How does Arthur manage to fire eight bullets?

In the movie Joker, when killing three white collars in a subway, Arthur fires eight rounds out of his 38 revolver that holds five or six bullets without reloading.

I doubt it is a mistake, why does this happen?

plot-explanation joker

Best Answer

I doubt it's a mistake. There are close-up shots of the gun where you can clearly see that it's a 5 or 6 shot revolver. In fact, IMFDB identifies it specifically as a Smith & Wesson Model 36, which holds five shots.

I think the most likely explanation is that Arthur is an unreliable narrator. Arthur suffers from various unspecified mental disorders, and several scenes are shown to be in his imagination, most obviously his appearance in the audience of the talk show, and his relationship with Sophie. Scenes like the subway shooting aren't explicitly shown to be imagined, but subtle details like the number of shots fired are clues that what we're seeing may not be as they actually happened (if they did at all).