Top Movie Mistakes

When a film makes a few gaffs…

Making television and movies is far more difficult than most of us expect, for programmes and films to go to screen without any mistakes is rare. Soap operas have had ‘fast turn around’ production from the earliest days creating in a week what a movie takes several months to accomplish – yet the latter can also end up with those ‘oops’ moments too.

Hollywood has long been associated with glamour and cinematic success, but behind the glitz, there’s a world of intriguing film mistakes; From the likes of that Starbucks cup on Game of Thrones to historical inaccuracies in Oppenheimer – sometimes a mistake can be ‘make or break’ at the box office.

With exciting new releases in classic franchises upcoming in 2024, including Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (9th May), Despicable Me 4 (5th July), and The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (13th December), which movies are we anticipating will be pure gold, and which will be a dud?

1 – The Birds | 552 mishaps 

Alfred Hitchcock’s classic suspense thriller, ‘The Birds,’ is renowned for its tension-packed plot and Hitchcock’s distinctive directorial flair. This film claims the top spot among movies with the most blunders per minute of all time, tallying 552 documented mistakes, averaging nearly five errors per minute  (4.64). One conspicuous oversight occurs in the scene where Mitch boards up the house, oddly placing the final board on top of the lower one and gently tapping it with a hammer, omitting the use of nails.

2 – The Wizard of Oz | 434 mishaps 

‘The Wizard of Oz’ claims the second position in the roster of films with the most errors per minute, boasting 434 blunders at an average rate of approximately 4.25 mistakes per minute. This beloved classic owes its enduring appeal to its timeless narrative, iconic characters, unforgettable music, and long-lasting  cultural significance. In the well-known sequence where Dorothy meets the Scarecrow, there’s a glaring mistake in Dorothy’s hairstyle. Her pigtails initially appear short (above her shoulders), but as the song unfolds, they mysteriously lengthen (below her shoulders), then shorten, and lengthen once more.

3 – Apocalypse Now | 563 mishaps

Francis Ford Coppola’s iconic war movie, Apocalypse Now, is celebrated for its immersive narrative and visually striking sequences. Yet, it claims the third spot as the movie with the highest number of goofs per minute in history, totalling 563 documented errors, averaging out to approximately 3.83 blunders per minute. Among the film’s most famous gaffes is an anachronism in military terminology, using outdated NATO alphabet terms ‘Peter’ and ‘King’ instead of ‘Papa’ and ‘Kilo’ in a radio transmission scene set before the NATO alphabet was updated in 1956.

Driven by curiosity, BonusFinder delved into IMDb’s ‘With Goof’ list and MovieMistake to reveal the classic films with the most mistakes every minute.

The movies with the least mistakes per minute

A select-few movies boasted no mistakes at all – and interestingly, these were all movies released last year (2023). Does this prove that movies are getting better?

• Evil Dead Rise
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
• Asteroid City
• Insidious: The Red Door
• The Equalizer 3
• Barbie
• Meg 2: The Trench
• Sound of Freedom
• Gran Turismo
• The Little Mermaid
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
• Haunted Mansion
• Blue Beetle