 
We've listed the mistakes in order as they appear in the
film. We've watched the DVD at least 50 times, slowed it
down, paused it and examined it as much as possible. Some of these we agree with, some of
them we don't, some of them are questionable. There were also numerous ones left out
because we felt they were totally off track and didn't even merit space on this website.
Watch the DVD and decide for yourself. You can always Contact Us if you have a comment or disagree with something here. These
entries were borrowed from Movie
Mistakes.
At the beginning, Dumbledore is taking out all of the street lights, from one
shot, the street light closest to Dumbledore on HIS right is still lit, but in the next
shot, which is a close up of him taking the light, and shots later, the street light is
out and he never "took" the light from that one.
At the beginning,
Dumbledore is taking out all of the street lights, from one shot, the car in right is in
the second house, but in the next shot, the same car is in the first house. There are three cars in this shot, two on the left, one on the right, and
to me, they all appear to stay in the same place.
In the
beginning of the film,when we see Harry asleep in the cupboard under the stairs,his scar
is right in the center of his forehead,but later in the film when Ron asks Harry if he
really has the scar, it is over his right eyebrow. I
disagree with this one. Harry's scar is in the same spot throughout the movie.
At the beginning when Harry first walks out of his closet, his shirt is
bunched up around the top of his pants, yet is pulled down when he walks through the
door into the kitchen the next moment.
During the
second scene, when we meet the Dursleys, Dudley has a hairstyle that has a good inch of
hair in front, right over his right eye. The strands are together at the top, and scruffed
out at the bottom. But right before the scene changes, all of that hair is gelled
together.
When Harry is looking at the snake in the zoo, it winks at him. This could not
have happened since snakes do not have eyelids.
When
Harry is talking to the snake, you can see the reflection of the glass. However after
Dudley falls into the snake pit (from his side) you can see the glass there but it is not
covering the entire exhibit. Where the glass is, is where Dudley places his hands as if
the glass is covering the entire exhibit. I've
watched this scene over and over and can't see what this person is talking about.
When Uncle Vernon puts a piece of wood over the letterbox, it is in one piece,
but when the mail arrives, prior to it being ripped apart, there is a noticeable crack in
it. Slow it down and you can see the crack where the
board will break.
Hagrid appears at the hut on
the rock to fetch Harry on Harry's 11th birthday, which is July 31. The next day they go
to London to buy Harry's school supplies, then end the day at King's Cross. But the letter
Hagrid hands Harry at the hut (in the book, anyway - and in the film if you stop it to
read what Harry doesn't) tells him to report to the train on September 1. What happened to
the month of August? In the book, Harry didn't go with Hagrid, he
went back with the Dursleys. But of course, in the movie, he does go with Hagrid. They go
to Diagon Alley to get his supplies and then comes the scene where Hagrid tells Harry
about Voldemort. To me, it looks like this conversation happens at the Leaky Cauldron. One
could guess to say that he stayed with Hagrid at the Leaky Cauldron. What do you think?
At one stage in the sea
hut scene, Harry is standing beside the BARE wall of the fireplace. The camera then goes
to Hagrid, who turns and pulls the broken door down saying "Unless you'd rather stay,
of course?". The camera then goes back to Harry, who is still by the wall that now
shows his coat is hanging right there beside him, which Harry then grabs on his way out. In the mentioned shot you can't see the shirt; I suspect it is behind
Harry. There are four different shots throughout that scene where the shirt is visible,
hanging on the fireplace right next to Harry.
When they are standing in the cubby space in the back of the Leaky Caldron, you
can see the door left open and the window. But when they are seen standing in the archway
made by the shifting bricks entering into Diagon Alley, the door from the Leaky Caldron is
closed and one touched it.
In the scene in Diagon Alley when Harry first enters there are some witches
on the left hand side of the screen looking at what appears to be large lollypops and
Harry walks past them. The camera angle changes and Harry walks past them again.
There is a flaw in the filming when Harry enters Diagon Alley.
There is the Quidditch Shop on the right... if you watch the movie, they walk past this
store and then from inside the store, you see Harry looking at the Nimbus 2000, yet they
have already past that shop. Both of these are
pretty much the same mistake.
In the scene where
Hagrid and Harry are talking about where to get wizarding supplies, there is a shot of
Hagrid and he passes some buildings with the numbers 43 and 44 on them. His head is just
about to pass the 44. We then cut to Harry, who says something. Then we cut back to
Hagrid, and he still hasn't passed the 44. Too much time has passed for him still to be
there. I'm not really sure what this person is
seeing. If you do, let me know.
