100 Fun Facts About Guess the Movie

Which 1933 film has filmmaker Carl Denham sail a struggling actress to an uncharted island, where villagers seize her as an offering?

King Kong's creatures were brought to life by Willis O'Brien's stop-motion animation, puppets moved a frame at a time decades before computer effects.

Which 1971 musical follows poor Charlie Bucket, whose Golden Ticket wins a tour of a secretive sweet-maker's plant?

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory hid five Golden Tickets in Wonka Bars worldwide, and Charlie finds the last one with money picked up from a gutter.

Which 1975 comedy has Arthur's squire clap coconut shells because the budget ruled out real horses?

Monty Python and the Holy Grail turned the missing horses into a running gag, with Arthur debating whether coconuts could grow in a temperate climate.

Which 1954 Japanese film has peasants hire warriors to guard their harvest from bandits, later remade as a Western?

Seven Samurai was reworked into The Magnificent Seven in 1960, and its recruit-a-team structure has been copied by action films ever since.

Which 1957 courtroom drama unfolds almost entirely in one jury room, where a single holdout resists a guilty verdict?

12 Angry Men never names its jurors until the last scene, when Juror 8 and the old man who first backed him trade surnames on the courthouse steps: Davis and McCardle.

Which 1957 epic has British prisoners of war in Thailand build a railway crossing for their Japanese captors?

The Bridge on the River Kwai gave the Colonel Bogey March a second life, whistled by the prisoners as they march into the camp.

Which 1969 Western has two train-robbing outlaws flee a posse to Bolivia, then ends on a freeze-frame?

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid freezes on the pair running out to face the Bolivian army, with only gunfire on the soundtrack telling you how it ends.

Which 1991 road movie ends with two women driving their Thunderbird off the Grand Canyon's edge rather than surrender?

Thelma & Louise gave Brad Pitt his breakout role as the drifter who charms Thelma, and the pair are cornered only 100 yards from the canyon's rim.

Which 2019 whodunit has Benoit Blanc probe a novelist's death, helped by a nurse who vomits whenever she lies?

Knives Out makes Marta's inability to lie without vomiting a plot engine, so she answers Blanc's questions accurately but never completely.

Which Spielberg film has an Indiana lineman sculpt Devils Tower from debris in his living room after a UFO sighting?

Close Encounters of the Third Kind gives the visitors a five-tone musical phrase, and coordinates broadcast from space point scientists to the Wyoming monument.

Which 1993 thriller has surgeon Richard Kimble walk away from a bus crash to hunt the one-armed man who killed his wife?

The Fugitive's bus-and-train wreck was filmed in a single take with a real locomotive at Dillsboro, North Carolina, where the wreckage can still be seen from passing excursion trains.

Which Coen brothers film has a Minnesota car salesman hire two criminals to kidnap his wife for her father's ransom?

Fargo opens with a caption calling it a true story from 1987, yet its end credits carry the usual notice that the characters are fictitious.

Which Kubrick film puts gang leader Alex through the Ludovico Technique, conditioning that leaves him unable to fight?

A Clockwork Orange has Alex call his gang his droogs, a word lifted from the Russian for friend as part of the film's invented slang.

Which 1963 war film has Allied prisoners dig three tunnels named Tom, Dick and Harry out of Stalag Luft III?

The Great Escape's famous motorcycle leap was not ridden by Steve McQueen but by his friend Bud Ekins, after insurers refused to let the star attempt it.

Which Sergio Leone Western sends three gunslingers after buried Confederate gold to a cemetery standoff?

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is an Italian production shot mostly in Spain, where the circular Sad Hill Cemetery was purpose-built for the finale.

Which Tim Burton comedy has a newly deceased couple hire a sleazy bio-exorcist to drive new owners from their house?

Beetlejuice's afterlife caseworker Juno tells the Maitlands they must haunt their house for 125 years before moving on, and warns them never to call her former assistant.

Which 2016 film has Amy Adams's linguist decode the circular script of squid-like aliens as nations edge toward war?

Arrival's scientists nickname the two heptapods Abbott and Costello, and learning their language starts to reshape how Banks experiences time.

Which 2004 British comedy has a downtrodden London salesman and his friends hole up in a pub during a zombie outbreak?

Shaun of the Dead grew out of an episode of Spaced, the sitcom in which Simon Pegg's character hallucinates a zombie apocalypse while playing video games.

Which 2023 Toho kaiju film set in postwar Japan was the first non-English film to win the visual effects Oscar?

