Goofs

The message that appears on the card that Thomas left for Oskar under the swing is almost entirely different from the one that Tom Hanks reads in voice-over.

17:08-17:48 In the piano playing scene with his grandma, Oskar Schell is wearing quite dark lip color but only in the close-ups. In other shots, he is wearing a lighter shade (or lesser amount of lip color).

Throughout the movie, Oskar's hair goes from being freshly styled, to a few days of growth, then back to freshly styled, in sequential scenes.

There is no blue vase in the scene at 14:54 and 15:07 but appears at 15:12.

When Oskar and his mother are recounting the people Oskar visited, after they discuss Leigh-Anne Black, both clearly refer to "Lona Black" (at 01:49:58 and 01:50:02) as she is shown in flashbacks and the subtitles show both saying Lona Black as well, but the end credits (in order of appearance) list Mona Black after Leigh-Anne Black and do not list Lona Black. Since no one named Mona Black is mentioned in the film, it is an error in the end credits.

Thomas says that fossils found in Central Park provided clues to the existence of the 6th borough; however, only metamorphic rocks are found in Manhattan and they do not carry any fossil traces.

Oskar clips a particular set of names out of a phone book and is shown organizing them by geographical areas. He only clips one section per geographical area. However, names in phone books are organized alphabetically, not geographically, so there should be multiple clippings for each geographical area. However, big cities do usually have separate segments for every geographical area, in which the names are then listed alphabetically.

The continuity in editing was missed: Oskar is talking to the "Renter" in the rickety old bridge. A plane is obviously flying behind Oskar and it disappears or is out of view behind a shack for a moment. It does not reappear on the other side of the shack. REBUTTAL: There is a cut to the face of the Renter just before the plane would be emerging from behind the building. It's not an error, we just didn't see the shot of the plane because of the change in camera position.

Oskar wakes to the sound of an analog alarm clock. The time on the clock says 6:00, but the little hand that indicates the alarm time says 7:00 (at around 5 mins).

A Megabus drives by in a scene where Oskar is walking through Manhattan. Megabus didn't start service in NYC until May of 2008. (The bus is red at 1:03:19, blue at 1:03:32.)

The movie takes place in 2002/2003, yet at 01:10:18 in the shot of The Renter's arrow note on the bar door pointing to the door knob and again in a close-up at ~01:11:30 as Oskar peers in through a window, there's a "Recommended by Lonely Planet" sticker from 2007 on the window.

In one scene where Oskar and The Renter discuss 'the search', Oskar wears a turquoise hooded sweater embroidered with a small "Nike 6.0" logo (at 01:13:08; left chest). Nike did not release their "Nike 6.0" line until 2011.

After Oskar runs away from the Blacks in the office building he runs into the subway. He boards the number 2 train, where there are multicolored seats. The number 2 train did not have this pattern of seats then.

The audio clip of Oskar entering the phone number (at around 1:29:50) starts too early. The fourth digit heard is the second shown entered when the video joins in, and because the audio clip also stops too early Oskar never actually enters the full phone number.

(at around 1h 45 mins) Camera shadow on passing extras as Oskar's mom checks a map.

Around 42 minutes in, Oskar remarks that "Hazelle Black lived in Hamilton Heights". However, as he is going into her house, the trash can in the garden reads "242 Eldert Street". Eldert Street is in Brooklyn.

William Black tells Oskar that he has been looking for the key to the safe deposit box for over a year. In reality, he could have requested to have the lock drilled out by the bank.

Given the situation, it is rather unbelievable that Linda Schell never checked the messages on the phone inbetween the time she came home and Oskar replaced the answering machine.

When Oskar agrees to The Renter to take him with him on his quest, he only tells him when to meet him but not where, yet somehow The Renter knows he is supposed to go to Barney Greengrass' store.

A child of one of the Blacks actually yells "Mom, it's that boy!" when Oskar rings their doorbell, something which Oskar would easily have heard. This should have told him that something wasn't right.

Oskar says that only humans cry tears and that a photo of an elephant crying must be Photoshopped, but elephants actually do cry tears.

In the beginning of the film, Oskar says "There are more people alive now than have died in all of human history." There are, in fact, about ninety-eight billion dead people and seven billion people alive right now. This film is set in 2003, but the facts can't have changed much in nine years.

Oskar says that he started counting his lies, but he doesn't actually count all of them. For example, he doesn't count his lie to Stan that he isn't at school because they said he knows too much already.

The newspaper article says "notstop looking" instead of "not stop looking".