60 Fun Facts About 2010s Movie

In Inception, what does Cobb use as a totem to test whether he is dreaming?

A spinning top: if it keeps spinning Cobb is dreaming, if it topples he is awake. The final shot cuts away before the top falls.

Which French song is used in Inception to signal the 'kick' that wakes the dreamers?

Non, je ne regrette rien: Édith Piaf's 1960 recording is played to cue the kick, and Hans Zimmer slowed it down to build the film's booming brass motif.

Christopher Nolan first pitched Inception to Warner Bros. in what genre?

Horror, about dream stealers: Nolan pitched it to Warner Bros. in 2001 and wrote an 80-page treatment, then shelved it until after the Batman films.

The Social Network is based on which book?

The Accidental Billionaires, Ben Mezrich's 2009 book on which Eduardo Saverin consulted; Aaron Sorkin adapted it while Zuckerberg and Facebook declined to take part.

Who plays Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network?

Andrew Garfield plays Eduardo Saverin; Jesse Eisenberg is Zuckerberg, Justin Timberlake is Sean Parker and Armie Hammer plays both Winklevoss twins.

Which band's members composed the award-winning score for The Social Network?

Nine Inch Nails: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross scored the film and won the Oscar for Best Original Score in 2011, later reuniting with Fincher on Gone Girl.

Toy Story 3 was the first animated film to do what?

It was also only the third animated film nominated for Best Picture.

Where are the toys accidentally donated in Toy Story 3?

Sunnyside Daycare is run by the strawberry-scented bear Lotso, and once there the toys must decide where their loyalties lie.

The King's Speech centres on which monarch's struggle with a stammer?

George VI, played by Colin Firth, sees therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush); Firth won Best Actor and the film took Best Picture from 12 nominations.

Why did the writer of The King's Speech delay the project for decades?

The monarch's widow asked him to wait: the Queen Mother told David Seidler 'not in my lifetime'; she died in 2002 and the film reached cinemas in 2010.

Bridesmaids was co-written by Annie Mumolo and which star of the film?

Kristen Wiig and Mumolo were Oscar-nominated for Best Original Screenplay, and Melissa McCarthy for Best Supporting Actress.

In which city does Bridesmaids' Annie Walker live after her bakery fails?

Milwaukee: after her bakery Cake Baby closes, Annie shares a Milwaukee flat with two odd British siblings, and her best friend Lillian's wedding drives the plot.

Who wrote and directed The Avengers (2012)?

Joss Whedon rewrote Zak Penn's original screenplay and directed the film, which opened in May 2012 and became the third-highest-grossing film ever at the time.

Which alien race does Loki lead against Earth in The Avengers?

The Chitauri, an alien army lent to Loki by Thanos through his servant The Other; they pour through a wormhole above Manhattan in the final battle.

The Hunger Games was filmed primarily in which state?

North Carolina: District 12 was shot in the abandoned Henry River Mill Village near Hildebran, and the arena scenes in DuPont State Forest outside Asheville.

Which studio produced The Hunger Games films?

Lionsgate signed the co-production deal with Color Force in March 2009, weeks after the rights were bought.

Which two Bond regulars returned in Skyfall after being absent for two films?

Moneypenny and Q, absent from Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, returned played by Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw; Javier Bardem was the villain Silva.

Skyfall's production was suspended in 2010 because of what?

MGM's bankruptcy: the studio's financial collapse, ending in a Chapter 11 filing in November 2010, halted Bond 23 in April 2010; screenwriter Peter Morgan quit during the delay.

Argo dramatises the rescue of six US diplomats from which city?

Tehran was where the 'Canadian Caper' played out during the 1979-81 Iran hostage crisis, with a science-fiction shoot as the cover story.

Argo won the top Oscar but Ben Affleck famously missed a nomination in which category?

Bradley Cooper declared that Affleck 'got robbed'.

Disney's Frozen (2013) was loosely inspired by which 1844 Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale?

The Snow Queen, Andersen's 1844 tale, was the loose basis; Frozen went on to gross $1.28 billion, then a record for animation.

