Goofs for
The Big Lebowski (1998) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: The amount of White Russian in the Dude's glass varies between shots, as does the amount dripping off his mustache and his position on the seat.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Walter is smashing the red car with the crowbar, the other man runs out shouting at him, but his lips don't actually move.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the turn that Walter almost doesn't make, the lights that are shining through the back of the car remain stationary, and hence do not simulate a turning car.
  
  

• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Walter draws the firearm and the Dude says, "Man, they're calling the cops." The cops show up as they are leaving. A call from Smokey and Dude and Walter's tournament advancement imply that they stayed long enough to win the round. This is presumably a sly comment on the lethargic response time of LAPD to what they consider a non-urgent call.
  
  
• Continuity: When Dude is attacked in his bathroom, there are two toilet bowl brush holders to the left of the toilet. During the course of the fight, the position of the blue holder changes - it goes from standing to lying on its side and then back to standing.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Walter, The Dude and Donny are sitting at the bar in the bowling alley, discussing the kidnappers, Donny's can of Slice and a can of Pepsi are both newer, post-1991 designs.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Post-1991 cars can be seen in the background where Walter and The Dude are sitting and having their coffee in the diner. Another, a black Nissan Maxima, drives past as The Dude is thrown from a taxicab in a later scene.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When The Dude is driving, and first notices the blue Volkswagen following him, the hood-mounted camera equipment is reflected in his sunglasses.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When The Dude mixes a White Russian during the second visit with Maude, he adds powdered milk to the glass, then picks up an entirely different pre-mixed White Russian.
  
  
• Continuity: The mat in front of the toilet disappears and reappears between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Dude and Walter are scattering Donny's ashes, the time of day changes and the waves change direction.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Dude is reading the ransom note at The Big Lebowski's home, the joint he is smoking is in his hand. When the shot focuses on him, it's in his mouth. This occurs twice.
  
  
• Continuity: When The Dude is in the bathtub smoking a joint with all of the candles lit, the Nihilists come in and throw the ferret in the tub with him. There are four candles in the corner to the left of The Dude. When The Dude starts thrashing around he puts three of the four candles out with the water and when it cuts away then goes back to him, the three candles that were out are lit and the one candle that was still lit is out.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the opening sequence, one man (who later turns out to be Jesus' bowling partner) is bowling with teal Rhino Pro bowling ball which was not available until 1993.
  
  
• Continuity: When Walter jumps out of the car at the drop-off point, he loses control of the Uzi and it shoots out the Dude's left tail light. But when the Dude recovers the car from the police, the same tail light is perfectly normal.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When The Dude and Walter are making the money drop off, after Walter jumps out and The Dude crashes the car, when The Dude runs out saying "We have the money," police lights blocking off the road they are filming on are clearly visible.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The car Ulli drives in the adult movie "Logjammin'" is a BMW E36 convertible. Production of this car did not start before 1993.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The ball that the Jesus rolls down the lane is on lane 23, yet the lane number is reversed, as is lane number 24, indicating a flipped shot.
  
  
• Continuity: After Walter bails out of the car, he limps favoring his left leg. That night after bowling, when walking away from the lanes, he favors his other leg.
  
  
• Continuity: When The Dude is at Jackie Treehorn's and he rubs the pad of paper with a pencil revealing Treehorn's drawing of a naked man, The Dude tears the page off the pad and quickly crumples and shoves the paper into his pocket. Later while in the Chief of Police of Malibu's office and the Chief is going through The Dude's wallet, the same paper he tore off of Treehorn's pad is neatly folded in the wallet, with no sign of previous crumpling.
  
  
• Continuity: When the blond thug plunges the Dude's head repeatedly into the toilet we see the water in the bowl is milky white from the exploded carton of half-and-half. Later when the Dude is leaning against the wall and reaches into the toilet to retrieve his sunglasses, the water is clear.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Dude is told about the kidnapping, Mozart's Requiem is playing in the background on Big Lebowski's HiFi. However, the timeline of the music does not correspond to the actual conversation.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the thug with blonde hair is rushing with the Dude towards the toilet, the Dude's hair is already wet before his head is shoved in the toilet.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Dude is at the Malibu police office, the position of the cup of coffee of the officer changes during different shots. When the Dude falls on his desk, he puts his cup of coffee on the white paper on his desk. In the next shot the cup is on the edge of the white paper. Next shot it moves a little bit towards the officer. And then on the next shot it is again on the edge of the white paper.
  
  
• Continuity: At the Malibu police office the officer looks at his value club card and throws it down to the side of the white paper. In the next shot when the officer looks at the note from Treehorn's house, the value club card is lying oblique on the right of the officer's hand. In the next shot the card is lying again on top of the white paper, and partially covered by the wallet. The other objects (wallet, notes that were in the wallet, cup of coffee) also change position in different shots.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Quite a few of the various bowling balls and shoes, both used and background props, were not commercially available until well after 1991.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Jesus Quintana's wrist brace wasn't made till 1996.
  
  
• Factual errors: When the Dude, Walter and Donny are eating the burgers they supposedly got at In-n-Out, the cups they drink from are not white with a ring of red palm trees, which is the way the cups are at that chain.
  
  
• Continuity: When the blond thug in the opening scene drops the bowling ball, the tile on the floor is different than when he picks the ball off the floor.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When the Dude calls Walter on Shabbas to pick him up after helping Maude conceive, his mouth eventually stops matching his words.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: When Walter and the Dude are on the cliff to spread the ashes and Walter is giving his speech, you can see dust in the Dude's and Walter's hair and on Walter's forehead probably from a previous take.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The first sex offender laws, like those which would require Jesus Quintana to notify his neighbors of his paedophilic record, weren't implemented in California until 1996.
  
