30 Things You’ve Never Realized Movies Get Wrong 

1. Any period piece where the clothes are TOO FUCKING MODERN! WHY THE HELL ARE THESE WOMEN NOT WEARING CHEMISES? AS SOMEONE WHO HAS WORN A CORSET (for the sake of period accuracy) THEY’RE SUPER UNCOMFORTABLE WITHOUT THEM. (Not saying they’re uncomfortable in general, just saying it’s like some of the “whalebone” sticks through.) Also, who was wearing the corset matters. You would definitely not be seeing some random peasant woman wearing a corset with no chemise, even noblewomen would wear them for the sake of an underlayer.

2. Anytime someone “comes back to life” and is immediately conscious and awake and like “omg you saved my life thank you!” That’s right I am looking at you, medical shows. As an EMT of 5 years and worked in the emergency room that never happens. There is no quick wake up like nothing ever happened. It may take days or weeks for a revived person to regain consciousness. Or they may never. Your brain has been without oxygen for who knows how long. That causes major damage.

3. Any time anyone does CPR. I was a Boy Scout, I took CPR classes, etc. If you’re doing it right, you’re using your whole body, with enough force to break a rib. I understand why actors don’t want to do that, but I see them with bent elbows, and it just breaks any immersion I have instantly.

4. Every grenade explosion in every movie I’ve ever seen. It’s always portrayed as a giant fireball, the reality is that grenades, while lethal, are not that impressive visually.

5. Any movie ever where two characters break off from the group, walk two steps away, have a separate conversation, and then rejoin the group as if everyone else couldn’t have heard them talking. They were RIGHT THERE.

6. The way diabetes (specifically type 1) is depicted in any film. For clarification, high blood sugar is rarely (pretty much never) a medical emergency. Low blood sugar is definitely a medical emergency but you don’t want to give them their insulin. If you give them insulin when they are low, you’ve just killed them. I am petrified of what might happen if I’m hypoglycemic in public because SO many people get this wrong and movies like these play a huge part in that.

7. Silencers aren’t nearly as quiet as most movies make them seem. The bang will still be loud, just not ‘deafen everyone standing nearby’ loud. Movies make it seem like you can sneak around a base picking people off and nobody will notice.

8. NICU nurse here, so basically most delivery and infant scenes. So many of them are completely misleading. My girlfriend was watching some show last night and I heard, “Two placentas means two different fathers.” NO, no, it absolutely does not!

9. Any scene where a police team shows up to a crime scene and just starts touching shit. I can FEEL the anger of the forensic teams walking around them who had to spend ages putting on all the gear and are sweating their balls off while some dickwad comes and contaminates their crime scene. I promise that if someone came and just started touching things IRL they would probably BECOME the murder victim courtesy of the forensic team.

10. Almost all war movies where a shell goes off within 10 feet of someone and it throws them around and they continue running. I’m looking at you Tom Cruise. Their organs would be liquefied and bits of shrapnel would finish the job.

11. So I’m a hairdresser, and every time someone in a movie cuts their own hair with a knife or kitchen scissors without a mirror, then reappears in the next scene with a decent haircut, I die a little inside.

12. Any military movie where there’s constant action. Real military shit is 95% sitting around/prepping for an assignment.

13. As a therapist, it’s funny how productions try to represent what a therapy session is like. No two therapists or patients are the same so maybe some therapists practice like the movies – but the ethical boundaries or just “frowned upon things” therapists say and do onscreen are silly.

14. Climbing through ductwork to escape from anywhere.

15. In movies with navy submarines sometimes they make it seem like they go for a 24-degree angle in 2 seconds and everyone goes flying, that’s not how it works. It’s more of a 10-15 degree angle over a shorter time and everyone just gets used to the new angle.

16. Mental illness is a slow build-up most of the time, you don’t just snap.

17. Disney Channel “bully” scenes. I was bullied a LOT and even I know that very few people are ever that outright rude/mean/sarcastic. Kids are passive-aggressive with their bullying, and even when they’re loud about it they aren’t “what-ever-major-loser/z-snap” about it.

18. Every. Fucking. American thinks we say shrimp on the barbie. Nobody says that, we don’t call them shrimp either, it’s prawns, PRAWNS. Also, not everyone has the rich thick bogan Australian accent.

19. Every American high school where the bell rings and the teacher tells them what to do for homework while they’re walking out. Idiot.

Every American high school where the teacher seems to have only one class over and over with the same kids in it.

Every American high school where the teacher is a complete asshole who takes delight in making their students feel like shit. I mean, I know those people are out there, but this is so far from what 99.9% of teachers do on a regular basis. We work SO HARD not to make kids feel like shit because the rest of the world is doing it to them all the time already.

20. I can’t believe no one has put anything about hackers. Any movie or show. Hacker: Types obnoxiously fast. “I’m in.”

21. All these CSI type shows, the guys are like, “Leave the lights off!!! I need to experience the scene like the killer did!” That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, if you’re on your hands and knees looking for loose hairs do you want complete darkness? “Damn, I’ve been collecting samples in the dark for 8 hours, I think I have enough to catch the killer.” “Huh? We caught him 4 hours ago, he dropped his wallet in the hallway. Turn on a fucking light and you would have noticed.”

22. Any time a normal person is driving a normal car, and the tires screech whenever they stop or first start. I mean sure that happens when somebody is making a speedy getaway or something, but I doubt Betty in her Toyota Camry is going to come to a screaching stop in driveway on her way home from work.

23. Virtually every movie with a skydiving scene. Freefall is, at most, 60 to 65 seconds. Not 10 minutes. My personal highest jump was from 28,000 feet, well above a normal jump’s 13500. I was in Freefall for 80 seconds… That’s it. You can’t talk in freefall. Don’t believe me? Get in a convertible, drive it at 120mph, two of you stick your heads in the wind and try it.

24. It’s silly, but pretty much every movie in which they play Bridge. Sometimes it’s just laziness, like giving someone an entire suit in their hand. But mostly their bids make no sense. It wouldn’t be that hard to look up the basics.

25. In any scenario, where a character is in danger and a bad guy is down, they don’t pick up his weapon and extra magazines.

26. Anytime someone does drugs and they try to show what it’s like.

27. Any scene that takes place in San Francisco or New York City where a character pulls up their car and parks right in front of their apartment building.

28. You ever seen a trial in a movie? It’s wrong.

29. Any time a horse appears on screen, I start cringing about all the bad horsemanship and inaccurate tack and actually dangerous things that are on the horizon. I really try not to think about it, but after 30+ years working with horses and 40+ years being totally into history, I get confused when I see Friesians in weird places.

30. I’m a graphic designer, so anytime I see typography in historical shows or movies that’s “off,” I notice it right away. Recently, I watched Bridgerton on Netflix and on Lady Whistledown’s Society Papers, they use a foot mark instead of an apostrophe and the kerning (space between letters) is loose enough to drive a car through. No self-respecting typesetter in regency-area London would have printed something so shoddy. Get it together, Shonda!