Factual error: Listening to a radio broadcast, live, since no other indication is given, Joe Louis is completing the 12th round of a fight. This is December 6, 1941. Joe's last fight of 1941 occurred in September, his next fight was January 1942. (00:00:10)
Visible crew/equipment: When Jake is in the bedroom with his wife (where he pours ice water on himself to calm down) you can see the top of some crew member's head in the foreground right below the camera lens.
Visible crew/equipment: In the opening scene you see an old ship in the water, if you look closely you can also see the shadow of the helicopter that is filming the scene.
Character mistake: When Wes is drinking the mezcal with the worm in it, he makes a toast to "la vida luna" and tells Sissy it's Spanish for "the crazy life". This is untrue, the correct Spanish translation for "the crazy life" is "la vida loca". "La vida luna" literally translates as "the life moon" or better yet "the moon life", but a more accurate translation is "the night life."
Continuity mistake: When Loretta Lynn is at the radio station asking why the disc jockey had lied to them about playing her record, you see the picture of her that they took at home. It is a completely different pose than the one that you saw them take a couple of scenes earlier. She is looking in a different direction and she is not smiling as much as she was when they took it.
Factual error: In scenes that take place in 1912 on the porch of the hotel you can sometimes see American flags in the background. The flags in the movie have 50 stars. The 50 star flag wasn't adopted until after 1959. (01:25:15)
Continuity mistake: When the German NCO begins to walk up the sand dune he has a stick grenade in his right boot. Next shot half way up the dune, the grenade has changed boots.
Other mistake: At the end of the movie where they are looking at the headstone of Jake Hobart, the date on the bottom of the stone is April 3 1913, despite dying shortly before the Titanic sank in 1912.
Continuity mistake: At a meeting to do with the hospital's dealings, one man, Mr Broadbeck, objects to the Elephant Man being a patient in the hospital - in the beginning he is wearing spectacles, but, a few seconds later, the spectacles are gone.
Continuity mistake: There is a scene in which it is raining quite heavily and Em and Richard are inside the hutch. Richard is playing Pop Goes The Weasel over and over which annoys Em. She stabs him in the foot and he chases her outside. In this scene she is wearing a strapless dress but when he catches her and pins her down on the sand she is wearing a lacey jacket (she didn't have time to change) and there are no clouds or rain. The sand doesn't seem to be very wet either, despite the fact that it was raining heavily a few minutes ago. (00:41:10)
Visible crew/equipment: When Harris and the two Irish men have been killed at the end and the car crashes on top of the other the ramp used to make it fly is visible.
Continuity mistake: When McVicar is going crazy he knocks the food off the table along with this yellow cup, however this reappears on the table again.
Revealing mistake: During the scene in which Lou forces himself on Kim in the lunchroom, donning a black ski mask, Kim's brother Alex jumps up to his sister's defense. Just before Alex throws his first punch, Kim screams "Michael," referring to the actor's real name Michael Tough. Kim then correctly screams "Alex," the name of the character he was playing in the film.
Continuity mistake: Skeletons of murdered prisoners are dug up on prison grounds. While Brubaker & the prison doctor examine the bones, it is pouring buckets of rain. They determine the head trustee is responsible. The next scene shows a pickup speeding down a dirt road kicking up clouds of dust in the blazing sunshine. All that water sure did dry up fast.
Factual error: A film about the making of a film. A car is filmed going off a bridge, and the footage is played back repeatedly. Throughout, the car is referred to as a Duesenberg, even though, in nearly every shot, the Mercedes tri-sected circle logo is visible above the radiator.
Continuity mistake: In the restaurant scene where Conrad is sitting opposite Karen, the position of the drink glass in front of Conrad changes as the camera angle moves from Conrad's back facing Karen to Karen's back facing Conrad.
Other mistake: Someone in the film discusses being "stabbed with a gun".
Continuity mistake: When François starts talking to Coco in the cafe, the donut on her plate and items on the bar next to her keep moving between shots.
Continuity mistake: When Garland (Slim Pickens) finds out about the affair between Buck (Willie Nelson) and his daughter Lilly (Amy Irving). He takes a cab to the beach where Buck is hiding out. When Garland steps out of the cab, the bottle of tequila his is holding has just a little tequila in it. In the next scene when he is paying the driver the bottle is half full, and the next scene the bottle is almost completely full.
Factual error: In the ambush-on-the-prison scene, one of the Boers is equipped with a Lee-Enfield CLLE Charger-Loading Rifle. Although the Boers used many captured Lee-Enfield and Lee-Metford rifles, the CLLE's weren't even developed until the Boer War had ended.