- Continuity: Satine's lipstick when she and Christian are kissing on the balcony.
- Incorrectly regarded as goofs: It has been suggested that the long white coat Christian is wearing on stage (the one he took from the Narcoleptic Argentinean) mysteriously disappears before he begins singing to Satine, but in fact we see him take it off as he walks down the aisle. It does disappear from the floor, but perhaps some helpful theatergoer picked it up while we weren't looking.
- Crew or equipment visible: During "Roxanne", a camera, and a crew member wearing modern shorts, are clearly in shot on the right-hand side of the screen.
- Revealing mistakes: As Satine and Christian descend from the top of the elephant and enter the chamber inside, the hanging ornaments above the entrance can be seen to start moving by themselves - this is from the wires that the actors had to wear when atop the elephant but which were digitally removed from the image.
- Crew or equipment visible: When one of the Bohos is swinging on the chandelier during "the pitch" in the elephant, he is being pushed by a crewmember wearing a wristwatch and a baseball cap.
- Revealing mistakes: After the emergency rehearsal/pitch, the camera pulls back out of the elephant and hits the suspended heart.
- Continuity: During the performance of Spectacular Spectacular! when the Argentinian enters he can be seen walking down the stairs and joining the rest of the dancers. A moment later when the shot cuts to a different angle, he can be seen walking down the stairs again.
- Crew or equipment visible: In the final performance, the shadow of the camera crane falls on Satine's dress.
- Continuity: During "Spectacular Spectacular" the doors can be seen closing behind Satine and Christian as Christian throws down the money. It can be seen closing again in the next shot when Christian has walked off stage and Harold comes to Satine.
- Continuity: When Satine sings the line, "I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind... ." to the Duke, he is holding a wine bottle and she is barefoot. When she jumps on the bed, he is bottle-less and she wears shoes.
- Crew or equipment visible: Cameraman's foot and leg visible in the background of the Can Can scene. (Seen in the Extended Can Can in the 2nd disc. Appears when the Can Can Girls begin to lay on the floor kicking their legs in the air.)
- Revealing mistakes: During the Green Fairy "Sound of Music" song, while Christian and the Bohemians are standing and singing outside of the "L'amour" apartment, Toulouse raises his leg and you can see a knee instead of his foot.
- Continuity: When Christian and Satine sing on top of the elephant, Satine's hair is tied back on the left side of her face and hanging loose on her right. However, when they kiss after she says, "You're going to be bad for business, I can tell," the loose hair is covering the left side of her face (i.e., the image has been flipped).
- Continuity: When Satine gets on top of Christian when they're in the elephant for the first time, his bowtie is sometimes on and sometimes off.
- Continuity: When Satine first enters the stage during the Indian dance number of Spectacular Spectacular!, her leg is alternately inside and outside of the slit in her dress.
- Continuity: At the end of the movie when Christian is singing "Come what may" to Satine, he passes the orchestra conductor twice.
- Continuity: When Satine bursts into Christian's room after being attacked by the Duke (post 'Roxanne') there is a revolving camera around the two of them, and the length of Nicole Kidman's eyebrows actually changes in one shot.
- Continuity: During "Hindi Sad Diamonds", there is a close-up shot of Zidler turning around to look at the Duke, who is sitting in the front row. The next wide shot shows Zidler's red turban facing Satine (upstage) at the bottom of the screen. The next shot is again a close-up with Zidler facing the audience and looking at the Duke.
- Continuity: During the performance, when Christian walks back onstage, Satine puts her left cheek against Christian's. In the next shot, it is her right cheek that touches Christian.
- Continuity: When Christian is first explaining his thoughts on love in the beginning, the Argentinian's cross necklace goes from outside his shirt to tucked inside his shirt.
- Continuity: When Harold signs over the deed to the Moulin Rouge to The Duke, you can see The Duke's hair style changes constantly back and forth during the entire scene.
- Continuity: When Satine is putting on the red dress with Marie, Satine turns around with her right arm raised to ask Harold how she looks, then the scene cuts to him for just a second. When the scene cuts back to Satine, her left arm is raised.