Godzilla Minus One's 610 effects shots were all made by a crew of just 35 artists, led by Takashi Yamazaki, who also wrote and directed the film.

Which 2014 film has a programmer spend a week at his CEO's remote estate running a Turing test on a humanoid robot?

Ex Machina's Caleb wins the trip in an office contest at search-engine firm Blue Book, and finds the CEO living with a servant who supposedly speaks no English.

Which 2006 dystopian thriller is set in a 2027 Britain where there have been no births anywhere for two decades?

Children of Men sends its hero toward the Human Project, a secret research group in the Azores trying to cure the infertility that has pushed humanity to extinction.

Which wordless 2024 animated film follows a dark grey cat surviving a rising flood aboard a boat with other animals?

Flow was animated in Blender, a free program anyone can download, by director Gints Zilbalodis and his team, and it still won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, Latvia's first.

Which 2006 film has two Victorian stage magicians feud over a teleportation trick, with David Bowie as Nikola Tesla?

The Prestige is named after the third and final part of a magic trick: after the pledge and the turn comes the prestige, when the thing that vanished is brought back.

Which 1938 screwball comedy pairs a paleontologist with a scatterbrained heiress and her tame leopard from Brazil?

Bringing Up Baby used a real leopard named Nissa in two roles, with her trainer standing just off-screen holding a whip for every scene.

Which Frank Capra film has a naive new senator filibuster for hours to expose a crooked dam scheme?

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington has James Stewart's Jefferson Smith coached from the gallery as he talks non-stop while fellow senators deliberately ignore him.

Which 1949 thriller has a pulp novelist arrive in occupied Vienna to find his friend Harry Lime has apparently died?

The Third Man's zither theme by Anton Karas topped international charts in 1950, and Lime's final flight runs through Vienna's sewers with police behind him.

Which 1950 Kurosawa film tells one forest murder through four clashing accounts, including the victim's via a medium?

Rashomon gave its name to the Rashomon effect, for witnesses who contradict one another, and its Golden Lion at Venice introduced many Western audiences to Japanese cinema.

Which 1956 sci-fi film has alien seed pods grow emotionless duplicates of a California town's residents?

Invasion of the Body Snatchers was shot to end with its hero screaming at passing traffic as truckloads of pods drive by. The studio insisted on adding a framing story with a more hopeful close.

Which 1978 film follows three Pennsylvania steelworkers whose Vietnam captors force them to play Russian roulette?

The Deer Hunter takes its title from the friends' hunting trips, where Mike insists a deer must be killed with 'one shot', a creed that returns at the roulette table. It won five Oscars, including Best Picture.

Which Spike Lee film builds one sweltering Bedford-Stuyvesant day toward violence at Sal's Italian-American pizzeria?

Do the Right Thing gives Radio Raheem a soliloquy on love and hate that pays homage to Robert Mitchum's tattooed-knuckle preacher in a 1955 Charles Laughton film.

Which 1988 anime has biker Kaneda hunt his friend Tetsuo, telekinetic since hitting an escaped esper in Neo-Tokyo?

Akira takes its title not from its bikers but from the child esper who destroyed Tokyo in 1988 and now lies in cryonic storage beneath the Olympic stadium site.

Which Italian film has Sicilian projectionist Alfredo snip every kiss the village priest orders out of the reels?

Cinema Paradiso pays those kisses back: decades later the grown Salvatore inherits a reel on which Alfredo has spliced every censored one together. The film won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Which 1999 comedy has a puppeteer find a portal into a famous actor's mind on an office building's floor 7½?

Being John Malkovich gives each visitor fifteen minutes inside the actor's head before dropping them beside the New Jersey Turnpike, a ride its puppeteer is soon selling to the public.

Which 1998 German film gives a woman 20 minutes to find 100,000 marks for her boyfriend, replaying the dash three times?

Run Lola Run's boyfriend Manni is a bagman who has lost the 100,000 marks, and plans to rob a supermarket to replace it if Lola fails to arrive in time.

Which 1992 Western has an aging outlaw turned farmer hunt cowboys who cut a prostitute's face in Big Whiskey, Wyoming?

Unforgiven's reformed killer Will Munny stays sober until he learns how his friend Ned died; then he starts drinking and rides back into town. It was only the third Western to win Best Picture.

Which 2002 Brazilian film follows Rocket, an aspiring photographer, as gang wars consume a Rio de Janeiro favela?