When
Hagrid hands the goblin the letter about "you know what", the letter has
crinkles on the edges, but when the goblin takes a look at it, it's all neat. Then when he
looks up at Hagrid, it's crinkly again.
In
the overhead shot of Olivander's wand shop, you can see three wands on his desk that are
in a fanned out position. Then when Olivander is handing wands out to Harry, the wands are
straightened out. I can't see any wands on
Olivander's desk, do you?
When Percy is walking on to Platform 9¾ there is a couple walking next to him,
an older man with an umbrella now replaces the young man and women.
When Harry and Ron are sat on the train, Ron's hair begins with a center
parting, but soon changes to a side parting.
When Ron is in the Hogwarts train with Harry he has a big dark dirt stain on
his nose, but when he is sitting on the other side (with Harry) it's barely there! And he
couldn't of wiped it off because Hermione later comes in and informs him, THEN he tries to
wipe it off.
On
the train to Hogwarts, Hermione tells Harry and Ron that they need to get their school
clothes on, as they will arrive soon. It is daytime outside. Yet the train arrives at
Hogsmeade Station in the middle of the night. I
think this could be argued. Who's to say it didn't take them an additional 30 minutes to
an hour to get there? The sun could set in that time.
When Malfoy first talks, the window behind him is bright blue. He talks about
"it's true then, what they are saying on the train, Harry Potter has come to
Hogwarts." Everyone says "Harry Potter" and when it cuts back to Malfoy,
the window is much much darker. Both a mistake in terms of continuity between windows, and
also a mistake because we'd seen everyone turn up in total darkness earlier, so the window
shouldn't have been light in the first place. There
might be a slight difference but not to drastic.
When McGonagall is talking to the children before their sorting, you can tell
when the camera is on her that the lighting is candle-like (note the flicker). When the
camera cuts to the children, there is no flicker (check out Hermione).
When you
see the Great Hall while the first-years are getting sorted, there are no empty seats at
any of the tables. Yet, once the kids are sorted, they all have room to sit. If you look, the ends of the tables near the head table are
empty.
In the sorting scene when Malfoy is being sorted, the hat screams Slytherin
before it touches his head, but when they cut to a closer angle, McGonagall lifts the hat
from lower on his head (you can tell because his hair moves with the hat).
In the
sorting ceremony, we see Susan Bones, the girl with long curly hair, was sorted into
Hufflepuff House. Later, in Professor Snape's Potion class, we see Susan was sitting
behind Harry when Snape questions him. Only Gryffindor and Slytherin are attending in that
class together - Susan was in the wrong class! Later in the movie, she is also seated at
dinner at the same table as Harry, meaning she would have to be in his house, which is
Gryffindor. This is only a mistake between the book
and the movie. It is never noted in the movie which houses have classes together. NOTE: The little girl named "Susan Bones" who was
sorted into Hufflepuff was shown prominently throughout the film, even in, I believe, some
of the Gryffindor classes. The reason she was used so much is that she is actually Chris
Columbus's (the director) daughter, Eleanor Columbus.
At the start of term feast, after Harry is sorted into Gryffindor, he sits down
on the right side of the table next to Ron. When the feast appears, Harry is on the other
side of the table, next to Hermione.
When Harry is sitting in the window with Hedwig, first shot his ankles are
crossed - close up, they are not.
When
professor turns from a cat back into a human she isn't wearing her glasses, but in the
next shot she is wearing them! If you slow the DVD
down, which I have, you see that when she is transforming, she does not have the glasses
on at first but then she turns her back to the camera to face Ron & Harry and when she
turns and you see her right side, she does have her glasses on, all in the same shot.
When Harry is in the potions class he is caught writing notes down, we see
his neat writing in close up ... but when the camera angle changes we can see that the
writing has changed in size to very large letters and quite messy writing.
I found this one myself. The first time mail arrives, we see the owls
coming in and the ceiling looks normal, not bewitched to look like the sky.
During the flying lesson when Neville's broom goes out of control, Ron covers his
face with his hand. In the next shot, from above, both of Ron's hands are down at his
sides.
When
Harry, Ron, and Hermione get off the stairs (which have just moved) onto the third floor,
the stairs bounce, clearly illustrating that they are not made of the hard stone they
appear to be. This is arguable. I don't see the
stairs as bouncing; I just think they are settling down, moving back & forth. They did
just move a large distance and could possibly sway a bit before coming to a rest.
