Best mystery movie plot holes of all time

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Paranormal Activity 3 picture

Plot hole: At the end of this movie, (1988) Kristi and Katie's mother died. In the first Paranormal Activity (2006), when the psychic is visiting he says it feeds off negative energy, and Micha says "I guess we can't have your mother over anymore."

brianjr0412

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Gone Baby Gone picture

Plot hole: When Detective Broussard is killed and Patrick was being interviewed by police (dressed in a white shirt), the interviewing police detective say "a couple of nights ago you were at the quarry." In fact it was months before when they were trying negotiate the release of Amanda at the quarry. It unravels the entire movie.

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Ten Little Indians picture

Plot hole: The killer is not designed to be a ninja with superior athletic and stealth abilities, but for Elsa's death he beats three much younger and able-bodied people who were chasing her, kills the victim unseen by her - and they don't hear her high pitched scream - and is able to get back to the hotel unseen. (00:33:25)

Sammo

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Along Came a Spider picture

Plot hole: The kids in Soneji's class use an encrypted GIF algorithm to pass notes to each other and that "drives the teachers crazy", since they are unable to catch cheaters that way. But how do they do that? Easy, they have a message system in place installed on their workstations, that warns them with a big pop-up that they've got "A new message"! It would be easy to sanction and prevent the cheating by simply removing the chat application, no matter if they use it to chat directly or pass Michael Jordan photos as shown in the movie, which they have no business doing during an assignment anyway.

Sammo

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Saw 3D picture

Plot hole: Gideon speaks to Jill about her fingerprints being all over the bear trap. When he does he says that there is a new game going on, referring to Bobby's game. However, the police are unaware of this game at this point. He can't be referring to the garage trap as he says that the game is going on, and the garage trap has already happened. (00:35:00)

Ssiscool

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Prom Night picture

Plot hole: If they've got a suspect for Robin's death why didn't they question him and make sure his alibi was true or not? It's never revealed, just them seemingly assuming this guy did it.

Rob245

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Fracture picture

Plot hole: *SPOILER* Toward the end of the movie, Ryan Gosling goes to Hopkins' house where Hopkins is tricked into not only confessing again, but giving Gosling the murder weapon, after they are back in court and Gosling is the acting prosecutor. This would be a conflict of interest due to the fact that Gosling is a witness.

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Suggested correction: First, the gun that Beachum took from Crowford's house was not the murder weapon. It was Crowford's unfired gun. He only took it out of the fear of his life. Second, Beachum entered Crowford's house with police supervision. If he plays it by the book, Crowford's confession is valid. In that case, supervising officers will stand witness, along with a recording confirming their testimony. Third, Beachum doesn't need the confession anymore. He was amply clear on that matter.

FleetCommand

You are on point for the corrections, but they involve just mostly context/details, don't they? The text of the entry should be polished a little, but the core issue is valid, I think; Beachum would never be the acting prosecutor in a case when he is the key witness as well. If it's a case for the "murder," he has to be on the stand for practically everything; even if we exclude him from the confession to the shooting, as you suggest (and even if it should never be litigated to begin with), he still is integral to the pulling the plug phase (he was literally there as it happened and did everything to prevent it). We can just assume that he will be forced to hand the prosecuting role over to someone else later, and he was just there for 5 minutes to gloat before the movie credits run, but it's kind of funny.

Sammo

Beachum doesn't have to testify, neither for the confession part nor for the "pulling of the plug." I've already covered the former. For the latter, the fact that the woman is now dead is enough. If necessary, the attending doctors could testify that the woman "would have outlived all of them."

FleetCommand

Beachum received the confession under "police supervision," as you called it, which still involved him being the only person in the house with the defendant. You mentioned a recording in the earlier comment; are we just to assume he took one, or is there a visual hint I missed? He was also the person who fought for the court order to the point of being physically tackled in front of the victim's deathbed—so doctors and security staff defiant of such an order would be on trial too, I suppose? Since, again, this 'murder' was not even committed by Crawford. So how would Beachum not be a crucial witness, often the only witness to cover that part of the story?

Sammo

OK. You want to assume Crawford's confession was for the viewer's benefit entirely, and there was no wiretapping? Fine. The police have the gun now, hence proof of the first actus reus. Hospital staff tackled Beachum, but Crawford can't pin the murder on them when he has two counts of actus reus and twice demonstrated mens rea. Courts always hear such nonsense as "I didn't kill him; I shot him. The bullet and the fall killed him" (Collateral, 2006). Shooting someone is actus reus.

FleetCommand

I am sure you are right on the Latin, especially since it's hard to imagine the trial going the way it went the first time around to begin with, and I am not getting into the rabbit hole of what exactly could legally be relitigated. But still and again, what does this have to do with the original point being made, that some other guy would be the one leading the trial, since Beachum would be realistically called in as a witness, even a hostile one? I mean, I honestly didn't think it would be much of a point of contention; it's just something there for the audience. I followed the lead about the 'witness' part the OP ended on, but seriously, a conflict of interest would be invoked just because of all the personal first-hand, hands-on involvement in the facts.

Sammo

I explicitly told you what happens if the court struck the confession from the record. (The gun happens.) And yet, here you are, saying "Beachum would be realistically called in as a witness"! This correction is turning into a confrontation. Also, don't conflate "involvement" with "conflict of interest." The latter means someone has different de facto and de jure motives. Beachum always had one motive: to convict Crawford.

FleetCommand

Far from me to be confrontational, and sorry if I came across that way. I guess I simply don't get it; it happens. Specifically, if I stated again the point about the witness, it wasn't because I was blindly disregarding what you said (check the words immediately after the ones you quoted), but it's pointless to delve further into something that goes beyond the original mistake. You just directly addressed the meaning of conflict of interest, which was what the OP talked about. I simply felt the initial correction posted was not doing that; now it does, and I am not disputing your knowledge on the topic, especially not having any of my own. Cheers.

