Goodfellas (1990) - 34 mistakes

As the wiseguys in prison are about to have dinner, there are two loaves of bread on the table. The following shot one of the loaves disappears.

When Paulie is first introduced the long shot shows him holding his cigar next to his waist. The shot changes to a close up, and he is now holding the cigar up near his chest.

While Henry and Jimmy are beating up the guy in the car, Henry is holding a gun up to the guy's face. A few times during the scene, it changes back and forth from the gun pressed right up against his face to the gun a little away from his face.

After Henry beats up Karen's neighbour with his pistol, he puts the gun in Karen's hand. In the close up the gun is resting in her palm, but in wide shots of Karen and Henry she is holding the gun more by its barrel.

Whilst Jimmy is choking Morrie in the wig store the phone suddenly rings and the shot changes. Between shots the way Morrie is standing has all of a sudden changed. Instead of leaning back, he is bent forward. The way he is holding the phone whilst being choked changes as well.

In the scene where Karen is too afraid to accept free clothes from Jimmy and speeds off, the yellow NY state license plate falls from the parked car to reveal the modern white one underneath.

When Henry Hill is in jail and talking with his wife, the child is playing with a stack of coloured toy blocks. The order the blocks are stacked in change in different shots.

When Tommy shoots Spider in the foot and he goes down, Henry is playing cards at the table, then in the next scene Henry is helping Spider up, then the very next scene Henry is back at the table watching Spider crawl on the floor.

In the scene where Pauly talks to Henry and the restaurant owner about Henry's possible involvement in the restaurant biz, Pauly is talking (with the cigar clearly in his hand and it cuts away to him saying "No?" with the cigar jammed directly in his mouth.

When Henry is in prison and he comes in to the kitchen with food in a bag, he first passes some bread to Paul. In one shot he picks up 2 jars and a bottle of wine. The next shot he is carrying the same food but suddenly has a loaf of bread in his hands. When the camera angle switches we now see Henry in front of the table about to sit at the table but now has no food in his arms.

In the scene that Karen is too afraid to take the clothes and the license plate falls off, there is a shot of the windshield which is close enough to reveal the fake registration sticker made for the era in which the movie was represented. The problem is though that not only is it obvious that the sticker is applied on the outside of the window, but the current sticker (inside the window) is larger than the movie prop and can be seen as a "frame" around the other.

When Jimmy and Henry are talking to Morrie and the camera angle is behind Morrie you can see him holding the phone at his shoulder, when the camera angle switches he has the phone at his ear. Then the phone suddenly disappears when you can see both of his hands and then it comes back again right before Jimmy strangles him with it.

Early in the film, when Henry Hill is selling Pall Mall cigarettes out of a car trunk and is arrested, there are UPC price codes visible on the cartons of cigarettes. UPC codes were not used on products in the 1950's when the scene is taking place. They were introduced in the mid 1970s.

When Stacks Edwards (Samuel L. Jackson) is shot by Tommy (Joe Pesci), the blood spatter very clearly comes from offscreen to the right.

Henry and Jimmy are eating in a diner waiting for word about Tommy being "made". When Jimmy goes outside to make the call to find out, there is a car parked outside the diner, at this point, the car's window is open. When Jimmy starts kicking over the phonebooth and Henry comes outside to join him, the car's window is closed.

In one scene we are introduced to Idlewild Airport in 1963. We're shown a couple of aircraft in flight and one of the aircraft is a Boeing 747 in the livery of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. The Boeing 747 didn't enter commercial service until 1969.

The scene in the restaurant where Joe Pesci messes with Ray Liotta saying, "What, am I funny, am I a funny guy to you?" watch the drinking glasses on the table. The drink levels are going up and down with and then without ice.

In the same scene, the actors walk past the rear of an easily identified 1965 Chevy Impala. Occasionally Chevrolet introduced vehicles early, but never two years early.

It's the scene where Henry and Karen are visiting some friends and they have their children with them. Henry starts to greet his friends, he is then carrying a big brown teddybear in his hand. Then Paul starts talking to him about Billy for a while, when the camera then is behind them as they walk away Henry is holding a little pink teddybear and he had no opportunity to switch.

In the scene after the 'robbery' of the suitcase of cash by Henry and Tommy, Pauly, Jimmy, Henry and Tommy are all celebrating their success, laughing etc. with the suitcase of cash on a table. While Pauly is telling Henry to tell anyone who asks that he won the money playing craps in Vegas, Jimmy is standing quite some distance to the left of Henry.When the camera closes in on Henry and Pauly, Jimmy has moved positions - he is now directly behind Henry's right shoulder (on the left of shot). This is obviously for effect so Jimmy can be seen laughing in the background.

In the scene where Jimmy and Henry try to strangle Maury with the telephone, the phone cord is ripped out to be used as strangling material, but as this is taking place, the telephone rings.

In the scene where Henry pistol-whips Karen's neighbor, Henry is driving a 1966 Chrysler, when it 1964 at the latest. We know this because at the end of the movie it says that Henry and Karen were divorced in 1989 after 25 years of marriage. That means they were married in 1964.

In the scene when Spider is killed by Tommy, Jimmy is with his arms wide open just the instant before Tommy pulls the trigger. But in the next shot, when Tommy fires the gun, Jimmy is with his arms down.

When Henry is in prison, Karen comes to visit him and drop off goods she smuggled in. They begin to argue while Henry is holding his daughter and Karen starts placing all the goods on the table. The camera angle switches to just a view of Henry's hands gathering the goods and if you look carefully, you will notice that BOTH of Henry's hands are collecting the goods. This would be impossible considering he is holding his daughter in one of his arms. Once the goods are collected, Henry is seen holding his daughter again.

When Paulie and the others are in prison and preparing dinner, there is a vase on the table where they will eventually eat dinner. The vase is filled with fresh basil at the beginning of this scene but disappears and re-appears throughout the scene.

When Henry and Karen are racing to Karen's mother's house when the helicopter is following them, the driveway Henry pulls up in has a 1982 or newer Pontiac Bonneville, but the scene was supposed to take place in 1980.

When Henry Hill is at the doctor's office, the doctor gives him 10 mg Valium pill which is brown. In reality, Valium 10 mg is light blue and has a "V" shaped hole in the center of it.

When Henry is being followed by the helicopter, he almost slams into another car. Henry's car has a brake light in the back window, but they didn't start that until the mid 80's at the earliest.

When Henry has just showed De Niro the guns and he's in his car, you see him light up a cigarette. When the shot changes the cigarette has vanished.

When Joe Pesci is getting "made" at the end, as soon as he opens the door he gets shot in the head and blood starts coming out of the hole. When you run it through in slo-mo it is a very cheesy poor special effect of a computer superimposed blood trickle.

After Karen has been with her girlfriends, she is talking to Henry about what is going to happen if he gets killed, at that point Henry is folding his pants by the closet, when the camera angle switches he is suddenly very quick on his knees in front of Karen.

When Henry and his girlfriend enter the Copacabana avoiding waiting in the line, their way through the catacombs of the nightclub is prolonged artificially because they exit the kitchen by the same door they entered it. The scenery is changed a bit by moving some racks and a curtain but you can tell it's the same because they pass the same firehose on the wall twice.

When Ray's girlfriend is showing off her apartment to her two girlfriends they walk down the hall to the bedroom. The camera then changes to them entering the bedroom door and the order of girls has changed.

When Karen is at the the Hostess party, and Jimmy Conway's wife is talking about Jeanie's family, if you look at the lady she's applying make up to, she crosses begins to herself twice. One when the camera is one her and Jimmy's wife, then again when the camera is just on her.