In the
scene where Hermione, Ron and Harry are returning to Gryffindor's tower room after being
in the third floor room for the first time, you are able to see the feet of one of the
crew. It happens just as they are passing through the picture hole, where Harry turns a
couple of times to check that the "door" is closing. And it is in fact, because
someone is walking behind it and pushing it shut, since the picture hangs several inches
off the floor. You can tell it is someones feet; one of them turns
slightly.
Near the
start, Percy says "Boys upstairs and down on your left, girls the same on your
right". However, after the three heroes have been to investigate Fluffy and they go
back to the dorms, when they reach the top of the stairs Hermione goes to the left and the
boys head right. I disagree with this one. When
Percy is speaking, he is facing the students with his back to the stairs. When he says
'girls, same on your right,' he points to his left which would be the
students right. This is the also door that Hermione goes into after finding Fluffy.
When
Professor Quirrell runs into the dining hall, to tell everyone about the troll, he faints.
It is shown that he falls down face first, but when it shows all the students running,
Quirrell is suddenly flipped over, lying on his back. I disagree. I see him laying face down the entire time.
In the
scene where Hermione is coming out of the bathroom stall her head is down and you can see
that the part in her hair is crooked, but when she is under the sink you can see that now
her part is straight. It is a slight variance but you can tell.
When the troll is about to swing at Harry for the third time with his club, Ron
levitates his club in mid-air. When the club falls, it hits the trolls head with a loud
thunk, then falls to the ground. But you never hear any sound of the club hitting the
ground.
In the
bit where Harry, Ron and Hermione are fighting the troll, when Ron knocks the troll out it
falls flat on its face - but when Harry takes his wand out of its nose, its head is facing
the right-hand side. I disagree. Slow it down and
you can see the trolls head facing the right when it falls.
When the
troll falls face-down, it appears the wand goes through his head. In the next shot, with
his head turned, it's not. I don't see that at all
in this scene.
 When Harry, Ron and Hermione are in the girls'
bathroom, fighting the troll, the troll knocks out a sink 2 from the end. When the troll
is knocked out, and shows Hermione when she says "Is it, dead?" you will notice
that the sink that was hit is 4 from the end. Not 2 from the end, and that the one that
was actually hit, is intact. This is both right and wrong. In the
shot where Hermione is standing up, sink #2 is broken but more noticeable is the fact that
sink #4 is gone; not broken but totally gone.
When Harry receives his Nimbus 2000, there are not any "Gold" metal
protrusions near the thatch of the broom, but as they are approaching the Quidditch field
there they are. You can also see them in the window as Harry passes the Quidditch Shop in
Diagon Alley.
When
Harry, Ron, and Hermione are telling Hagrid that Snape is trying to steal the stone, he
tells them that Snape helped protect the stone, and 'he's not about to steal it'. So far
so good, sticks to the book. However when they actually try to save the stone, Snape's
challenge, the logic one with potions, is missing! This
is more of a book-to-movie mistake. But it is weird that the point is made that Snape is
helping to protect the stone but his test is not included in the movie.
In the
scene when Harry is in the restricted section of the library he walks in in the dark with
only a lantern. He puts the lantern down in front of himself and begins to read. If you
look at the bookshelf, his shadow is cast on the other side of the lantern as though the
light is behind him. I disagree. I think that his
shadow cast is from the moonlight through the window. Look at everything else that is lit
up.
After
Harry escapes the restricted library with the cat following him, once he come across the
professors the cat disappears. This isn't really a
mistake, just an oddity. If the cat was coming towards him, why did it just disappear? But
if you're into the books, you know that the cat, Mrs. Norris, is a great help to Filch in
watching the halls for wandering students. When you see Filch coming up to the professors
with Harry's broken lamp, you see Mrs. Norris at his feet.
When he
removes the invisibility cloak in front of the mirror, what happens to it? It's visible
when he's not wearing it, but it's nowhere to be seen. In both scenes where Harry comes to see the mirror (alone and with Ron),
he drops the invisibility cloak just after entering the door.
When Harry
brings Ron to see the mirror of Erised, if you play it in slow motion, you can clearly see
the green side of the invisibility cloak, you see it when they are running to the mirror
near the door they entered from. You can, if fact, see the green
cloak in the background as they run.
In the
scene when Harry is sitting in the dark looking at the mirror, just before the old man
comes from behind to talk to him, you can easily see the shadow of a camera man and camera
on the wall. This is actually the shadow of
Dumbledore. It moves when he does.
