What’s always portrayed unrealistically in movies?

1. Elevator cable snapping and going into free-fall. Several years ago, I worked for a company that made elevator safeties and other assemblies for Otis, the company that invented the modern elevator. Real-life elevators are not held by one cable but usually five; one in the center and one on each corner. Each cable is air cord, which is a single rope made out of a bundle of cables, and each of those bundles are made of several steel cords. That stuff is ultra-strong. All the cables would have to fail for the elevator to fall, and even if that happened, there are emergency brakes that would kick in. And even if *those* failed, the elevator safeties would kick in. Safeties are mechanical and gravity-operated, meaning there is almost no chance of failure. Their being activated would rip up the elevator guide rails, requiring the entire elevator to have to be reinstalled and laser aligned before it could be used again, but they would stop the elevator almost instantly. In other words, it is almost impossible for a properly-installed elevator to go into free-fall, and even then without stopping immediately. Edit: a word.
   — WraithSama


2. Whenever a plane dives, it always makes the Stuka dive bombing noise.
   — TheKMethod


3. The inside of shipping containers or truckloads of good. In the movies you can always walk though some boxes stacked to the side of the walls and see everything loaded in the containers. IRL those are maxed floor to ceiling. No one pays to ship empty space.
   — ggat






4. Ok, this is not a HUGE nuisance, but it bugs the crap out of me: When people in movies and tv shows drink from straws, the foley artist always puts in sound like you get when there is barely any liquid in the cup. It doesn't matter if the cup is full, they have to put in that stupid sound effect to let the audience know that they are, in fact, drinking from a straw.
   — spoonerstreet23


5. Bullet wounds and bleeding out
   — Phillip-Jacobs


6. Everything about having a baby.
   — GammelGrinebiter






7. Anything medical. I remember watching that movie John Q when it came out on VHS with my mother, a veteran pediatric RN. Watching the movie with her was unbearable; all she could do was comment on how everything was done incorrectly, from the amount of time required for the CPR to the fact that they were doing everything without gloves. As a child it annoyed me, but as an adult who also works in the healthcare field, I have a hard time watching medical dramas.
   — Shprintze613


8. Hero and villain can shoot anyone dead from any distance and any position with one shot, yet when it comes to shooting each other, they can't hit a barn door from 6ft.
   — Fats33


9. Glass. It shatters so easily in movies. But in reality it would break in big shards and probably seriously lacerate you if you tried to punch a window or jump through one.
   — Riptos007






10. Space helmets. They always have lights pointing at the wearers face. Always. I imagine they can't see shit during filming.
    — anglagard


11. Miniguns. Being the target of a minigun is one of the most terrifying things that can happen, and it's visually and auditorially spectacular, and yet movies actually play down and underdramatize it. In movies, you get that long slow spinup of the minigun (not true, it's basically instant), the sound guy makes the minigun sound like a regular machine gun, firing at somewhere around 800-900 RPM (actual: 6000 rounds per minute) and generally just make it seem like a slow to spin up regular machine gun. In reality, it isn't a ratatatata machine gun, it sounds like someone is ripping a fucking hole in time and space to destroy everything you've ever known.
    — SenorBeef