Best mystery movie plot holes of all time

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The Bourne Identity picture

Plot hole: In Paris, why does the assassin go to the ridiculous amount of trouble of swinging into the room on a rope with a machine gun when he came in from the lobby (as proved by the dead woman downstairs)? Alternatively, if his intention was always to surprise Bourne by coming in through the window, why venture downstairs at all? (00:44:07)

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Hostel picture

Plot hole: There's no way Paxton could have took the bodies off the cart, laid them down, and stacked them back on top of him in the 3 seconds it took for the guy to open the door. (01:07:15)

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The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn picture

Plot hole: In Bagghar, Allan knocks out Haddock by hitting him on the head from behind. Later, Haddock tells Tintin it was Allan who knocked him out - how would he have seen him?

LadyArcher

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Escape Plan picture

Plot hole: The most secure prison in the world, designed with the advanced schematics of world leading prison-building architect (J.D Ray Breslin) has cameras somehow interconnected to one another so tightly that physically neutralizing one puts every other camera out of commission as well.

Sammo

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The Game picture

Plot hole: When Nick confronts the P.I. and yells "Why are you following me?", he looks inside the car and see the file with his picture on the front seat. The P.I. notices this and turns the file over. After Nick grabs his gun, the P.I. jumps out on the other side, raises his hands in the air and tells him someone hired him and runs off. As the P.I. runs off, Nick yells "Who hired you?" as he stands alone next to the car. He then waits a minute and walks off. If he really wanted to know more information, he could have taken the file that was right in front of him on the carseat. It makes no sense that he is desperate for information about the strange events that are going on, sees this file on him, and yet doesn't even pick it up or look at it. (00:59:55)

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Gothika picture

Plot hole: In the scene where she goes to her house after escaping there is no police tape on the front door even though it is a crime scene. Earlier the police searched and taped her office - it only makes sense that they would do the same to her house.

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The Thing picture

Plot hole: Through this film (and its predecessor) it is established that the creature imitates its victims perfectly, having all of their knowledge and memory. At the end, when the female lead tells the male lead she knew he was human because of his earring, he reaches for the wrong ear, confirming he is The Thing. Even if The Thing couldn't reproduce the earring, it would have known which ear it was supposed to be in.

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Suggested correction: It is also established in this film that the creature cannot perfectly imitate inorganic materials; the tooth fillings, metal plate, etc. Kate knows that Carter is The Thing and asks him a trick question about his earring to confirm it. The fact that The Thing reaches for the wrong ear means that it didn't know where the earring really was because it cannot perfectly imitate inorganic materials. There is no mistake here.

THGhost

The mistake has nothing to do with The Thing not being able to imitate inorganic material. The mistake is The Thing has all the memories and thus should know which ear was pierced based on these memories.

Bishop73

This goes with my theory that he was actually human because he didn't try to assimilate her when they we're alone and far away from people, and he didn't change when he was threatened and accused which was backed by (potentially false if the theory is correct) evidence which would make it defend itself.

You're obviously wrong here. The Thing imitates the human perfectly including the memory and I'm pretty sure that if you only have one ear pierced you'd know which one is it, therefore the imitation would know.

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Urban Legend picture

Plot hole: During the end the murderer is thrown out the front window of the building. The students leave the building through the front door, but yet there is no body, and that doesn't seem to bother them!

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I Know What You Did Last Summer picture

Plot hole: Barry gets killed violently at the pageant. So obviously there should be blood everywhere. When the police go up to the crime scene, they find nothing. There's no way the killer had time to clean up anything, let alone drag away Barry's body without someone seeing him. And blood starts dripping after the police leave the scene.

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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets picture

Plot hole: At the beginning of the movie, Hedwig rattles her cage, and Harry says apologetically, "I can't let you out, Hedwig; I'm not allowed to use magic outside of school." But he wouldn't have to use magic to let her out - the key is visible sticking out of the lock on the cage, so all he would have to do is turn the key. (00:01:10)

Aerinah

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Silent Hill: Revelation picture

Plot hole: The motivation of the cult in this film - a dark entity trying to birth their demonic god - is completely different from the cult of the original film, which was portrayed as fanatical Christian witch-burners. No satisfactory explanation is given in the film to explain this and in fact the film explicitly implies they are the same cult on several occasions. The explanation that the cult of the original film is some sort of offshoot or different sect of the cult from this film cannot explain this as it is pure fan speculation and conjecture (thus non-canonical) and in fact raises several more plot-holes.

