Continuity mistake: When Emily Watson first strokes the tiger on the table her watch says 11:15, on the next stroke her watch says 11:20. Then the doctor hands her the stethoscope and her watch says 12:00.
Continuity mistake: When we first see Will Graham investigating the Jacobi household it is night time, yet once he is inside and heading up the stairs, the window behind him clearly shows daylight.
Continuity mistake: In the scene near the end where Graham and his son are trapped in the bedroom, the Red Dragon attempts to break down the door. After many forceful attempts, we see parts of the door jamb and moulding break-away and stick out from the wall. However, when Mrs. Graham enters the room after the shootout, the door jamb and moulding are in perfect condition.
Continuity mistake: Before they reveal the face of the Red Dragon, they show him flipping through his book of newsclippings. He focuses on the face of the Tattler reporter and puts red markings through his face. When they show him closing the book, you can clearly see the face and the markings are noticeably different in the wide shot from the close up.
Continuity mistake: In the end gunfight segment, the gun held by the main character is at first a revolver. When he is lying shot on the floor before his wife picks it up it changes to a regular pistol.
Suggested correction: Will actually pulls two guns out of the lockbox. He fires the revolver but drops both guns when he is shot. Molly picks up the semiauto to shoot at Dolarhyde.
Continuity mistake: When Will Graham (Norton) and the other investigator are at that restaurant, there's a car (it looks like a police car) outside behind Will's head that appears and disappears once or twice during that scene.
Continuity mistake: When the janitor goes back to mopping after returning the letter written to Hannibal to his cell, he stuffs the rubber glove into his back pocket. When it is first shown, there is one finger sticking out, but when Hannibal notices it, there are two.
Continuity mistake: In the scene when Emily Watson is petting the tiger, her hair alternates with the two shots: first it's tucked behind her ears, then it's not. It goes back and forth about 5 times.
Continuity mistake: At the end, Chilton tells Hannibal there's a young FBI agent here to speak to him. He asks what her name is and the film ends. Assuming it's Clarice from "Silence of the Lambs," Lecter doesn't have the same drawings on the wall as he does in "Lambs" when she first visits him.
Continuity mistake: When Graham and Hannibal are talking for the first time, Hannibal walks right up to the glass wall and there is a close up of his face from Grahams side of the glass. You can see that there is no reflection of Graham on it, thus meaning that there is no glass wall there in between Hannibal and Graham. This happens frequently through out the movie.
Continuity mistake: At the end, when Dolarhyde is holding Graham's son hostage, in alternating shots, the glass is in the kid's cheek, then in front of it.
Continuity mistake: In the scene right before Freddy Lounds is abducted by Dolarhyde, he is driving his car back to the garage of the newspaper he works for. In the scene of him pulling into the garage, he has half his arm hanging out of the rolled down window, then in the very next shot the window is rolled all the way up.
Continuity mistake: Jack gives Will a picture upside down, and places a shell on top of it, right in the center of the paper. From a different angle the shell is on the right side.
Continuity mistake: Toward the end of the movie, Will Graham is talking to Reba at the hospital, and you can see that he has a pimple over his right eye. When he goes out of the room, Crawford hands him Dolarhyde's journal, and the pimple is gone.
Continuity mistake: Anthony Hopkins starts the film with a conservative mid-Atlantic accent that requires no heavy acting. When he is talking to Will Graham in the cell phone, he changes to a ridiculously broad Georgia drawl, even when he isn't doing "funny voices." How he manages to fit either of these in as a Lithuanian of Italian descent is anyone's guess.
Continuity mistake: In the first house, the camera pans toward the mirror. The doll leaning on it changes positions, leaving the crack hidden in the first place, and visible a fraction of a second later. The hair of the doll also changes, covering its forehead first, and combed later on.
Continuity mistake: In the first house Will visits, the first shot of the mirror shows a long drop of blood on the right, which becomes short in a following shot.
Continuity mistake: Jack gives Will a picture, by placing it upside down on a table. The first close-up shows the table brightly lit, but from a new angle it's in the shade.