  
• Anachronisms: During the opening scene, in which the camera moves back to show several bowlers release at the foul line, one bowler rolls a translucent bowling ball. The ball, an Ebonite Clear Wolf, was not released until the mid 1990s, well after the events of the movie took place (1991).
  
  
• Continuity: While the Dude, Walter, and Donnie talk about the carpet pissers at the Bowling Alley, the bowlers in the next lane (they can be seen behind Walter) change in incongruous ways. Watch for the big black guy and the big white guy with the pony tail. Also watch the movement of the waitress, which is incongruous. She covers 20 meters within the time it takes the Dude to say "Fuckin'-A".
  
  
• Continuity: In the opening scene with the various bowlers, the big African-American bowler throws an orange ball, but the ball that is shown smashing one pin against the other is blue. This is repeated with the next bowler, who throws a wine red ball but the ball that arrives is red-blue.
  
  
• Errors in geography: As the Dude is making his way back from Jackie Treehorn's pad in Malibu to his own apartment in Venice, he is thrown out of the cab and passed by Bunny in her red convertible. However, if Bunny indeed had been in Palm Springs as Brandt later says, there's no way she would have passed along that route on her way home to Pasadena.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): In the bathtub scene, The Dude incorrectly refers to the Nihilists' animal as a "marmot" though it is actually a ferret. However, it is possible that The Dude is not familiar with the difference and may not be a goof by the writers.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When The Dude is talking to Da Fino in his car through the open driver's side window, we hear music playing on the car stereo. When Da Fino gets out of the car and the door is shut behind him, the volume of the music drops as if the window were shut.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: At the end of the Gutterballs sequence, when the bowling pins are knocked over, wires can be seen that were used to move the pins.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Walter and Dude are watching Dude's landlord do his dance they are talking about the old western "Branded" (1965). Walter asks Dude if he remembers it and he says yeah, the Mike Connors show. It was Chuck Connors who starred in it. In addition, Walter mentions "all 156 episodes," but ‘Branded’ only survived two seasons and ran for only 48 episodes.
  
  
• Continuity: During the "Careful man, there's a beverage here!" scene, The Dude spills his White Russian all over the back seat. In subsequent shots, the glass is nearly full.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When the Germans are having dinner, before we see that the German girl has lost her finger toe, you can clearly see the camera and the camera assistant reflected in the glass.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When the nihilists are ordering pancakes in the restaurant, the female nihilist orders "Heidelbeer Pfannkuchen" (blueberry pancakes) which one of the other nihilists incorrectly translates to the waitress as "lingonberry pancakes." (This may be because the nihilists don't care enough to get her order right.)
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the scene where Walter and The Dude scatter Donny's ashes, the microphone wire under Jeff Bridges's shirt is visible when John Goodman tries to dust him off.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Dude looks at Da Fino's picture of Bunny's family farm, he holds it two hands in the close-up, and one hand in the long shot.
  
  
• Continuity: When Marty invites The Dude to view his performance, he says it will be "on Tuesday night." This night continues on, ending with The Dude asking Walter to pick him up, to which Walter replies that it is "Erev Shabbos." Erev Shabbos is observed on Friday night.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The film is set to take place during the first Gulf War, yet, during the opening scene in Ralph's when The Dude writes a check for his Half-n-Half, he dates it '9-11-91', even though The Gulf War ended in March, 1991. (Possibly done deliberately to show The Dude post-dating a check.)
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the scene where the ashes are scattered, a crew member can be seen stood atop another cliff, watching the filming.
  
  
• Continuity: When the dude gets his car back after being stolen the drivers door can not been opened, however after he sees the blue Volkswagen and crashes again, the door works again.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the scene inside the bowling alley, right after the failed money transfer at the bridge, the two bowlers bowling in the lane right next to Walter and Dude both have one dark shoe and one light shoe on.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Walter tosses The Big Lebowski on the floor, the man, who is supposed to be a paraplegic, moves his leg.
  
  
• Continuity: While driving down the road, The Dude notices that he is being followed by the blue Volkswagen. The camera shot of the Dude shows a thick layer of dirt on the rear windshield of his car. When the camera cuts to shots of the rear-view mirror to see the Volkswagen, there is no dirt at all on the rear windshield.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: In the toilet-dunking scene, The Dude says "W-w-wife? D-do you see a ring on my finger?" He's showing the blonde his right hand. Typically, the wedding ring is worn on the left ring finger. But one could easily understand why the Dude wouldn't know this - he's never been married.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When the Dude is on the phone with the kidnappers, a dial tone is heard each time they hang up. However, he's not on a cellphone as some may think, rather he is on a portable car-phone. Unlike a cellphone, the car-phone would indeed have a dial tone.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: After Maude Lebowski swings in and splatters paint on her piece of art, paint can be seem on the floor in front of the piece, presumably from previous splatters. However, none of the lights pointed at the piece have any paint on them, which seems highly unlikely.
  
  
• Continuity: After Walter jumps out of The Dude's car, The Dude scrambles across to the driver's side, and the door is already closed.
  
  
• Continuity: The first time The Dude's answering machine message is heard it says "leave a message after the beep, it takes a minute." Then there is a long pause before it beeps and Maude Lebowski leaves a message. When The Dude is smoking in his bathtub, LAPD calls and the same message is heard, but there is no delay before the beep.
  
  

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