Best movie plot holes of all time

Please vote as you browse around to help the best rise to the top.

Now You See Me picture

Plot hole: Each of the four magicians are given a tarot card that has a date (March 29), a time (4:44pm), an address (45 East Evan St), and a city (NY). When they enter the building on that date, they know which apartment to go to. The problem with this is that it was never stated on any of the cards which apartment to go to once they reached 45 East Evan Street. (00:08:40 - 00:10:05)

Casual Person

More Now You See Me plot holes
Live Free or Die Hard picture

Plot hole: Since they took down the telephone network, it would have been impossible for Justin Long to even be speaking to the emergency response woman for the car, much less send a signal to start the car up.

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

Suggested correction: Is it possible this is a satellite phone call akin to Onstar?

manthabeat

No, the BMW system requires a cell signal to work, which was taken down earlier in the movie.

BaconIsMyBFF

More Live Free or Die Hard plot holes
The Wicker Man picture

Plot hole: Sergeant Howie is expected to report back to the mainland on the same day he left, and since he took a valuable aircraft with him on his trip it is inconceivable that his superior officers would not come looking for him if he didn't show up. First they would try contacting him on his radio and not receiving a reply they'd send out a search party, and they would do so within twenty four hours. Missing police officers are taken very, very seriously indeed.

More The Wicker Man plot holes
Better Watch Out picture

Plot hole: How does a tied up Ashley glue duct tape to her wound at the end? And on top of that without Luke noticing later on when laying out of the crime scene.

More Better Watch Out plot holes
Final Destination picture

Plot hole: When Alex and Clear are sitting and having coffee they are on a corner. He looks in the window to see the bus pass, and as he looks to see if it is there, it's not. As the camera pans across the street, there is some construction going on which is blocking that whole road from being used, but then Terry, Carter's girlfriend gets "waxed" by the bus - no way it could have got through all that construction.

More Final Destination plot holes
The Thing picture

Plot hole: As the gun-toting Norseman approaches the buildings, Garry smashes the single-pane window with his handgun. It is inconceivable that the glazing in a structure near the South Pole would be single-pane glass, that would provide minimal insulation and which could be broken so easily.

More The Thing plot holes
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.

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

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.

More The Outsiders plot holes
How to Train Your Dragon picture

Plot hole: When Astrid gets on Toothless for the first time, Toothless takes off uncontrollably and tries to scare her. Hiccup seems to have no control over him at this time. How is that so if with the new tail fin, Toothless cannot fly without Hiccup's precise control of the tail fin? That whole sequence would have fallen apart. This mistake was even admitted to on the DVD commentary. (00:53:35)

Quantom X

More How to Train Your Dragon plot holes
Air Force One picture

Plot hole: At the start when the guys are infiltrating that building they parachute down to the roof. They are dressed in black so they can't be seen, but their parachutes are white. (00:02:50)

More Air Force One plot holes
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)

More The Bourne Identity plot holes
Halloween: Resurrection picture

Plot hole: When the first security guard, who stayed back to get something to eat, hears something in the laundry room, he walks over to the washing machine where he finds the head of the other security guard inside. He turns around screaming and trips over the security guard's body on the ground with no head. Wouldn't he notice the dead body on the ground when he first entered the room?

More Halloween: Resurrection plot holes
Behind Enemy Lines picture

Plot hole: As Burnett runs through the minefield, he clearly runs right into much of the exploding debris. Why does not even one bit of shrapnel hit him? (00:55:15)

More Behind Enemy Lines plot holes
About Time picture

Plot hole: They aren't able to travel before the birth of their children or their children become different. Despite that, he visits his father one last time before their third child is born. His Dad and he then travel back to when he was a kid, which would have changed his first 2 kids.

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

Suggested correction: This is not necessarily inconsistent with the movie's time travel logic. Since Tim goes back in time to visit his father and inside that particular time travel, they use time travel to go back to a day where Tim was a child. Then, they return back to the original time travel where they're playing ping pong. At that moment, both of Tim's kids were already born. So, when he returns from the ping pong scene, there's no change regarding his kids.

Also, paraphrasing the Dad, he said they aren't going to change anything. It is more like reliving a memory than changing the future to get what you want. The Dad couldn't go back to not smoke before his kids were born because that was major and would have changed the course of his life; walking a bit differently on a secluded beach that you walked on in your younger days (as long as you spent the same amount of time - presumably) would not alter the trajectory of one's life.

The slightest change in 1 second of being on the beach would absolutely affect his kids. A man produces 1500 new sperm every minute. Altering the timeline and delaying every event that is going to happen by literally 1 second would most definitely alter which exact sperm was used when conceiving both of his first two children.

More About Time plot holes
Where Eagles Dare picture

Plot hole: Why do all the Germans abandon the cable car control room after the alarm has been sounded? If the cable car is critical for access to the castle then you would expect a hard core of SS troops to remain behind to control access and protect the machinery in the event of an attack. (01:42:55)

More Where Eagles Dare plot holes
The Running Man picture

Plot hole: In the unedited video footage of the helicopter incident shown to the crowd, the last shot of Arnie getting knocked out is seen from his perspective and as such could never have been filmed by any camera.

Gavin Jackson

More The Running Man plot holes
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)

More Hostel plot holes
Bullitt picture

Plot hole: The movie is based on one huge plot hole: if it wasn't for the "professional" hitman's sloppy work, Bullitt and his team wouldn't have been needed for much. The hitman enters the hotel room, wounds the policeman, then shoots the target with one shotgun blast to his upper left shoulder area. Any hitman worth his fee knows that this is not likely to be an immediately fatal wound. The hitman had a pump shotgun and should have finished the job right then and there. Surely he had more than two shells. Instead, he sees the target is slumped unconscious, then leaves the hotel room without checking to see that his victim really is dead. Nothing seems to be immediately threatening the hit team, though. The hitman spends the rest of his life trying to finish his job and pays the ultimate price for being lazy.

More Bullitt plot holes
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

More Twister plot holes
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 picture

Plot hole: One of Snape's memories show Lily telling baby Harry to be safe, be strong. That had to have occurred before Voldemort killed Lily. Snape was not in the house until after Lily was killed and Voldemort was gone. Only Lily and Harry should have had that memory, but not Snape.

More Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 plot holes
Ready Player One picture

Plot hole: In all scenes where special or heavy items are used against the sixers, they are 'zeroed' in waves or circles. This can be seen by their stations turning red in clusters. This makes no sense as the stations have fixed positions, meaning that the sixers would have identical positions in the Oasis and have no freedom or own will to move relative to each other.

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

Suggested correction: From a military point of view it makes perfect sense. AOE weapons would be most likely to hit members of the same squads, companies or battalions. It would make sense for squad mates in the oasis to stick together in stations as well. I just watched that scene. As long as the Sixers are trained soldiers or players it makes perfect sense.

More Ready Player One plot holes

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.