Sammo

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Monster House picture

Plot hole: When DJ gets the call from the house and shows the babysitter, DJ hands her the phone without pressing any buttons and the phone starts to ring.

richard dryja

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10 Cloverfield Lane picture

Plot hole: The system providing oxygen can only be accessed by someone slim. Therefore John Goodman built the bunker with him unable to access the key facility that provides oxygen in his bunker. Yet he must have been able to go and get Britney when she went to that area?

Neil Buckley

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Suggested correction: It's not a plot hole because he said in the film, the normal hatch to the air filtration was blocked by something that fell on top so they couldn't get through that way.

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Spectral picture

Plot hole: It is stated that the "specters" are actually made up of Bose-Einstein Condensate, and that they are so exceedingly cold, they instantly kill whoever they touch, presumably via shock. This is all good and well, except that if they are so cold that they could instantly kill a person, there should be physical signs of their exceedingly low temperature around them or at very least on their victims. If nothing else, at least some frost buildup around them when they stop for more than a few moments or discoloration on the skin of the dead.

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Event Horizon picture

Plot hole: The use of massive explosives to separate a ship makes no sense as the explosion would send fragments at high velocity in every direction guaranteeing it would penetrate whatever ship is remaining. As we see in the final scene when the ship does blow apart, it is not a precise controlled detonation to sever connections but a total (and glamorous) explosion which makes no sense whatsoever.

jerimiah

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Suggested correction: The explosions breach the outer hull, pulling the debris outward with the explosive decompression, the film shows the ring shaped explosions at both ends of the corridor. The debris wouldn't hit the lifeboat because it is heading in a different direction.

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The Big Empty picture

Plot hole: Just before Cowboy finally opens the bowling bag, the zipper is halfway up the right side. John was warned not to open the bag and was terrified by the potential consequences; he didn't open the bag at any point and certainly wouldn't have allowed it to remain partially open. (01:13:30)

Phoenix

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Stir of Echoes picture

Plot hole: The hair that the dead girl has in her hand can't be from the guy who tried to rape her. They are too long to be his, and even if we accept that they are his, they are too curly, his hair is straight.

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Safe House picture

Plot hole: When the CIA detects that Matt is accessing sensitive information to track Frost, they trace Matt's location and find out that he is using a public computer in a cafe. We then see that Matt is viewing the same kind of software, files, etc. that the CIA views at their agency. There is simply no plausible way that a random public computer would have CIA software, or be able to access CIA data at all, regardless of Matt's clearance. The computer itself would have to be on a secure domain.

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Coma picture

Plot hole: At the Jefferson Institute, to evade the security guards, Dr. Wheeler climbs into the space above the ceiling, crawls over the air ducts, then onto a catwalk, and finally escapes lying atop an ambulance heading to the airport, then immediately goes to the hospital to warn Dr. Harris. Throughout this entire ordeal she never gets disheveled, nor does her white doctor's uniform ever get dirty or wrinkled. She is perfectly clean and groomed.

raywest

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The Vanishing picture

Plot hole: Just after Rita rescues Jeff, Diane's grave is seen close to where Jeff was buried alive. Even though Diane's been dead for several years, her make-shift grave site looks like it was freshly dug. There are no fallen leaves or other debris on top, no new vegetation (moss, grass, weeds, etc.) of any type growing on it, nor has the mound of dirt settled, shifted, or been affected by the weather.

raywest

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Scream picture

Plot hole: Given the magnitude of the crimes that occur at the house at the end, the police can be seen in the last shot dusting Dewey's truck. If the police are so careful as to dust for prints when the entire rest of the crime scene is heavily contaminated by everyone from the EMTs, Gale doing her news, police, etc. makes what they are doing seem silly. (01:43:25)

jerimiah

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Blood Work picture

Plot hole: Clint Eastwood's whole investigation/solution is based on him suspecting that the victims had a common tie, rather than being random. The problem is there is no reason for him to think this - there is no reason given for them to not be considered random victims. For him to think otherwise was a bit far fetched. In the book, however, they were all on the organ donor list, which led him to the fact they all had the same rare blood type and so on.

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Suggested correction: Not really farfetched. It's a common plot device for a cop to look for a link. When he finds out Gloria gave blood, he remembered the sticker in the other victim's car.

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K-Pax picture

Plot hole: When the "Blue Bird" patient finally sees the Blue Jay, he starts excitedly shouting "Blue Bird! Blue Bird!" This uprising causes a riot in the institution, and in the immediate exterior shot of the building, everyone from all four floors already know and are staring out the window at the bird. Within the time-frame of the scene only the people on the floor which saw the bird would actually know about this. Psych ward floors are kept separated as it is even noted by an attendant when he said, "Do you want to go to the fourth floor?" which indicates that the floors are kept separate. This was deliberately done for dramatic purposes. (00:44:00 - 00:45:00)

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Unknown picture

Plot hole: After January Jones has just told Liam Neeson she doesn't recognise him. Neeson is trying to persuade Herr Strauss and two cops that he really is Dr Martin Harris of Langmore University, and suggests they look for a photo of him online. However, the cop using the computer says that it could take him ages to find a photo of Dr Martin Harris, as "there are more than 40 000 in the USA." This is very true, but as Neeson has already told him not only his name but also his place of work (Langmore university) in reality the cop would have found the photo far more quickly.

swordfish

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Suggested correction: The average cop wouldn't be that quick to realise that he could filter the results. Instead of being a plot hole, this is simply a very human initial response to an initial search result.

ReRyRo

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