Goofs for
Anastasia (1997) More at IMDbPro »

• Factual errors: The dowager empress' wedding ring is shown on her third finger, left hand. In Russia at that time, married women wore their wedding bands on the third finger, right hand.
  
  
• Continuity: When Dimitri leaps from the train car onto the coal car his shirt is untucked. As he climbs towards the front of the train and the scene continues, his shirt becomes tucked.
  
  
• Factual errors: The Romanov family is said to have celebrated their 300th anniversary on the Russian throne in 1916, but actually, it was in 1913, since the first Romanov became czar of Russia in 1613.
  
  

• Factual errors: There are numerous other historical inaccuracies, although it is just an animated fantasy.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Sankt-Peterburg (St Petersburg) was called Petrograd during the period of the Great War because of anti-German sentiment. Subsequently, the Communists renamed it Leningrad after the Revolution (it did not revert to its Tsarist name until 1991). And yet everyone in the movie was referring to the city as St. Petersburg.
  
  
• Factual errors: The Empress's original name was Dagmar, but she took the name Maria (Marie) Feodorovna when she married Alexander III. She was daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark and sister of King Frederik VIII of Denmark and Queen Alexandra of England.
  
  
• Factual errors: Marie never went to Paris after the Russian Revolution. She fled via the Crimea to London and ultimately returned to her native Denmark.
  
  
• Factual errors: Marie did not flee Russia during or immediately after the overthrow of the Russian monarchy. She remained in Russia until 1919.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the song "Learn To Do It", when they're in the wagon and Dimitri says "Shot Potempkin" and then Vladimir sings "In the buttkin", Dimitri jumps up with his hands underneath him, then disappears for a second. You can see it if you pause right at that moment.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: After Anastasia sees her grandma and Sophie and says, "Please let her remember me," she puts the binoculars back towards them, but the reflection is of the Russian Ballet dancers on stage.
  
  
• Continuity: When Anastasia is dancing with Dimitri on the ship, her hair is down to her butt. A few seconds later it is seen to her shoulders. The length changes throughout.
  
  
• Factual errors: Throughout the film, people keep referring to "Princess Anastasia." Anastasia and her three sisters were never called princesses; the title was not used by Russian royalty, and the Russian commoners in particular would have referred to her as "the Grand Duchess Anastasia."
  
  
• Continuity: Through out the "Paris Holds the Key to Your Heart" number the rose in Anastasia's hair disappears and reappears several times.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: On the boat, when Anastasia says "Is that possible?" she puts the music box down at her feet. When she climbs into the bunk, the music box is nowhere to be seen.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Anya asks where the old Palace is, she says, "I'm looking for the Catherine Palace." The real Romanovs lived in the smaller palace, the Alexander Palace.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: At the very beginning, when the Dowager Empress climbs into the carriage, we clearly hear the man say "Yah!", yet his mouth doesn't move.
  
  
• Continuity: When Anya meets Dimitri after he was talking to Marie, she is wearing a bracelet that matches her necklace and the tiara. When she is talking to Marie, it is gone.
  
  
• Continuity: When Dimitri originally gives Anastasia the blue dress (before Vlad sings "I Never Should Have Let Them Dance") it has a white peter pan collar, ruffling on the skirt, and appears to be a baby doll style dress. Yet in the next sequence (when the pair is dancing) the dress is long and form fitting, has no collar, no ruffles, and the sleeves are different.
  
  
• Factual errors: Upon discovering Anya is really Anastasia, Vlad mentions they have found the 'heir to the Russian throne'. There was no Russian throne after Anastasia's father Nicholas II had abdicated, and the chances of the very unpopular monarchy being reinstated, especially considering the Communists were in power at that time, were practically zero. In addition, Anastasia could only rule if every other male Romonov, however distantly related to her father, were dead.
  
  
• Factual errors: At the beginning of the movie, in 1917, Anastasia is eight years old. In reality, she was 16.
  
  
• Continuity: At the beginning of the film when Marie gives Anastasia a music box, Dimitri is seen in the background being grabbed and taken away to the kitchen. However, when Rasputin appears at the ball, Dimitri can be seen again behind the Dowager Empress and Anastasia. Although Rasputin's appearance may have been later on in the night, it is unlikely Dimitri was able to leave the kitchen again if he had already left once.
  
  
• Factual errors: At the beginning of the film they are celebrating the 300 year anniversary of the Romanov rule, the date is 1916. In real life the 300 year anniversary of the Romanovs was in 1913.
  
  

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