Audio problem: When Neale arrives at the radio station and finds the bankrupt sign on the door, emergency sirens can be heard wailing in the background. The shot changes to a different angle and the sirens abruptly stop. When the shot reverts to the original angle the sirens can be heard again. (01:07:15)
Continuity mistake: When young Kostya is standing on the table with the jump rope tied round his neck, its knot repeatedly changes position, from Kostya's front to his back.
Continuity mistake: When Sheldon takes his son to school (right after the family picnic where they all heard him claim Ryan as his lover), in one shot his son takes his seat belt off, then two shots later when the son is going to get out of the car, he takes the seat belt off again.
Continuity mistake: As Edward Norton rises and walks away, the child that is in Naomi Watts' arms is lying on his side. The angle then changes and instantly the child is lying face up. The moment is continuous as Norton is still there, moving away. (01:47:20)
Continuity mistake: In the scene with the regional spelling bee, Akeelah's turn is before Javier's. Then, when Akeelah's mother pulls her out into the hall, Javier's turn appears to be before hers as he stalls for time so Akeelah will not be disqualified. (00:56:35 - 00:58:55)
Continuity mistake: When Ahmed Alhaznawi (the tallest of the four terrorists) has just gotten through the metal detector, a pattern of light appears on the floor behind him between shots.
Visible crew/equipment: When the leader of the national front is giving his speech, just as it focuses on his glasses you can see a boom microphone reflected in them.
Continuity mistake: When Marcus is being chastised for the clothing he is wearing in the dance room, you can see a reflected shot of him looking down toward his feet. In the next shot, he looks down again.
Continuity mistake: When Sue is talking to Mr. K, the phone rings four times before Mr. K answers it. But when Sue watches this scene on the cinema screen later, Mr. K answers the call after two rings.
Continuity mistake: When Robert gets into the front passenger seat of the truck, the 90° bend in the road is a couple truck lengths away. The truck pulls out and can be heard driving away. When the truck is shown making the bend, it is a few times the distance away than it was. (00:05:18)
Factual error: When the girls go to their motel rooms before the regionals, they exclaim over the color TV in the room. However, that TV has a digital tuner, not available in the mid-60s.
Revealing mistake: While Suit is in a coma, there's a closeup of the monitor beside his bed showing Suit's vitals, and at the top of the monitor's screen are the words "adult simulating," with the timed "simulating" flashing off and on. There's also a strip of narrow filament tape covering "simulating," but the tape is transparent, so we can still see it flashing. (01:17:25)
Continuity mistake: A fair way into the movie, Ryan McDonell's character Will Spring is in a scene in their house where he's going off his head. I noticed he had a chin tuft "flavor saver". In his next scenes it disappears and reappears.
Visible crew/equipment: The morning after Jesse loses Boomer, when Molly enters the police station and walks past the office windows, we can see the reflection of the boom operator holding up the boom pole. (01:12:20)
Other mistake: After the piano is delivered to the Girl's house, we see her mom cooking. There's obviously nothing in the pan despite her vigorous stirring. (01:19:35)
Visible crew/equipment: At the very end, when Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon set themselves and the room on fire, look very closely on the left side of the screen and you'll see someone who looks like he has some equipment on and is observing the fire.
Revealing mistake: When the speaker during the first game played says "This game might have had a different outcome", everyone in the crowd looks at a different spot, but the small kids agree on just looking straight into the movie camera. (00:01:25)
Other mistake: François Cluzet and Marie-Josée Croze are husband and wife who grew up together and have been in love with each other since they were kids. They are shown in flashback scenes when they are kids as obviously being the same age. Yet it is obvious to the viewer that Cluzet is at least a generation older than Croze (15 years to be exact when I checked on IMDB.com) in the time that the actual story takes place in the present.
Factual error: At one point, a screencast of a computer screen shows a video of Barry Brickman on the desktop environment of Windows XP (operating system, developed by Microsoft, released in 2001). However, the app that plays the video is QuickTime for Mac (which runs on Mac OS only), not QuickTime for Windows (which runs on Windows XP). These two versions of QuickTime are almost identical in every respect, except for their title bar (the narrow horizontal area above the video). (00:19:15)
Continuity mistake: When Victoria Wood is walking down her old street, the shot is flipped. Her coat is fastened left to right and her hat band is facing the wrong way.