Which songwriting team wrote the songs for Frozen, including Let It Go?

Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez wrote the songs, and Let It Go won the 2014 Oscar for Best Original Song.

Gravity's visual effects, covering more than 80 of its 91 minutes, were made by which British company?

Framestore, the London studio, spent about three years building Gravity's almost entirely digital environments; the film won seven Oscars including Best Visual Effects and Best Director.

12 Years a Slave was based on whose 1853 memoir?

Solomon Northup, a free Black New Yorker kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery in Louisiana, published Twelve Years a Slave in 1853; Chiwetel Ejiofor played him.

The Wolf of Wall Street set a record for what?

Uses of a particular expletive: the F-word is heard more than 500 times, a record for a non-documentary feature at the time; it was DiCaprio's fifth film with Scorsese.

Whiplash grew out of an 18-minute short film that premiered at which festival?

Sundance: the short won the Short Film Jury Prize there in January 2013; the feature opened the 2014 festival and won both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award.

Interstellar was developed from a treatment by producer Lynda Obst and which theoretical physicist?

Kip Thorne, the Caltech physicist who later shared the 2017 Nobel Prize for gravitational waves, was executive producer and wrote The Science of Interstellar.

Which Guardian of the Galaxy is voiced by Vin Diesel?

Bradley Cooper voices Rocket; the film was the third-biggest hit of 2014.

Birdman is presented as though it were filmed how?

In one continuous take: Emmanuel Lubezki's long takes were stitched into a single apparent shot, winning him the cinematography Oscar; the film also won Best Picture and Director.

Mad Max: Fury Road stars Charlize Theron as which character?

Imperator Furiosa, the shaven-headed war-rig driver who smuggles Immortan Joe's wives to freedom; Anya Taylor-Joy played her younger self in the 2024 prequel Furiosa.

How many Oscars did Mad Max: Fury Road win at the 2016 ceremony?

Six: Fury Road took the most awards of the night, all in craft categories, including film editing, production design, costume design and make-up.

Spotlight follows the investigative team of which newspaper?

The Boston Globe: its Spotlight team's 2002 exposure of clergy-abuse cover-ups in the Boston archdiocese won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

Spotlight was the first top-prize Oscar winner since 1952 to win how many other statuettes?

Its only other win was Best Original Screenplay.

Jurassic World's genetically engineered dinosaur is called what?

Indominus rex, a hybrid built mainly from T. rex and Velociraptor DNA; the film's June 2015 opening set records for the biggest weekend both domestically and worldwide.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens was filmed on location mainly in Abu Dhabi, Iceland and which other country?

The Skellig Michael scenes were the Irish part; the film became the highest grosser ever in the US and Canada.

Which sound acts as the hypnotic trigger in Get Out?

A spoon stirring a teacup: Missy Armitage taps her cup to send Chris into the 'Sunken Place'; Jordan Peele won Best Original Screenplay for his $4.5 million directorial debut.

Which two actors were originally in talks to star in La La Land before Gosling and Stone?

Miles Teller and Emma Watson were attached in 2015 but dropped out, Watson to make Beauty and the Beast; Damien Chazelle then cast Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.

La La Land set a record by winning how many Golden Globes?

Seven: La La Land won all seven of its Golden Globe nominations in January 2017, the most ever for one film; it took five BAFTAs too, including Best Film.

Moonlight was adapted from an unpublished play by whom?

Tarell Alvin McCraney wrote the unproduced play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue; he and Barry Jenkins shared the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Which Moonlight actor became the first Muslim to win an acting Oscar?

Mahershala Ali won Best Supporting Actor in February 2017 for playing Juan, the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar; he won again two years later for Green Book.

The Shape of Water won the top prize at which festival before its Oscar run?

Venice: The Shape of Water won the Golden Lion in September 2017, then became only the second fantasy film, after The Return of the King, to win Best Picture.

The Shape of Water was inspired by which classic monster movie?

Creature from the Black Lagoon: del Toro wanted the 1954 film's Gill-man to get the girl, so he set his romance in a 1962 Baltimore government lab.