City of God cast mostly real residents of favelas such as Vidigal and Cidade de Deus itself, the neighbourhood whose name the film takes.

Which 2003 Korean thriller frees Oh Dae-su after 15 years in a private prison to eat live octopus and hunt his captor?

Oldboy's octopus scene used four real animals, and the film took the Grand Prix at Cannes from a jury chaired by Quentin Tarantino.

Which del Toro fantasy sets ten-year-old Ofelia a faun's three tasks while her stepfather, Captain Vidal, hunts rebels?

Pan's Labyrinth's second task sends Ofelia, armed with magic chalk, into the lair of the Pale Man, a child-eating monster, to retrieve a dagger.

Which 2006 German drama has Stasi captain Gerd Wiesler bug East Berlin playwright Georg Dreyman's flat and listen in?

The Lives of Others turns its listener: Wiesler grows sympathetic, leaves the playwright's secrets out of his reports and removes the evidence before a search. It won the 2007 Oscar for best foreign-language film.

Which 2014 drama pits drummer Andrew Neiman against Terence Fletcher, his abusive conductor at Shaffer Conservatory?

Whiplash was first filmed as an 18-minute short, with J. K. Simmons already playing Fletcher, to win over investors at Sundance, and the full film later earned him an Oscar.

Which Wes Anderson film has Gustave H. and his protégé Zero make off with the Renaissance painting Boy with Apple?

The Grand Budapest Hotel gives Gustave a near two-decade affair with the dowager Madame D., whose will leaves him the painting and turns her family against him.

Which 2022 Telugu epic imagines revolutionaries Komaram Bheem and Alluri Sitarama Raju joining forces in 1920s Delhi?

RRR shot its dance number Naatu Naatu outside the Mariinskyi Palace in Kyiv, the Ukrainian president's residence, months before Russia invaded. The song went on to win the Oscar for Best Original Song.

Which 2022 Irish film has fiddler Colm vow to cut off a finger each time his dull ex-friend Pádraic speaks to him?

The Banshees of Inisherin is set on a fictional island off Ireland's west coast in 1923, and Colm keeps his word by throwing his severed left index finger at Pádraic's door.

Which 2023 Palme d'Or winner tries novelist Sandra Voyter after her husband is found dead outside their chalet near Grenoble?

Anatomy of a Fall also won the Palm Dog at Cannes for Messi, who plays Snoop: the couple's son feeds the dog aspirin to test his mother's account of an earlier overdose.

Which 1949 Ealing comedy has Alec Guinness play eight D'Ascoyne relatives standing between Louis Mazzini and a dukedom?

Kind Hearts and Coronets was first offered to Guinness as just four D'Ascoyne parts; he read the script on a beach in France and collapsed laughing on page one.

Which 1995 French film follows Vinz, Saïd and Hubert through the day after a banlieue riot, with a lost police revolver?

La Haine's poster tagline is 'Jusqu'ici tout va bien', meaning so far everything is fine, and its opening riot is sparked by a local man gravely injured in police custody.

Which 2011 Iranian drama has Simin try to leave Iran while Nader stays to care for his father with Alzheimer's?

A Separation ends on an unanswered question: the parents wait in a corridor while their daughter Termeh tells the judge which of them she has chosen. It was the first Iranian film to win the foreign-language Oscar.

Which 1973 caper has two Depression-era grifters pull 'the big con' on a mob boss to Scott Joplin ragtime?

The Sting won Best Picture and six other Oscars from ten nominations, and Marvin Hamlisch's arrangements revived interest in Joplin's The Entertainer.

Which 2018 Netflix film follows Cleo, a Mixtec maid in a 1970 Mexican household, drawn from Alfonso Cuarón's upbringing?

Roma is not the Italian city but Colonia Roma, the Mexico City neighbourhood where the story is set. It was the first Mexican film to win the foreign-language Oscar.

Which drama has touring drummer Ruben lose his hearing and move reluctantly into a rural shelter run by Joe?

Sound of Metal's cochlear implants give Ruben harsh, distorted noise, and in the last scene he takes the processors off and sits in silence.

Which film has a police chief, an oceanographer and a grizzled seafarer sail from Amity Island to kill a man-eater?

Jaws kept its star mostly out of sight because the mechanical sharks kept malfunctioning. Spielberg suggested the predator with John Williams's ominous, minimalist theme instead.

Which film has an elderly survivor recall her romance with a poor artist who won his ticket in a poker game?