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National Treasure: Book of Secrets picture

Plot hole: The idea that Ben Gates had to run away despite the President's being okay with the kidnapping does not make sense. The President could simply pardon him if necessary. However, when he ran away, he would likely be committing other crimes (fleeing and eluding police, reckless driving, etc.) that would not be federal crimes and so would not be pardonable.

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Suggested correction: That's basically what he did at the end. Even though the President was OK with Ben "kidnapping" him, if Ben didn't find the lost city of gold he would have been arrested and charged for kidnapping the President (amongst other charges). However, because Ben was able to find the city the President gave him and his crew a full pardon and explained that it was a misunderstanding.

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The Abominable Dr. Phibes picture

Plot hole: The police Inspector recounts the murders, comparing them to the ten Biblical plagues of Egypt, and he states that in keeping with this theme Dr. Kitaj was killed by rats. First, Dr Kitaj dies in a plane crash. Okay, he was attacked by rats in flight but nobody would know that - his plane crashes in a huge, violent fireball and nobody would find any rat remains after that. Second, there was no plague of rats in ancient Egypt! (Go ahead, look it up). Even if the police had made the connection between the mysterious deaths and the ancient plagues they would not make the connection here.

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A Nightmare on Elm Street picture

Plot hole: Following Glen's death, Nancy tells her father to come across the street in 20 minutes to catch Freddy. She then goes to her house, checks and sets her alarm clock, and proceeds to rig the entire house with booby traps, including filling a light bulb with the contents of several shotgun shells, and has a heart-to-heart talk with her inebriated mom. When she gets back to her room to go to sleep, she checks her clock again. The time on the clock has advanced only ten minutes, not nearly long enough for everything she did.

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The Lady Vanishes picture

Plot hole: When Iris Henderson and her two friends arrive at the hotel, Iris orders dinner and asks that it be sent up to "our" room. The waiter arrives when the three are changing. But later, when it's time for bed, Iris says good night to her friends, who leave her alone in the room (as she must be for the sake of subsequent developments).

CC

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Snake Eyes picture

Plot hole: The original ending planned was a massive tropical storm/water based chase scene. However, this was decided to be too expensive, and was switched for a cheaper, and some say weaker ending. Nonetheless, in Nicholas Cage's final speech, he says "I keep thinking about that tunnel, and what would have happened if I'd drowned." This makes no sense, given that in the new ending he came nowhere near a tunnel or drowning.

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Christine picture

Plot hole: George Lebay says that his brother died "6 weeks ago" inside Christine and that's why he's selling it. Later that evening after Arnie leaves his house and goes to Darnell's, Will Darnell says he "knew a guy who owned a car like that" and "the bastard killed himself in it." If it's only been 6 weeks since his death, shouldn't Darnell have recognized the car? It's not like there were lots of red Plymouth Furies (custom order color) running around the small town, let alone the USA, even in 1978. (Also considering how production even had a hard time finding them for the movie).

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

Suggested correction: He says he knew a guy with a car like that. It doesn't have to be the same colour or even the same generation. Just a Plymouth Fury.

lionhead

Darnell basically said he knew THE brother of Lebay, not just some guy who owned a similar car. Darnell described Lebay's brother based on the story. Again, it was him, not just some other guy.

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Courage Under Fire picture

Plot hole: Sgt Monfriez would have never been on a medevac helicopter with an automatic weapon. I served several years in U.S Army Medical units and they are allowed defensive weaponry only, medical units are not ever issued automatic weapons period. The plot says the Monfriez is from another unit and is asked to accompany the medevac but that would never happen; it is against the law of land warfare to put an automatic weapon on any type of ambulance vehicle.

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Scream 3 picture

Plot hole: It has already been mentioned that a certain shot reveals that Sidney isn't wearing the bullet-proof vest when she should be. Further to this, most of the shots in the climax sequence make it impossible for her to be wearing one, as you can see the contours of her chest throughout. A bullet-proof vest would flatten the appearance of this.

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Sherlock Holmes picture

Plot hole: After the scene at the Houses of Parliament where Irene Adler escapes through the sewer from the clutches of Lord Blackwood, she suddenly appears at Tower Bridge, about 3 miles away. Even assuming she ran there and the journey was skipped, going there makes zero sense. It slows her down, leaves her exposed and limits her exit points - she's got all of London to escape into! (01:48:00)

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