Continuity mistake: When Chris is hit by a car, he has both shoes on after the impact, when he is rolling on the ground. One of them suddenly disappears in the following shot.
Factual error: When Chris is running from the cabbie he jumps into a train, and in the process gets his scanner stuck in the door, which he loses hold of as the train begins to move. BART trains will not move unless all doors are secure, so this could not have happened. (00:30:00)
Factual error: When Chris, and his son go to (at the time) Candlestick Park, home of the San Fransico 49ers, you can plainly see both when he is outside of the stadium talking to guys in the parking lot and when he's in the 'suite box' trying to get the guy to do business with him that all of the logos for the 49ers are from this time period. This is a huge mistake considering this movie was set in the early 80's whereas the 49ers did not begin to use black in their uniforms again until the earliest being in 1994 for the NFL's 75th Anniversary, which was the last year they won a Super Bowl, defeating the San Diego Chargers. The team didn't go to 'black' as a primary color in their scheme until 1996 when they added the black outline around their logo (which you see on the walls outside the stadium and on the field as you see the team playing) and by also adding it to their trademark sleeve stripes and around the their numbers which were given a drop shadow style as homage to the '94 year uniforms. They did however wear the correct 'era' uniforms which would be considered a 'throwback' uniform by today's standards.
Factual error: The abdomen x-ray in the first doctor's office that Will Smith visits is upside down, evident by the pelvis seen at the top.
Factual error: The nickel from the phone booth is fake. Unless it was a special minted edition. It doesn't look like any nickel I've ever seen from that era. It is also reflectively discolored compared to the proper coin to its left. It actually looks more like an '01 coin. (00:31:20)
Visible crew/equipment: When Chris is about to take his job interview he walks across the busy work area. Right after he turns left you can see a movie technician with a red cap behind Chris. He is quickly hiding behind a pillar when he notices that the camera is on him.
Factual error: About halfway into the film, in the shot of Will Smith and his son walking down the downtown sidewalk, a late model Saturn car can be seen in the distance behind them making a turn at the street corner. This car did not exist during the time frame of the movie.
Continuity mistake: When Chris is at the job interview and is full of paint, a lot of paint is on his neck when he's going to the interview and at the beginning of it. But after the interview and at the end the paint disappears.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Chris shares a cab with Jay Twistle, the cab has an advertisement for "PSA" on top of the cab, but when the cab pulls up to its destination dropping off Twistle, an advertisement for "Raging Bull" is now seen on top of the cab. (00:24:35)
Continuity mistake: When Jay Twistle calls Chris, he says the interviews are "the day after tomorrow." The interview are at least 3 days later, as the next day Chris picks up his son from daycare, and 2 days afterwards is when he's painting his house.
Revealing mistake: After Chris and his son learn that there are no more rooms in the shelter, the crowd begins to disperse. One homeless man touches a parking meter which moves easily, like a lightweight prop. (01:40:55)
Factual error: When Chris Gardner's scanner gets stuck in the subway door, the door should've opened then closed.
Answer: In an interview, the real-life Chris Gardiner, (played by Will Smith) explained that the deliberately misspelled word was written that way on the child daycare center's wall (representing how children can sometimes misspell words). Gardiner later interpreted it to personally mean that true happiness is not defined in just one way, there are many ways to be happy, and that was reflected in the alternate spelling.
raywest