Hannibal

Hannibal (2001)

38 continuity mistakes - chronological order

(8 votes)

Continuity mistake: Right before Paul says grace, Dr. Lecter checks the time on the grandfather clock. We see a long shot, and the hand's on about 46 minutes. Then there is a closeup of the clock moving past 50 minutes after the hour. When it cuts back to the table, the clock is immediately back to 46. (01:56:19)

Continuity mistake: During the dinner when Clarice tries to stab Hannibal, his hand goes from on her wrist in one shot to the back of her head in the next. (01:58:20)

Continuity mistake: In the flashback seen where Dr. Lecter suggests to Mason Verger peel off his own face, Dr.Lecter picks up the broken mirror piece with a navy or black cloth. Then in the next scene, when he hands it to Mason, there is no cloth. Then, when Mason starts to scrape away at his face, the cloth reappears in Mason's hand.

Continuity mistake: When Pazzi sits down during Hannibal's presentation, Hannibal puts his hand on his shoulder. It is suddenly in a slightly different place in the closer shot without there being time to move it. It's very slight but still noticeable.

David Mercier

Continuity mistake: During the brains-for-dinner scene, Clarice sneaks her knife under the table to use against Lecter. A few lines of dialogue and camera angles later, the knife is back on the table, and Clarice sneaks it under the table - again.

Continuity mistake: When Lecter is being wheeled in to talk to Mason Verger, he has blood on his face from the beating he got in the van. When he talks to Verger, the blood is gone.

Continuity mistake: In the kitchen after the brain dinner party, Hannibal throws a towel on top of Paul's open skull. When Hannibal throws Starling against the fridge and she fights back, Paul is sitting with his skull back on.

Allan Curran

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Hannibal picks up a meat cleaver to chop off the handcuffs attaching him to Starling; in one shot it is covered with chopped herbs, in the next it is clean.

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Clarice wakes up in Krendler's house heavily drugged, she looks at her things on the chest outside of the room. Her denim jacket is there. However, we see her take this off and leave it in her car when she decides to go in to the Verger barn.

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Clarice visits Barney, in each shot the fan switches from off to on and back, both before and after Barney turns it on.

Continuity mistake: At the market, when a black thug is crushed between two cars, stones on the white car's roof disappear in the wide angles, but reappear in the close-ups.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When the baddies' car runs Bolton over, he smashes the windshield, but the damage and blood disappear in the next shot.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: The first time we see Clarice she approaches a car. A bang of hair suddenly appears over her forehead between shots.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When the movie begins Barney shows the pink box and places his hand on the string attaching its lid. A frame later, the hand is away but the knot is magically untied.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: The letter to Clarice is folded twice when she opens it, yet Hannibal is shown folding it once. (It was not a second fold because we see two edges touch, not a fold and one edge.)

Factual error: When Hannibal calls Clarice and gives her 3 seconds to change the battery on the phone, it is possible to change the battery in 3 seconds but you would have to turn the phone back on and let it initialize which would make the whole process take longer than 3 seconds. (01:33:17)

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

Suggested correction: Please provide evidence, including the make, model, and duration of the initialization process of the phone, to substantiate this statement. It's not known from the information available that it isn't possible to hot swap the battery, meaning it's quite possible in 3 seconds.

Tell you what, why don't you give us all the make and model of phone which can be turned off, have its battery replaced, and then boot back up again, in 3 seconds. It's not remotely possible on any phone, old or new. Anyone who was using cellphones in the era this phone was made knows it, or indeed now for that matter.

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Trivia: At the end of the opening credits, just after "Screenplay by David Mamet" and before "directed by Ridley Scott", look at the right hand side of the screen - you can see Hannibal's face drawn by pigeons. (00:04:25)

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Question: Why did the pigs not attack Lecter when he picked up Clarice? They went straight for the fat guy handcuffed to his accomplice and also to Verger but by passed Lecter. I thought it might be a blood thing which is why Lecter picked Clarice up after she was shot but A - Lecter doesn't know anything about the pigs and B - Mason wasn't bleeding before he got eaten.

The_Iceman

Answer: The implication is that the boars are afraid of Lecter, which is why they don't attack him - he shows no fear and exudes dominance.

Sierra1

Next to that the pigs are trained to attack anything that screams. Hannibal stayed calm and thus was ignored.

lionhead

Didn't Verger describe the pigs (by mentioning their molars and incisors) to Lecter when he was first brought to Verger strapped to the dolly?

He also didn't scream or make noise to get their attention.

I'm inclined to agree here. The boars could sense that Lecter was the most savage predator in the pit, and the animals steered clear of him for that reason. Call it "professional courtesy."

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: The implication is that savage animals recognize Lecter as another, even more savage animal. Call it kinship. Lecter has the same effect on attack dogs.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: Probably the same reason the Alsatian dog of Krendler didn't attack him either.

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