Best mystery movie plot holes of all time

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The Hound of the Baskervilles picture

Plot hole: Holmes asks what had frightened Sir Charles enough to make him run away from the house. But when Dr. Mortimer described the scene, he only mentioned that at one point the prints did not show heel imprints. It is an easy deduction that sir Charles had been running, but the doctor did not say anything about the direction of the footprints.

Twotall

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Buried picture

Plot hole: Ryan Reynold's character is told by the military that his phone number is being suppressed. Later on, however, the HR guy from his company has no troubles to call him back.

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The Mothman Prophecies picture

Plot hole: In the scene where Richard Gere is looking at his reflection in the motel bathroom mirror, he imagines smashing his face into the mirror. When the phone rings, breaking his hallucination, he still has blood on his hands but it is never addressed.

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The Client picture

Plot hole: When Reggie is interviewing Mark in the hospital, she tells him that she will pick him up tomorrow about 2:30 for a 3:00 meeting with the FBI. But the next day, Mark comes running into Reggie's office after the attack from the hitman the night before, and she asks him what's wrong as if she hasn't seen him yet. The FBI shows up just seconds later.

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Jeepers Creepers III picture

Plot hole: Buddy is seen at the end of the movie going on the bus that will be featured in Jeepers Creepers 2. When the students and staff encounter the Creeper why didn't he inform anyone that he had encountered the Creeper earlier? The only person that seemed to know anything was one of the girls having a premonition.

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

Suggested correction: Buddy is getting on the bus to go to the basketball game. When the second films begins, the kids on the bus are celebrating their victory. Presumable Buddy just stayed in the other town for the night or got another ride home.

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Ace Ventura: Pet Detective picture

Plot hole: When Ace is in the boat dock he and Einhorn fight. He grabs her hair and hits her head on a pole. Later, when he is revealing her true identity he tries to pull off her wig. He would have known it wasn't a wig from the fight. (01:13:50)

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52 Pick Up picture

Plot hole: Throughout the film, Mitchell's main reason for not contacting police is that his affair and his mistress' murder would become public, derailing his wife's election and thus destroying "the one thing she built for herself". Seems odd that part of his plan is to rig his own car with explosives (from his own company), give it to the lead bad guy, then blow him and the car up on a public bridge. Certainly not a 'character mistake' as the tone of the film's ending is that, somehow, he has won, when he's failed in spectacular fashion to keep it all quiet- and his wife's been drugged, beaten, raped, and her career is over, while he's going to jail for murder.

johnrosa

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Planet of the Apes picture

Plot hole: Wouldn't Taylor have suspected he was still on Earth, seeing as all the apes were speaking English?

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A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 picture

Plot hole: Freddy is killed at the end because he sees his own reflection in a mirror, which causes the souls in his body to revolt and kill him. But this weakness to mirrors and reflections doesn't fit in any other film of the series. He repeatedly appears in mirrors in the other films, and in the climax of "Dream Warriors," he even appears in a hallway of mirrors that are facing each other, where he would have seen his own reflection multiple times. No matter how you slice it, his death in this movie doesn't add up in the overall context of the series.

TedStixon

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Dirty Harry picture

Plot hole: When Harry is on the roof of the first shooting, he finds the spent shell casing. Later in the office he says that they think it is a 30-06. He has the shell casing. He *knows* if it is a 30-06 or not.

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Recess: School's Out picture

Plot hole: Summer vacation couldn't be taken away just because it is winter, (or just snowy), they could just go by the date.

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Scream 4 picture

Plot hole: In the hospital scene at the end, why does Hicks run in and push Gale out of the way? She had no way of knowing someone was holding a gun on her and was about to be shot, as far as Hicks knew Gale was just standing there talking to someone. (01:40:00)

brianjr0412

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The Bourne Ultimatum picture

Plot hole: Landy uses the code 4/15/71 to point Bourne to the training site address. But how does he know it is on the East side?

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The Da Vinci Code picture

Plot hole: The Louvre is home to art worth millions. Even with the electronic security measures in place the museum would be guarded around the clock by armed guards thus making the entire idea of the shooting of its curator and his killer escaping impossible.

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Shooter picture

Plot hole: When Agent Memphis is about to be executed they ask him if he needs to "Piss" so as to not have government-used drugs in his system before he commits suicide. They even mention writing a suicide note for him. He's had seven shades beaten out of him though and was kidnapped whilst on the phone, mid-conversation and with possible witnesses. Surely if it wasn't the first time they had done this then they would have taken more care to make sure it wasn't a complete fake-out.

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The Fourth Kind picture

Plot hole: When Abby and her kids are abducted, the sheriff is sitting right outside her house and sees this happening. Yet the video didn't record. Well the sheriff saw it all with his own eyes so why wouldn't his testimony hold up? The tape actually shows the UFO so there's proof right there. (01:08:55)

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Assault on Precinct 13 picture

Plot hole: In the final scene where they all leave along the passage; the father rolled out on a stretcher and the others casually walking out, you can tell by their smooth passage along the corridor that all the dead bodies have been removed, but this would have taken at least half an hour if not longer, so it would make no sense in reality for them all to wait for all the bodies to be removed before they left as they would have been the first to leave due to the traumatic experience they had just been through.

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Abduction picture

Plot hole: When Nathan contacts the web site's operator from Karen's house his current location was tracked but the two agents are deployed to Nathan's house instead .

nickdsandford

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Gossip picture

Plot hole: Towards the end we see Jones ring Derrick to warn him that Travis has a gun - why would she do this if it's all planned? why risk him picking the phone up? he would have escaped before Travis had time to stop him and get him back inside to finish the set up. This scene is purely for the audience to be more taken in and shocked at the actually twist. (01:17:00)

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Miss Congeniality picture

Plot hole: Just before playing the water glasses, Gracie plays a couple notes, one of which is very high. She drinks some water out of the glass to lower the pitch. The problem is that the pitch goes up when you remove water from the glass, not down. Drinking out of the glass would've made the note sound higher. Some people and websites will make you believe that the pitch is going down due to an increase in the size of the resonant chamber but singing glasses have nothing to do with cavity resonance. Glass singing is caused by the molecules in the glass vibrating in resonance with each other. More water dampens the motion, slowing it down and lowering the pitch. Some of the confusion comes from schools not teaching children that liquids and gasses are both fluids. In the case of water in glasses, the water is not changing the cavity as much as one thinks, just damping it. And finally, if you don't believe me, don't Google it, try it.

zephalis

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