Goofs

In the opening sequence, when Serpico has been shot, a police cruiser rushes him to the hospital in heavy rain. Towards the end of the movie, when the sequence of events picks up again, it is not raining.

In the opening scenes, with the patrol car carrying Serpico to the hospital, the unit's emergency light has three red bulbs and one amber bulb as it spins. As the unit arrives at the hospital and they remove him from the back seat, the light has four red bulbs.

When Serpico is in Lewishon Stadium talking with Bob Blair about going to the mayor, Blair gets up and has an envelope in one hand and a newspaper in the other. In the next shot the envelope is gone, only to reappear from the newspaper while Blair and Serpico walk out.

After throwing Corsaro against the wall in the squad room, Serpico begins searching him in front of his fellow coworkers. Just before he starts to search Corsaro's back pockets, the suspect's pants are still up and unblemished. The camera cuts away, then cuts back to the suspect's pants already torn with his buttcrack exposed before Serpico even starts his search. We then see Serpico start to rip and tear down Corsaro's slacks and drawers, thus exposing his crack.

The bathtub scene starts with a wide shot of Serpico and Leslie. You can see a necklace clasp and chain on her right shoulder. In the closeup shots, it's gone.

The prison "chain gang" being led into the wagon at the beginning has male and female prisoners on the same "chain," and both sexes are transported in the same wagon. The NYPD absolutely forbade that then, and still does.

Serpico was shot in his face and operated on; when he wakes up after the operation, his beard is intact. The Emergency Room personnel would have shaved it off to treat the injuries caused by his being shot in the cheek.

In the beginning, at the hospital after Serpico had been shot, the NYPD lieutenant salutes Chief Sidney Green when Green is dressed in business attire. NYPD members only salute superior officers in uniform.

When Serpico enters the apartment building, he stops on the 3rd floor stairwell landing to watch the drug deal go down. After it does, the drug buyers then exit the building and are grabbed by Serpico's three partners. Serpico runs out and says "I saw the buy". But based on where he was on the stairwell landing, the transaction and dealer's apartment door were directly beneath him so from his vantage point he couldn't "see" the deal.

When Serpico is being rushed to the hospital in a police car at the very beginning, the uniformed officer's collar brass says "73" indicating they are from the 73rd Precinct. When the car reaches hospital, it has "82nd Precinct" painted on its doors.

Serpico is on a rooftop just before he is shot, and the World Trade Center Towers are visible in the background. Serpico was shot during a drug arrest on February 3, 1971. The second tower was completed in January, 1972.

In 1960, as Frank Serpico drives across the bridge in his Studebaker Lark to report for his first posting as a patrolman, many of the cars in the background are from the mid-1960s to early 1970s.

Serpico and Lombardo rapidly descend a shaky metal fire escape system without making a sound or alerting the lookout man, who only notices them when they fall to the pavement beside him.

When Leslie tells Serpico that she loves him at the party, her lips aren't moving.