When
Harry sits down in front of the mirror of Erised, Dumbledore walks up and Harry can't see
the reflection of Dumbledore in the mirror. You should see the reflection because when
Harry brought Ron, Ron says "I can't see your parents, I can only see you and
me." I don't think Dumbledore is standing
directly behind Harry and the mirror but more over to the side.
In the
snow scene, Hedwig is tethered to Harry's arm. When she flies away, there is no sign of
the strap around her leg or Harry's arm. I don't see
a tether on Harry's arm at all.
In
the scene when Harry, Ron, and Hermione visit Hagrid, Malfoy is visible through the
window. He appears to be eye level with the window and is shown turning and running away.
When the camera zooms out later in the film, the same window that Malfoy is supposedly
looking through is far too high for anybody to see through without a ladder. He obviously
didn't have a ladder or he would have fallen off it when he turned to run away. It is possible he brought something with him to stand on.
When Harry, Ron and Hermione come out of the castle after exams, and Harry
sees Hagrid, Hermione has her schoolbag in her right hand, but when they start running, it
suddenly shows up in her left hand.
After final exams,
we see that Hermione is wearing her grey school knee socks, but when the three of them run
to Hagrid's house, we can see that Hermione is wearing white pantyhose. I don't see for fact that she is wearing pantyhose but it surely does look
like she's not wearing the grey socks.
When the three children get past Fluffy because the harp is playing, as
Fluffy wakes he dribbles on Ron's shoulder. However, when they fall down into the Devil's
Snare, his jumper is completely dry.
When Fluffy wakes up, and the
trio have no choice but to jump down the trap door, Harry scoots over a bit and lets
Hermione go first. In the next shot, Harry jumps down first and Hermione is second. Nope, sorry, don't see that at all.
During the chess match, when the three of them walk into the room and the lights
go up, you can see the lighting crew cover up a light that is shining on the floor. There is a slight lighting variance on the right side of the
screen.
In
the game of chess Hermione takes her position as the queen-side castle and stands on a
black square, but it should be a white square. I
have no idea; I don't play chess.
During the chess match scene, the White Queen destroys the Black Castle twice in
front of Harry.
When Ron
first hits the floor after being knocked off the chess horse, his eyes are open. He
quickly shuts them, but it's pretty obvious. After Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) is knocked
unconscious in the chess scene he moves/twitches three times (his body when flying debris
hits him, his leg when the camera pulls away, and his mouth when Harry and Hermione are
running towards his body). I think when the debris
hits him, it is just a natural flinch, not him blinking. Just because a person is knocked
out, doesn't mean that they can't move and flinch.
When
Harry is in the hospital wing, and he's been sleeping there for a while (time not known)
as soon as he wakes up, before even lifting his head, he reaches over to the right side of
his bed, picks up his glasses, and puts them on. But earlier in the movie his nightstand
was on the left side of his bed, when he slept in the dormitory. It's odd how automatic
Harry knew where his glasses were, even when they changed sides - he was presumably
unconscious when they put him in bed, so he can't have noticed then. This is not so much of mistake as an oddity. It is a good point though.
After the final confrontation Harry has scratches on his face, particularly one
on his chin. When visited by Dumbledore the chin scratch is barely there but in the scene
in the refectory it is back and appears larger than before.
At the end of the movie when Dumbledore announces Slytherin is in first place,
they show Malfoy and we can see his hair under his hat. They switch to Hermione, Snape and
back again to Malfoy, and his hair is now entirely covered by the hat. It is a very slight change.
Last scene of the Hogwarts Express: the trees to the left of the screen are
blowing madly in the wind, while the trees to the right aren't moving at all.
At
one point near the end of the film, the camera zooms past the Quidditch Pitch and towards
Hogwarts. It only shows the hoops, not the stands around the Pitch. Where is this scene?
At the
end of the film when Harry receives the photo album, the child in the photo is clearly
older than 1, but his parents died when he was just 1. The child in the photo is the same child in the first scene of the movie
and also the flashback scene of Hagrid telling Harry about his parent's death.
At the
end of the movie Hagrid gives Harry the photo album. After Harry looks at it and tells
Hagrid goodbye, he walks back to the train with his hands at his side and there is no sign
of the album in either hand. I don't see Harry's
hands much less the book. Do these people have a bigger screen than I do?
There
are several scenes that Ron has part of his Gryffindor Crest on his cloak mis-stitched
(Broom Lesson it's gone, Halloween Feast it's there and then they go to get Hermione from
the bathroom... its gone and then it reappears... is this a ghost too?).
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