Gaffes

When Louise is laying out her plan to go to Mexico, the cut on Thelma's lip from hours before is gone. When she bumps into J.D., he comments about it and then Thelma sits in the car and the cut is there again.

In the scene where Thelma meets Jimmy at the motel to get the money, it is very obviously nighttime as seen through the windows. However, moments before entering the motel, it is daylight. It is daylight (but clearly a little later) again when they are back outside.

In one scene with Monument Valley in the background, it's clearly a rear projection as the actresses bump up and down in their car seat. The highway is quite smooth in all other scenes.

When Darryl is talking to the police about having his phone bugged, it's clearly supposed to be raining. But in other shots, while you can still hear the rain, it's bright and sunny in the background.

Towards the end the windshield from the front shows the lines from the windshield wipers, but from the driver's seat looking out, the windshield is clear.

While it is a popular movie trope that a caller must stay on the line a minimum amount of time before the call can be traced, by the time of this movie's setting, calls could be traced as soon as the connection was made. This is true even with a landline, a public phone, or a long distance call, as was the case in the film.

Thelma and Louise leave for their trip on Friday night, the next day after the shooting they are in the car trying to figure out what to do, in the background you can hear the AM radio giving the Dow Jones Industrial averages like the stock market is open. This would not happen on a Saturday.

Thelma and Louise could not have blown up the rude trucker's tanker by merely shooting holes into it with a handgun, this is pure Hollywood hokum. For an explosion to occur the correct fuel/air mixture is required, additionally the vaporised gasoline would need an ignition source like an open flame to combust. The women could be firing military incendiary rounds into the tanker and it would still not blow up. Gasoline can not burn much less explode with out an oxygen source.

Bullet holes fired at an angle into sheet metal will leave elliptical holes, not circular ones. Additionally, they will cause the metal to bulge away from the gun that fired the bullet, not towards it.

When Thelma and Louise enter a diner to phone Thelma's husband, Thelma uses the pay phone correctly by dialing the number first and then inserting coins. Right after she hangs up, Louise uses the phone but inserts coins without having dialed first. In real life the coins would have come back, as a number has to be dialed in order to know how much to put into the phone.

After the girls lock the state trooper in the trunk of his cruiser, they throw the keys into the desert toward the right of the car. Later, the trooper, still locked inside the trunk, points through a bullet hole with his finger, indicating to a passer-by where the keys were thrown. Despite assertions that he could not know where they were, it is not difficult to judge direction or even distance just by sound, especially a sound as distinct as keys hitting the ground.

During the big chase scene, the Thunderbird Louise is driving hits a police cruiser and knocks off a side mirror. However, after the chase scene, we can clearly see that the mirror is still intact and on the car. This is because the mirror that we saw fly clear was from the police cruiser, not Louise's Thunderbird.

The word "beaver" is NOT a vulgarity against women. It's a form of Citizens Band Radio slang, dating back to World War 2, which means "Female Motorist." This was wrongly marked as a goof, because nowhere does the dialogue claim that this is a vulgarity - the viewer is told only that Thelma hates it.

In the Thunderbirds of that era, when the top was down there was very little room to put anything in the trunk as the top took up most of this area. When they are putting the luggage and fishing gear in the trunk, with the top down there would be no room for all the luggage and the top in the trunk. The most that could have gone in the trunk would be two small overnight cases and no room for the fishing pole etc.

When Thelma and Louise have the cop at gunpoint and are making him get in trunk, signage from Arches National Park is visible in the background. They are standing in front of a rock formation called "The Organ" near Courthouse Towers. (They are not, as other trivia entries say, in Monument Valley, which is actually about several hours southwest of Moab where Arches NP is located).

When Hal looks up Thunderbird owners in the Arkansas State Police database, each owner's name is listed in alphabetical order. The corresponding list of vehicle's year / color is listed in chronological order, a coincidence unlikely to happen in real life.

The police chase happens at high noon. Yet, whenever we cut to the girls, the sun is either behind them or the sunlight is deep orange, indicating dusk.

After Thelma and Louise blow up the rude trucker's tanker, they drive their car in rings around him. But the trucker is already standing in the middle of a ring of darker-colored freshly turned earth left by a previous take.

When Thelma is on the car about to be raped Louise comes up from behind with the handgun. Just before you see her put the gun to the guys neck we hear the gun being cocked. When we see the gun placed to his neck it is not cocked.

When Louise is walking out their car she is vomiting but sound does not match the amount of vomit.

Reflection of a truck in rear of the mirrored tanker. The truck is supposed to be the '66 Thunderbird.

Just after they pick up JD and get back on the road, you can see oncoming traffic in the distance being re-routed to clear the road for the film shoot.

The lights are reflected off Louise's sunglasses as she and Thelma are waiting for the train to pass.

The camera on the crew vehicle can be seen in the reflection at the rear of the car on the chrome trim when the T Bird passes. This is just after Louise talks about getting away from their last crime scene.

When Louise sits down next to an old man with a long white beard who is wearing glasses, in the shot where its just his face you can see the camera crew in the reflection of his glasses.

Right after Thelma meets J.D., we see an old man sitting down. On the glass behind him is a sticker that says Victorville, CA. Thelma and Louise are supposed to be in Oklahoma City.

When Thelma robs the gas station in Oklahoma, she tells the clerk to throw in a bottle of Wild Turkey. In Oklahoma, you can only buy hard liquor at a liquor store, not at a gas station.

No matter how far they drive, Monument Valley is in the background.

When Louise was talking on the phone with someone in the motel after the murder, she says that she is in Arkansas. The motel is in the middle of the desert, and Arkansas does not have any deserts.

The scene where J.D. first asks Thelma and Louise for a ride is supposed to take place in Oklahoma; the newspaper Louise buys is the "Daily Oklahoman". However, a freeway entrance with a green triangular California state highway shield can be seen clearly in the background.

Thelma and Louise locked a police officer in the trunk of his car which would likely cause a bad death yet they didn't kill the truck driver who had harassed them. If they were insane enough that they would lock the cop in his trunk, they should be insane where they should kill someone who harassed them.

The boom can be seen in the reflection of the car bonnet when Thelma, Louise and JD stop the car after taking a diversion on the dirt path through the industrial yard when they see police ahead of them coming in their direction.

Harvey Keitel's attempt at a Southern accent.

After J.D.'s interrogation, the girls stop at a gas station and ask for a phone. They walk about 20 yards to a neighboring diner. The waitress behind the counter has no clue who they are nor what they want, but points them straight to the phone as soon as they step in the door.

Towards the end of the film, where Thelma rings Hal Slocumb the state police investigator, the FBI are in the same room as Hal, recording the telephone. Watch for the guy at the tape recorder - he's messed up his headphones so much that the left ear cup is pointing out rather than pointing in. Professionals do often listen with just one cup (to retain some ambient sense), but never like this.