- Continuity: Dolarhyde attempts to break through the bedroom door but stops just after damaging the door jamb. Later, after the shooting, Molly has to break the slats to get to her family, but the door jamb is intact.
- Continuity: The slash mark across Graham's chest disappears before he is shot.
- Crew or equipment visible: When Francis is doing bench presses, a camera operator wearing a black t-shirt is reflected in the one of the mirrors.
- Continuity: The first time we see the "Tooth Fairy"'s tattoos, the rear view clearly shows him to be naked. When he turns around, however, although he is figleafed by a towel, his jockey shorts are visible
- Revealing mistakes: When Dolarhyde has the reporter captive and speaks closely to him the scar on his upper lip is falling off.
- Anachronisms: After Graham finds out the video tapes are what links the victims the aircraft flying at dusk is the outline of a Falcon 2000. The film takes place sometime in the early '80s and the Falcon 2000 was not delivered until March of 1995.
- Crew or equipment visible: At 82:30 on the DVD, when Lecter is saying, "Clever work on his note, by the way," the camera is reflected in the glass under Lecter's chin.
- Revealing mistakes: There is a cord visible when the burning wheelchair is rolling down the street, and is also indicated by a trail of fire left behind it when it has fallen over.
- Continuity: When Reba pets the sedated tiger her wrist watch says 11:20. When the veterinarian hands Reba a stethoscope moments later, the vet's watch says 12:00.
- Continuity: When they are are in an office, there are six clocks behind the actors. These would be clocks for different time zones, however the minute hands are different, along with the hours. Different time zones would only have different hours.
- Anachronisms: The Georgia state flag that appears in the movie was the current state flag of Georgia in 2002, but Georgia had a different flag in the 1980s - when the movie takes place.
- Factual errors: When Will is teaching Molly to shoot at the farm, there is no visible recoil when she discharges the revolver. This would be practically impossible with a 357 or 44 in the hands of a novice. There is no flash either, just wisps of smoke. In fact, the gun shakes more while she's cycling the cylinder then when she discharges it. Finally, neither are wearing safety goggles, which as a FBI field agents should be second nature when firing in a range-type setting.
- Continuity: When Dolarhyde is at The Brooklyn Museum, the woman who shows him the painting has eyeglasses hanging on a chain around her neck. After she says, "It's remarkable, isn't it? Two hundred years old... looks so fresh... so vivid", as Dolarhyde leans in for a closer look, she is now wearing the eyeglasses on her face.
- Factual errors: When Lecter acquires Graham's address, the pulses heard in the handset do not match the ones he is tapping out. When you make a call this way the number of pulses you hear are matching with the tapped ones.
- Continuity: After the shoot out in the bedroom, as he lies shot on the floor, Will Graham tells his wife to shoot Dolarhyde. She looks up to see Dolarhyde trying to get up and picks up the gun on the bedroom floor, which would have been the one her husband had used, and shoots him. As she slumps to the floor we see a shot of Will Graham, seemingly unconscious, and he still has the gun in his hand.
- Revealing mistakes: When Hannibal Lecter says the last line of the movie, "What is her name?", you can see that Anthony Hopkins is struggling not to laugh.
- Revealing mistakes: When Molly learns to shoot at the farm, every shot she takes echoes, but Molly and Will are in an open plain. The only way for the shot to echo is if they were in an enclosed space.
- Revealing mistakes: At the end of the title sequence, following the prologue, the unseen killer rapidly flicks through the pages of his journal. Going through this sequence frame-by-frame reveals two identical pages - highly implausible in a scrapbook-style journal (The repeated page consists of one boxed article at the top, a picture at the bottom-left, and part of another article at the bottom right, the text selectively obliterated with a black marker pen).
- Anachronisms: Set in the 1980s, a prequel to The Silence of the Lambs (1991), the VHS of Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) couldn't possibly exist to be a part of the Leeds family VHS collection.
>>> 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.
- Continuity: SPOILER: On the beginning of the movie, immediately after Lecter stabbing Graham, the detective falls down, along with a basket full of arrows. Then he stabs Lecter with the arrows. When Lecter gets up, the camera shows Graham on the floor, but with no arrows or basket along his right side. On the next camera shot, the arrows are back in place.
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