- Continuity: Near the beginning of "Roxanne" Nini is pushed away from the Argentinean into another man's arms. The next shot is shown from a different angle and she is standing alone. The man is behind her and moving toward her.
- Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the "Elephant Love Medley" scene, Satine and Christian are obviously lip-syncing. A few times, they miss saying the word all together, or they are just a part of a second behind the pre-recorded vocals.
- Audio/visual unsynchronized: Tolousse says "you're the voice of the children of the revolution", but his lips don't match the words.
- Crew or equipment visible: A steadicam operator and another crewman is visible during the Can-Can dance.
- Continuity: The scar under Warner's eye switch sides throughout the movie. In the scene where the Duke calls Toulouse "pig," it switches several times between cuts.
- Crew or equipment visible: In the scene where Nini asks the Duke "Why would the Courtesan choose the penniless writer - oops. I MEAN SITAR PLAYER!", the cast is performing on stage. They have platforms going so far up you can't see the top at the camera level at the stage. You can see a cameraman's shadow from a platform that is higher than camera level.
- Continuity: While Satine is talking to Marie about being a real actress there is a candle burning by the mirror on the close up shot, but the next shot there is no candle.
- Continuity: When Satine is shoving the Duke out of the elephant at the end of one scene, he is fully out the door but in the next shot she is shoving him out of the door.
- Continuity: When Christian is mouthing the words of "Your Song" to Satine you can see that the fruit bowl has an apple and grapes on top of 3 oranges but during "the pitch" you can see that the oranges are on top of the grapes and the apple.
- Continuity: When the champagne "disappears" from the Duke’s hand it "reappears" back in the ice bucket during "the pitch".
- Continuity: During the 'Spectacular Spectacular' dress rehearsal, contents of the theatre behind the Duke changes with every cut. Sometimes there is nothing, sometimes there is a horse/donkey, sometimes a stack of chairs and sometimes there are the chairs laid out neatly.
- Continuity: During Spectacular Spectacular, as Toulouse is yelling "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return" you see him start to grab the rope. When he starts to fall after Christian sings "Come What May" we see him not holding the rope, then suddenly he has the rope in his hand when he's falling towards the stage.
- Continuity: When the Duke enters the elephant, Christian is hiding behind Satine. In alternating shots, he hides both beneath her cloak and behind her cloak.
- Revealing mistakes: While "Spectacular, Spectacular" is being sung, it is clear that Toulouse is dragging his "feet" instead of lifting them.
- Continuity: When Satine is dressing to meet the Duke for the first time, she wears a red dress and asked Zidler for his approval ("Smoldering temptress?"). Then when she goes to meet the "Duke" in the Elephant, she has changed into a black gauzy outfit with a different hair style. Later that evening, singing with Christian atop the Elephant, she's back in the red dress again and her hair is done to match the first scene.
- Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Satine says, "You're going to be bad for business", we see her from behind - but it is obvious her lips are not moving. (The remainder of the phrase, "I can tell", is shown from the front and her lips do move).
- Continuity: Christian's accent changes slightly throughout the movie.
- Audio/visual unsynchronized: Satine's birdcage holds a lovebird, yet the song heard is of a canary.
- Anachronisms: In the first scene we see a completed white domed church of Sacré Coeur atop the hill. The basilica was not completed until 1914, 14 years after the story takes place. (It is also shown directly across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower, which is northwest. It is actually northeast of the Eiffel tower and would not be visible in this view.)
- Revealing mistakes: When Christian kicks Toulouse out of his room, Toulouse reaches much too far down for the door knob. Since Toulouse is 4'11" the door knob would be around chest height, not waist height.
>>> WARNING: Here Be Spoilers <<<
Goofs below here contain information that may give away important plot points. You may not want to read any further if you've not already seen this title.
- Incorrectly regarded as goofs: SPOILER: At the end when Christian is crying and pulling the dead Satine towards him, you briefly see her blink. This was either her last living movement, or a post mortem reflex.
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