Factual error: At the end of the film, Hellfire Jack returns the toy soldier to the son of the late William Hawkins in 1917. Hawkins son is shown taking it upstairs and placing it in front of a photo of his father, in between two medals. These are the British War and Victory Medals - these did not exist until 1919, and in most cases were not even issued until the 1920's.
Factual error: In various shots throughout the film "Sky TV" style satellite dishes can be seen on houses - the film is set in 1972 many years before satellite TV existed.
Factual error: When Cagney surprises Ward Bond in a saloon, they run out the back and across a rail freight yard. They jump onto boxcars of a slow moving train. Bond jumps up between two older wooden-bodied boxcars, A and B. Cagney, in pursuit, jumps up between cars B and C. In the wide shots, car C is seen to be a steel-bodied boxcar built at the earliest in the late 1930's. Events in the movie show the time-line to be set in September, 1893.
Factual error: Since the movie was set in the 60s, David Senak couldn't have gotten in trouble for shooting the man running away. In the 60s, the police could legally shoot any criminal running away. This didn't change until Tennessee v. Garner in 1985.
Factual error: One of the cars featured at the end of the film is an Alvis TA21, which only entered production in 1950, several years after the Nuremberg Trials.
Factual error: The film states that the story takes place in the year 1998. Everything in the opening scenes crams in every 90's cliché imaginable to reinforce the era. However, at 1m56s into the movie, the main character is driving on the freeway and it cuts to a shot showing that he's driving behind a marked police car. Specifically, a Police Interceptor model Ford Explorer that did not hit the market until 2012. (00:01:56)
Factual error: Roland enters the train to go to the war, in 1914, with "Spanish Flu", but that was the (wrong) name given to the 1918 flu pandemic, which lasted from spring 1918 through spring or early summer 1919.
Factual error: Sassoon's Military Cross medal is shown ending up thrown in the Mersey and sinking. In his own words from "Memoirs of an Infantry Officer", published in 1930 - "I ripped the MC ribbon off my tunic and threw it into the mouth of the Mersey. Weighted with significance though this action was, it would have felt more conclusive had the ribbons been heavier. As it was, the poor little thing fell weakly on the water and floated away as though aware of its own futility."
Factual error: At the end of the film a character is walking through a studio lot in 1952. Through the trees behind him can be seen a section of a poster advertising Jackass Forever (2022).
Factual error: In the film, the mutiny occurs during the day, when Bligh allows a crewman to die of thirst. The actual mutiny occurred in the middle of the night, when Christian and several followers entered Bligh's cabin and awakened him.
Factual error: In the dinner scene with Helen Mirren and James MacAvoy, she was playing a gramophone recording of "Un Bel Di" from 'Madame Butterfly,' and the year was 1910. The opera was not recorded until much later.
Factual error: When the two escapees from the POW camp are in the anchor room of the ship they are on, they leave the harbour and the pilot boat leaves them, but then the chain for the anchor goes out, but they are moving away from the port, why on earth would they be dropping the anchor? If anything they would make sure that all the chain is in the anchor room and the anchor would be on deck.
Factual error: At the start of the excommunication scene, the monks are chanting Dies Irae, a thirteenth century Catholic poem, but St. Thomas Becket died in 1170, almost a century before the poem was written.
Factual error: The limo shown is a 1990 (or later) Cadillac. It has large halogen headlamps and not the dual headlamps of a 70-71.
Factual error: The accident takes place the night of July 18, 1969, and they show there being a full moon. That night the moon was actually waxing crescent with only 14% visible, and set at 10:27pm while the accident happened about 12:45am, so there was no moon in the sky anyway.
Factual error: Performing for Queen Victoria is the famous opera composer Giacomo Puccini. This happens during her sojourn in Florence in 1888. Puccini was born in 1858, so he was barely thirty years of age, but the actor portraying him, Simon Callow, is in his late 60s (and it shows). Moreover, he is presenting his latest creation "Manon Lescaut"; in 1888 he hadn't even started working on it.
Factual error: The vehicles in the convoy are supposed to be armored since the bullet fired by 50 BMG was absorbed into the glass. First off the vehicles are standard, not up armored since the windows are standard factory and not thick ones used in up-armored cars. The highest rated armored car is B7 which will stop armor piercing not 50 BMG. Also, the windows completely shatter after being shot out; armored windows will never shatter, they stick together and chip off. (00:03:00 - 00:05:00)
Factual error: Someone shouts "jobsworth" at a London Underground official. This term is first recorded in 1970. The film is set in 1940.
Factual error: All SS members have right collar tabs, except Heinrich Müller. His rank at that time was SS-Gruppenführer, same as Otto Hofmann, but his collar tab corresponds to SS-Brigadeführer (one step lower). For addition, the collar tabs of some general ranks changed after April 1942. The conference took place in January 1942, so they have older versions. But as I wrote, Müller and Hofmann were at the same rank, so the tabs should look the same.
Factual error: In reality, Commodus did not die in the arena - he was strangled in his apartments in 192 A.D. by an athlete who was hired by a group of Senators conspiring against him.