Goofs for
No Country for Old Men (2007) More at IMDbPro »

• Anachronisms: When Bell responds to the hotel shooting, a modern Carl's Jr restaurant is seen in the background over his shoulder. Furthermore, Carl's Jr. was not operating in El Paso in 1980. In addition, when he is driving to the motel, as he first hears the shots, a modern day Wendy's sign is seen behind him.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the scene at the end of the film where Anton is driving and another car hits him, the license plate on the other car has a current plate on it that includes an image of the space shuttle. This plate was not being used in 1980.
  
  
• Continuity: When Llewelyn finds the transponder, he leaves the suitcase open, yet when he is escaping minutes later, the suitcase is closed when he grabs it.
  
  

• Anachronisms: In the scene where Anton makes the gas station attendant flip a coin, a rack full of Jack Links beef jerky can be seen in the background. The package is of the modern day design.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Just before Anton enters the pharmacy, a modern Wells Fargo bank is seen in the background on the left side. Not only is it a modern sign, but Wells Fargo didn't operate in Texas in 1980.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the scene where Anton is chasing Llewelyn through the streets at night, a modern day Dominos Pizza sign can be seen in the background.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The opening scene of the police car features a 1990 Chevrolet Caprice and not a 1980 (or earlier). This is evident from the front door mounted seat belt mechanism, which was only used on the 1990 square-body models before the car was totally redesigned in 1991. There are also numerous mid-late 80's Caprices in the film - all too new for the setting of 1980. These cars are easily identifiable by taillight and grille design to differentiate them from a 1980-84ish car.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The glass milk bottle that Anton and later Sheriff Bell drink from is from Promised Land Dairy in Floresville, TX. This company did not exist until 1987.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Area code 210 appears on Llewelyn's phone bill, however this area code wasn't created until 1992.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Anton goes into Mike Zoss Pharmacy, you can see a bottle of Prednisone on the shelf. This bottle was manufactured by generic drug company Watson, which wasn't established until 1984.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The $100 bills in the satchel have the signature of Treasury secretary Nicholas Brady. $100 bills with his signature were not printed until 1989. The newest possible $100 bills circulating in 1980 would be Series 1977 bearing the signature of secretary Werner Blumenthal.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Chigurh enters Llewelyn's trailer and takes the milk from the fridge, you can see a bottle of Dawn Dish Detergent using the current logo.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the gas station scene, when Anton places the empty peanut wrapper on the counter, you can see the nutrition information on the label. This information was not on food wrappers in 1980.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The weapon Moss picks up in the drug dealers truck is a Heckler and Koch SP89, so named because it was introduced to the American market in 1989. It was also a unique variation and was not sold in that form outside the US but modified specifically to conform with US gun laws.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the scene where Llewelyn calls Carla Jean from a rotary bank of GTE pay-phones, there is a clearly visible graffiti tag above the phone in silver ink. Not only would this kind of graffiti be hugely unlikely in Texas in 1980, but the tag is dated "06".
  
  
• Anachronisms: In each hotel, modern models of smoke and heat detectors are visible on the ceilings.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The ambulance used outside the hotel scene has modern multi-flash strobe lights. Those type of lights were not introduced until the mid 1990's.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When the American border guard asks Llewelyn what outfit he was in Vietnam, the answer is "12th Infantry Battalion." This answer wouldn't make any sense to anyone familiar with how the army is organized and in fact would indicate that Llewelyn had never been in the army. (Every infantry regiment has ad-hoc numbered battalions. No regiment has as many as 12.) An infantry soldier would identify his unit by company and regiment, or just by regiment.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The gray/blue Dodge 4x4 at the shoot-out is at least an 1982 (tail light design was changed in '82), and more likely an 83 or 84. Also the wheels on that truck weren't introduced until the mid 80s.
  
  
• Anachronisms: As Chigurh walks through the pharmacy, away from the flaming car, a Tempur-Pedic advertisement is visible to the far left, through a window. The original Tempur-Pedic product was invented in 1983.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the shoot-out aftermath scene, the red Ford Bronco has a FORD blue oval emblem/logo on the grill, as well as F O R D lettering on the leading edge of the hood. While the hood lettering was used on 1980-1982 models, 1983-1986 models used the updated grille insert with the blue oval. This grill would have not been available in 1980, either the truck's grill or the hood has been changed from original.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the scene where Anton shoots at the crow as he is crossing the bridge, the weapon used is a suppressed Tec-9. These pistols were not introduced until after 1982.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: During the shot of Sheriff Bell's reflection on the TV in Llewelyn's home, you can see at the far right corner of the television the reflection of three crew members.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Just before Anton's car gets wrecked, a late 90's Toyota Corolla wagon is clearly visible in the driveway of a neighborhood house.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Anton opens the gas bottle, the valve would not make that squeaking sound. Removing the cap that protects the valve while in storage makes that exact sound, his bottle never was shown with the cap.
  
