Goofs

At the fight in the diner scene where Dr. Don Francis learns he's being transferred to San Francisco he is wearing a wedding ring. Throughout the rest of the movie the ring is not there.

The movie presents January 4, 1983 as the date when the term AIDS was created in a proposition in the CDC, in Atlanta. The real meeting where the term was developed was July 27, 1982, and the reunion took place in Washington. (Source: Time Magazine)

The scene where Jim Curran inquires Don Francis about what's the butcher's bill mark on the board (the death toll revolving AIDS cases) in reality was something that in reality was an idea conceived by Selma Dritz, the character played by Lily Tomlin, as mentioned in Randy Shilts book.

At the CDC in 1982 doctors refer to the first patient as "Patient Zero". There never was a patient zero. The first person to be diagnosed with the disease was called Patient O because they came from outside California. Later on people not with the CDC mistook the O for a zero and started calling the unknown person Patient Zero, a misnomer which has lasted for decades.

Francis's Volvo has a Georgia license plate on the front. Georgia only issues rear license plates.

In the movie, a CDC doctor informs Mrs. Johnstone about the letter saying one of her blood donors at Irwin Memorial had AIDS. An article about her death states she came across the letter herself in her medical records.

The obituary of the unnamed choreographer played by Richard Gere is actually Michael Bennett's real-life obit, and Bennett's name appears twice on the page.

At the beginning of the movie, when the WHO doctors are touring the Ebola outbreak, you can see the eyes of the "dead bodies" moving.

In the Ebola outbreak scene and in some of the hospital scenes later, a few of the "corpses" are visibly breathing.

The English subtitle translation of the French sequences contains errors. Most are minor, such as the English subtitles saying patients were afraid to come to a French hospital when the actual French said they were refusing to come, but in the first hospital scene, the doctor actually talks about "plaques" rather than "warts" as the subtitles indicated; plaques are the classic presentation of Kaposi's sarcoma.

This movie is set early 1980s, but there is a box of Wheatables from the early 1990s on the coffee table. Wheatables were introduced in 1988.

One scene opens in New York City, in January 1985. The shot is a fly-by of the Statue of Liberty. But in 1985, the Statue was surrounded by scaffolding.

When the Choreographer is looking out the window at Hallowe'en 1981, one of the partygoers downstairs is dressed as Beetlejuice, but the movie of Beetlejuice (1988) only came out in 1988.

The shadow of the boom mic is visible during the scene of Dr. Gallo playing tennis.