimps could have salvaged the ship from the water (plus there wasn't enough time for such a salvage operation. Kira and Cornelius were living in the ape city we see in "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" never mentioning to Brent that they found a spaceship he could travel back with). They didn't have the technology for such an operation, no diving suits, and chimps are scared of water. Also, the water would have destroyed the power systems of the ship when it sank. (00:00:25)

Movie Nut

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The Family That Preys picture

Plot hole: When Chris goes to the bank and finds Andrea has a second account, if she didn't want him to "steal" her money as she states later in the scene, why did she authorize it as a joint account if it was supposed to be a secret account or hers only?

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The Outsiders picture

Plot hole: The pictures used in the newspaper article regarding the fire are obviously taken after Ponyboy and Johnny ran away since Pony's hair is blond and Johnny's is short (their hair was cut and dyed after they ran, ruling out the photos being old school photos), yet Johnny's face is free of burns. This would mean the pictures were taken while they were hiding in the church, which would be impossible.

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Suggested correction: They could just be an old photo. Taken a year or two back, plenty of time for them to look roughly the same but have their hair change wildly. Could have dyed his hair and then stopped or cut the hair and then let it grow.

Ponyboy's reaction to his blonde hair after Johnny dyes it is one of disgust; he did not dye it blonde ever before. Plus, it wouldn't make sense for him to dye it blonde again if he was trying to disguise himself.

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Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves picture

Plot hole: The Bishop in the film is performing the duties you would expect of someone in his position (giving mass, hearing confessions, performing weddings etc.) He has his own private chambers in the cathedral, refers to Robin as 'the boy I knew' and talks about hearing his Father's confession four months earlier; so he's been around for a while. The problem is the credits refer to him as the 'Bishop of Hereford'. No explanation is ever given for why the Bishop of a city 100 miles away is living and working in Nottingham rather than looking after his own diocese; or why the Bishop of Nottingham isn't around to look after his. (The Bishop of Hereford was an enemy of Robin Hood in the original ballads, and it's likely the filmmakers just gave that name to the Bishop in the film due to its familiarity, without thinking about the plot hole this creates).

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3,000 Miles to Graceland picture

Plot hole: How could the police miss finding Cybil in the trunk of Michael Zane's car when it was in an impound lot? They would have definitely searched the car if he was found in violation of a federal offence (for carrying the weapons). Even if they didn't do a search, they would certainly have heard the sounds that Cybil would have made from being locked in the trunk.

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The Shawshank Redemption picture

Plot hole: When the warden comes into the cell the morning after the escape, the poster covering the hole is fastened down on all four corners - impossible to do after squeezing into that small hole. [On the DVD commentary, the director confirms that this was a movie "cheat".] (01:49:05)

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Suggested correction: It's a shame the director surrendered, but for someone as smart as Andy, this is the smallest of problems. He could've put weights on the bottom of the poster, or used magnets he embedded in the walls together with iron glued to the poster, or enough washers in the bottom to essentially do both.

dizzyd

That's a load of rubbish. Embedding magnets in the wall? Really.

Ssiscool

If he can make a six foot escape tunnel, he can scrape out several small holes around the poster's edge, and insert the aforementioned magnets, glued in however he can manage (ie tape, chewing gum).

dizzyd

He could have simply used glue mixed with dirt to weigh it down. Once the glue dried it wouldn't matter how heavy the poster was, so long as there was contact.

How could Andy do that after he escaped through the hole in the wall?

satishsasikumar

I don't think it's what happened, but easily enough. Put magnets in the wall during his tunnel digging process - he had years - then something magnetic affixed to the corners of the poster. As soon as he was in the hole the poster would hang down and affix itself to the bottom corners.

Further, if the poster weren't "glued" on the bottom, it would not have been taught enough for the warden's pebble to go through it. If the poster were attached loosely, the pebble would have simply bounced off.