  
• Errors in geography: The sign that shows that Anton is driving towards Del Rio is incorrect. There is an arrow that shows Highway 90 veering off towards the left and Del Rio veering off in the opposite direction of the fork in the road to the right. In fact, the only highway that comes in and out of Del Rio is Highway 90. If Anton was driving to Del Rio, he would be on Highway 90 heading towards Del Rio.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the scene towards the end of the movie when Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is talking to Ellis, the audio suggests strong wind, however, the environment stays still and motionless: the door, which stays ajar, the ruptured mosquito screens, and most notably the windmill outside the hut.
  
  
• Continuity: When Sheriff Bell returns to the Desert Sands motel, we see his shadow squarely approaching the motel room door, as if he's walking directly towards it and the car is directly behind him, but in the next shot, he's just passing in front of the left headlight of his car.
  
  
• Errors in geography: Moss is crossing the bridge into Mexico. The river is shown flowing to the right instead of to the left as the Rio Grande does when seen from the Texas side.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Llewelyn shoots and kills the pursuing pit bull at the last second the dead animal falls to the side. It is clearly a stuffed animal.
  
  
• Continuity: After Chigurh blows the lock to the hotel room with the Mexican reaching for his gun, the phone on the table next to him is at an angle. However, before Chigurh shoots the man's arm, the phone has shifted in a different direction.
  
  
• Errors in geography: When Bell is driving up to the Desert Sands Motel, a sign for Route 66 Paint and Body is visible to the right. El Paso is over 250 miles from Route 66.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Anton lights the gas tank of the car on fire that is in front of the pharmacy, the interior of the car explodes and blows the windows out of the car before the gas tank explodes. The interior would have been the last thing to burn and would have most likely never exploded.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the hotel where Moss hides the satchel of money inside an air conditioning vent, it is clearly obvious from the scene when Anton drives through that, like most low-rent motels like this one, the rooms have individually controlled air conditioners attached in the front wall of each room underneath the main window, making the existence of a central air conditioning vent used by all the rooms impossible.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Anton enters the hotel room and kills the three Mexican men, you can see the dead man laying on bathroom floor blinking as Anton removes his socks.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Sheriff Bell is going to find Moss, just before the Mexican's pickup pulls out ahead of him, there is a sign for a Vietnamese grill on the right side. Since the majority of Vietnamese immigrants did not arrive until after 1980 it seems unlikely that this restaurant would exist.
  
  
• Factual errors: The cattle gun used to blow the cylinder out of the center of the lock is not possible as shown in the movie. If the center of the lock was blown out, the bolt that secures the door to the frame (the large steel piece that slides out of a lock when you turn the key on a deadbolt) would still remain in place, and would still remain securing the door to the frame. Simply blowing the cylinder out would not be sufficient for quick or easy entry it would simply eliminate the need for a key. One would have to be able to fit a tool or their finger into the hole that was created and somehow pull the bolt back into the door, or possibly have to rotate the entire mechanism inside of the lock housing, as you would with the rotation of a key - and therefore ruining the element of surprise.
  
  
• Continuity: In the wide shots of the convenience store, there is a rack of nuts behind the cashier, but in his close ups, the rack is at least a few feet to the right of him.
  
  
• Continuity: About 29 minutes into the movie, Tommy Lee Jones and Wendell are looking at the car burning. Wendell's arm(s) keep changing position between shots.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: Obvious voice-over. In the hospital scene when Woody Harrelson's character, Carson Wells, says Chigurh's full name. "Anton Chigurh".
  
  
• Continuity: When in room 138 Moss (Josh Brolin) character slides the suitcase to the left of the HVAC duct, handle-side first. When he retrieves the case from room 38 (the room directly opposite) by hooking into the handle the case is on the wrong side of the duct for the handle to be accessible.
  
  
• Continuity: Moss (Josh Brolin) shoots Chigurh (Javier Bardem) as the latter is diving behind a car, exposing the right side of his body. In the bathtub scene we see that Chigurh was shot on the left side of his left thigh which was never exposed.
  