Black Panther was the first superhero film to achieve what?

A Best Picture nod: Black Panther was the first superhero film nominated for Best Picture, at the 2019 Oscars, where it won three awards, the MCU's first.

Green Book takes its title from what?

A travel guide for Black motorists: Victor Hugo Green's The Negro Motorist Green Book, published from 1936 to 1966, listed businesses that would serve Black travellers.

Which actor plays the bouncer Tony Lip in Green Book?

Viggo Mortensen played Bronx bouncer Tony 'Lip' Vallelonga and was nominated for Best Actor; the script was co-written by Tony's son, Nick Vallelonga.

Avengers: Endgame held the title of highest-grossing film ever until which film reclaimed it in 2021?

Avatar: a March 2021 re-release in China lifted it back past Endgame's $2.797 billion; Endgame had passed Infinity War's entire run in just eleven days.

Who directed Joker (2019)?

Todd Phillips, best known for The Hangover trilogy, directed and co-wrote Joker, which won the Golden Lion at Venice and earned Joaquin Phoenix the Best Actor Oscar.

Parasite was the first Korean film to win which prize?

The Palme d'Or: Bong Joon-ho's Parasite won it unanimously at Cannes in May 2019, then became the first non-English-language film to win Best Picture.

What kind of home do the Kim family live in at the start of Parasite?

A semi-basement flat, or banjiha, with windows at pavement level where drunks urinate; it floods with sewage in the film's storm sequence.

The Artist (2011), a Best Picture winner made as a silent film, is set in Hollywood during which years?

1927 to 1932: George Valentin's silent stardom collapses as the talkies arrive from 1927; Jean Dujardin won Best Actor at Cannes and then the Oscar.

In Life of Pi (2012), how many days do Pi and the tiger Richard Parker spend adrift in a lifeboat?

227 days: Pi survives 227 days at sea with the Bengal tiger Richard Parker in Yann Martel's 2001 novel and Ang Lee's film, which won four Oscars including Best Director.

The title of Tarantino's Django Unchained (2012) nods to a 1966 spaghetti Western by which director?

Tarantino began the project in 2007 while writing a book about Corbucci; Will Smith was considered for the lead before Jamie Foxx.

Over how many years was Richard Linklater's Boyhood (2014) filmed with the same cast?

Twelve: shooting ran intermittently from 2002 to 2013 with only basic plot points fixed in advance, so Ellar Coltrane aged on screen from six to eighteen.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) is set in which fictional European country?

Zubrowka is the mountainside setting; Anderson drew on the writings of Stefan Zweig for the tale of Gustave H. and his lobby boy Zero.

Leonardo DiCaprio's Oscar-winning turn in The Revenant (2015) portrays which real 1820s frontiersman, mauled by a bear and left for dead?

Hugh Glass's 1823 ordeal, told in Michael Punke's 2002 novel, supplied the story; delays pushed the shoot from Canada to Argentina in search of snow.

What finally persuaded 20th Century Fox to greenlight Deadpool in 2014?

Leaked test footage: Tim Miller's 2012 test reel leaked online in July 2014, and the fan reaction pushed Fox to greenlight the film that September; it shot in Vancouver in 2015.

Which One Direction member made his feature film debut in Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk (2017)?

Harry Styles made his feature debut in Dunkirk, which Nolan told with little dialogue and shot on IMAX 65 mm using boats from the real evacuation.

Pixar's Coco (2017) was inspired by which Mexican holiday?

Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos): Miguel crosses into the Land of the Dead on the holiday when families welcome back their ancestors' spirits; the film won two Oscars.

When Bohemian Rhapsody was announced in 2010, which comedian was set to play Freddie Mercury before leaving over creative differences?

Sacha Baron Cohen left in 2013 after creative differences with the producers; Rami Malek eventually took the role and won the Best Actor Oscar.

Alfonso Cuarón's Roma (2018) takes its name from a neighbourhood in which capital?

Mexico City: Colonia Roma is the middle-class district where Cuarón grew up; the semi-autobiographical film won the 2018 Golden Lion at Venice before streaming on Netflix.