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The Thomas Crown Affair picture

Plot hole: When Renee Russo was reviewing the tape showing the room with the painting to see who stole the painting, and the tape was blank because the heat generated from the suitcase hidden under the bench, why didn't she just back up the tape completely to see who put the suitcase there in the first place? (00:28:30)

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Fargo picture

Plot hole: After the kidnappers kill the trooper and then one chases after the 2 eyewitnesses you can see that they are on a straight road (no turns and he catches up to them fairly quickly) but the next morning when Marge arrives on the scene of the 2 bodies she arrives from the direction of the trooper's body (the first shooting). After examining the bodies of the eyewitnesses she asks her deputy "where the trooper is" and the Deputy points in the direction she just came from and states "down the road a bit" how did she miss it? She would have had to have driven right past the trooper's crime scene to get to the 2 bodies.

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Suggested correction: The trooper wasn't visible from the road, he was dragged into the ditch. She also could have been asking if he was in the hospital or morgue.

rswarrior

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Under Siege picture

Plot hole: An American battleship with an active supply of nuclear warheads on its missiles would in no way allow a helicopter full of strangers to land and deploy without those men being screened for any weapons by the security guards on the ship (even if Krill already knows).

jbrbbt

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The Imitation Game picture

Plot hole: There is no logical reason to switch off the Bombe at midnight when the codes change. Firstly, Turing's proving the concept of automated code breaking, so even if it only finds the right settings days or weeks later, the experiment is worth doing, then you can work out how to speed it up to be operationally useful. Secondly, even in steady state operation, cracking "yesterday's" settings (and thus intercepted signals) is still going to be pretty useful in most cases. Threatening to smash the Bombe up at midnight is good stuff to add some movie tension but, in reality, it's nonsense.

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Suggested correction: It's not a plot hole, it's how they operated it in reality.

I have a copy of British Intelligence in the Second World War, by F H Hensley (the official historian and ex-GCCS). I quote page 309 as an example - 'the knowledge of the Tracking Rooms was far from perfect on account of delays in breaking the settings...During the first half of 1943, however, while the traffic was read with delays that were sometimes less than 24 hours, days when the settings proven to be unusual stubborn were not uncommon...Between 10 March Andy the end of June the setting standards for an a further 22 days were either not broken at all or broken only after a long delay.'...'A delay of as much a said three days in learning that U-boats had been ordered to move to new position so could thus mean than intelligence was received too late to be of use in diverting convoys'. So pretty clear that they carried on attempting to crack the settings well after the end of a day so they can process intercepts which might still be relevant.

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The Eagle Has Landed picture

Plot hole: Radl and Steiner discuss the entire scheme to kidnap Churchill on the Alderney docks - in full view and hearing of a number of civilians (who shouldn't be there, pace another posting), including local fishermen. Though the Germans banned all fishing activities in the Channel islands including Alderney in 1941, they were well aware that there was a flow of information from the island to military authorities in the mainland. Why would they be so stupid as to discuss a top secret military mission in public? In reality, they wouldn't even discuss it in front of their own men.

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Sudden Death picture

Plot hole: It seems that an awful lot of time and effort was taken in planning this caper, what with all the bombs planted throughout the arena and all, but the terrorist were pulling this during game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. What if the series ended at game six in Chicago?

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Obsessed picture

Plot hole: A detective would never be assigned to a suicide scene, since suicide is not a crime. A detective would only be assigned if the suicide is actually found as a murder. Nor would a detective be assigned to find out about a potential sexual relationship or affair unless it involves a crime.

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Charley Varrick picture

Plot hole: Swapping his dental X-ray records with his deceased partner won't convince anyone that Varrick is dead - then (as now) the patient's name appears on the X-ray.

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Gone Girl picture

Plot hole: SPOILER: When Amy comes back, doctors would have checked her non-existent head wound from the "abduction", from where she supposedly lost that much blood. That would and should have revealed all of Amy's lies.

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