  
• Continuity: Chigurh hurt his wrists badly from handcuffs in the beginning of the film. Yet for the rest of the film - the story takes place in the span of a few days - his wrists don't show any marks or scars whatsoever, even in the close-up shots.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: After Chigurh enters the motel room and shoots the first Mexican he closes the door with his foot. He was wearing only socks but it sounds like he has shoes on.
  
  
• Errors in geography: When Moss returns across the bridge from Mexico back to Eagle Pass, he has no clothes. He returns to the Western store where he bought his boots, but the plot established that the store was in Del Rio, over 55 miles away. Then he is in his new clothes by the river in Eagle Pass retrieving the satchel of money. Did he travel 110 miles to buy clothes?
  
  
• Errors in geography: The ZIP code on Moss' phone bill, 79821 is for Anthony, TX, about 300 miles away from Sanderson where Moss lives.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Llewelyn finds the radio transponder in the briefcase containing the money, the stack the transceiver is in is actually a stack of $1 bills with a $100 bill on the top. Which is understandable because a typical stack of one-hundred dollar bills amounts to twenty thousand dollars. Why destroy that much cash when one could achieve the same effect (hiding the transponder) by defacing far less currency?
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Moss is talking to the woman across the hotel pool, a Carl's Jr. restaurant with the modern logo can be seen behind him.
  
  
• Continuity: When Sheriff Bell turns on his siren to pull over the flatbed truck with the recovered bodies loaded on it, the highway has a very narrow shoulder, less than half the width of the truck. When the truck actually pulls over, the shoulder is very wide - nearly twice the width of the truck.
  
  
• Continuity: When Anton opens the gas lid on the car to blow it up, it's already wet from a previous take.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Although day trading started in 1971, NASD created the Small-Order Execution System around 1985 to enable people to become day traders in the sense that we know it now, but it's unlikely the term would be used in 1980 by Woody's character as it would today.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The rifle case on Moss' left disappears and reappears between shots as he is registering for room #138.
  
  
• Continuity: A license plate is used on two different cars. In the scene about 1hr 3min just after he crashes the pickup truck, when Anton is walking up to the pickup, the car immediately behind the smashed one has a Texas license plate 350 R2H. At the end of the movie Anton drives away from Carla's house and the Olds he is driving has that same 350 R2H Texas plate.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The coin that Anton flips for the gas station owner to call is a 1958 quarter. Prior to 1965 the dime, quarter and half dollar were composed of 90% silver. Beginning in 1965, all silver was removed from the dime and quarter (half dollars were 40% silver from 1965-1970), and all 90% silver coins were removed from circulation. Unless Anton brought the 1958 quarter with him specifically for the purpose of the high-stakes coin toss, it is highly unlikely that he would happen to have a silver quarter among his pocket change.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: At the gun store, Llewelyn buys a pump action shotgun. Yet, when he fires at Anton in the hotel room, he cocks the hammer of a single shot shotgun before firing.
  
  
• Errors in geography: When the Mexicans flee the Desert Sands Motel in El Paso, a Bank of the West tower can be seen in the distance. El Paso has no such building.
  
  
• Continuity: In the trailer, Lewellen asks Carla Jean, rhetorically, "Baby, at what point would you quit bothering to look for your two million dollars?" For him to know that there was $2 million in the case, he would have had to have gone through the money and counted it, which means he would have found the transponder.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene where Moss is talking to the lady outside in the pool area you can see a newer model of a Chevy or GMC Tahoe (01-06) in the parking lot of the Carl's Jr. It then disappears and re-appears twice.
  
  

• Anachronisms: SPOILER: Outside of the motel after Moss is killed there is a modern day EMS unit (ambulance) in the background.
  
  
• Anachronisms: SPOILER: After Anton blows up the car outside the pharmacy, numerous car alarms and horns sound off. All those cars didn't have horn alarms, and loud ringing car alarms weren't prevalent until the mid 80s, but would have been very rare (non existent) in Eagle Pass in 1980.
  
  
• Continuity: SPOILER: Anton's car changes direction between 2 shots when it gets hit in the car crash at the end of the movie. In the interior shot of Anton, the front of the car moves to the left during the crash (seen from the driver's point of view). In the following long shot the front of his car moves to the right, inconsistent with the interior shot.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: Llewellyn throws the money bag over the fence on the USA side. When Carson Wells spots the bag through the fence he is on the Mexican side; there is a sign visible that says "Enter the USA" indicating he is in Mexico.
  
  

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