Factual error: In the scene depicting life on Baker Street (after the "Sherlock Holmes" title), a horse-drawn carriage races through the streets of London. The only problem is, the carriage is driving on the right side of the road with others passing on the left. In England, carriages would be driving on the left. (00:07:05)
Factual error: Abby has trees surrounding her house yet there aren't any in Nome Alaska.
Factual error: Contrary to what the movie states, priests can be elected Pope - they are simply elevated to the rank of Bishop before taking the office.
Suggested correction: Him being only a priest was simply an excuse not to elect him. Those who did not want him to be pope were trying to find any reason to keep it from happening.
Any baptized Catholic male can be elected pope, although it has only happened once. Pope John XIX in the 11th century was a layman, ordained after his election.
Factual error: When Sam speaks with his daughter on the long range phone there is virtually no delay between some questions and answers. It takes over two seconds for radio waves just to travel from the Moon to the Earth and back in a straight line. The interval between question and answer physically can't be shorter than that and realistically should be around 3 seconds or even more, accounting for additional signal relays and time needed for a person to form a statement. Same for the communication between Gerty and the Lunar employees when Sam 2 got out of his infirmary bed.
Factual error: We see Hoffman has to use pliers and force to remove Strahm's hand from the grill. However, since the hand is freshly severed, rigor mortis would not have set in, and he should have been able to remove it with ease. (01:09:30)
Factual error: When New York is destroyed by the fireball, the Times Square giant TV (& other electrical items) is still on (although no picture - just static), but the super-flare would cause electrical items to overload before the main fireball hit, almost like an EMP.
Factual error: During one of Blomkvist's flashbacks to his childhood with his babysitter (about 40 years ago), he is wearing Lightning McQueen shoes.
Factual error: In the beginning of the movie after the 1st murders, when the detective is talking, he states that Grady's/David's car was bought with cash, and the purchase is untraceable because no ID is required, this is not true. A valid picture ID or drivers license is required in order to register the vehicle. Whether it is a fake ID or not, a person has to come up with some sort of ID in order to register a car. Otherwise people would just keep re-registering their vehicles under false names instead of paying parking tickets.
Factual error: Almost all the semi-tractor trailers on the Interstate passing by are from the 2000s, not 1995, the timeline of the movie.
Factual error: Near the end, no one in the hall realizes that a real diamond cannot be destroyed by a bullet. Also, even if it was a fake, it couldn't be blown to smithereens with a single gunshot.
Factual error: When Esposito revisits the murder scene, he asks Morales whether he would prefer the culprit to receive the death penalty. Morales answers that he would not, claiming that to doze off and fall asleep (hinting at execution by lethal injection) would be too good for the man who raped and brutally murdered his wife. Execution by injection has never been practiced in Argentina - where the last execution was carried out in 1916, by shooting - and was legally enacted only in 1977 and practiced the first time in 1982 (in both cases by the state of Texas). Thus, it seems anachronistic that anyone would equate the method with capital punishment in 1974, when the scene is set. (00:24:00)
Factual error: The briefcase containing $1 million was full of $100 bill straps, two columns by six straps or $120k per layer. Eight layers would have been 4 inches tall, not including the four straps left over. The top and bottom portions of the case were equal depth and only the bottom half was full. The case would have had to be approximately 8 inches deep, which it evidently was not, to hold $1 million.