Titanic frames her story with treasure hunters combing the wreck for a necklace called the Heart of the Ocean. The artist's poker win also earned a ticket for his Italian friend Fabrizio.

Which film strands an industrialist's grandchildren on Isla Nublar when a tropical storm cuts short their tour?

Jurassic Park brought its dinosaurs to life with groundbreaking computer-generated imagery from Industrial Light & Magic and life-sized animatronics built by Stan Winston's team.

Which Christmas comedy has an eight-year-old defend his suburban Chicago house from burglars known as the Wet Bandits?

Home Alone made Macaulay Culkin a child star and stood as the highest-grossing live-action comedy for two decades. His screen family had flown to Paris without him.

Which film has Morpheus offer Neo a red pill to uncover the truth or a blue pill to return to normal life?

The Matrix nearly starred Will Smith, who turned down the lead to make Wild Wild West because he doubted the film's ambitious bullet time effects.

Which film has an Alabama man on a bus bench tell strangers how he met presidents and bought a shrimping boat?

Forrest Gump pays for the boat with money from endorsing a ping-pong paddle maker, keeping a promise to his Army friend Bubba.

Which film strands Marty McFly in 1955, where he accidentally stops his own parents from falling in love?

Back to the Future runs its time machine, a modified DeLorean, on plutonium that its inventor swindled from Libyan terrorists.

Which animated film has a cub survive his uncle's wildebeest stampede and grow up beside a meerkat and a warthog?

The Lion King borrows its murdered ruler, scheming uncle and exiled heir from Shakespeare's Hamlet, one of several sources its writers drew on.

Which film has a man realize Seahaven Island, his hometown, is a colossal soundstage and his life a TV broadcast?

The Truman Show builds the town inside an enormous Los Angeles soundstage, where the creator, Christof, controls nearly every part of its star's life.

Which film has a banker, jailed for his wife's murder, launder a warden's money and befriend a smuggler called Red?

The Shawshank Redemption was a box-office disappointment, earning only $16 million in its first run despite acclaim for Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman.

Which film has a good witch magically move a dead witch's ruby slippers onto the feet of a Kansas farm girl?

The Wizard of Oz changed the footwear for the screen: in L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel the girl wears Silver Shoes.

Which animated film has a cowboy doll grow jealous when a space cadet action figure becomes owner Andy's favorite?

Toy Story was the first entirely computer-animated feature film and the first feature from Pixar, with Tom Hanks and Tim Allen voicing the rivals.

Which animated film sends an overprotective clownfish to a Sydney dentist's fish tank in search of his missing son?

Finding Nemo grew from director Andrew Stanton's childhood trips to the dentist, where he assumed the fish in the tank came from the ocean and wanted to go home.

Which action film traps a New York detective in a Los Angeles skyscraper seized during a Christmas Eve party?

Die Hard comes from the novel Nothing Lasts Forever, a sequel to The Detective, which had been filmed in 1968 with Frank Sinatra as the New York cop.

Which comedy has three parapsychologists run a paranormal elimination service from a disused New York firehouse?

Ghostbusters ends with a gigantic Stay Puft Marshmallow Man wrecking the city, conjured because one of the trio pictures a beloved mascot from his childhood.

Which thriller has an FBI trainee consult a jailed cannibal psychiatrist to catch a killer who skins victims?

The Silence of the Lambs became only the third film to win the Big Five Oscars: Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay.

Which film has a thief who infiltrates his targets' subconscious hired to implant an idea instead of stealing one?

Inception began as an 80-page treatment about dream stealers that Christopher Nolan first imagined as a horror film, then shelved until he had more experience with large productions.

Which animated film has an ogre agree to rescue a princess for a lord in exchange for control of his swamp?

Shrek won the inaugural Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and was the first animated film on the American Film Institute's yearly top ten.

Which film strands a FedEx troubleshooter on a South Pacific island for four years with only a volleyball for company?

Cast Away gives the ball a face by accident: the survivor cuts his hand trying to start a fire and leaves a bloody handprint on it.

Which Hitchcock film has a Phoenix secretary embezzle $40,000 and stop at a motel run by a shy young proprietor?

Psycho was shot on a small budget in black-and-white by the crew of the director's television series, a departure from North by Northwest a year earlier.

Which film has an expatriate American nightclub owner handed letters of transit taken from two murdered German couriers?

Casablanca was rushed into release to ride the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa a few weeks earlier.

Which film turns a crime patriarch's youngest son from reluctant outsider into ruthless boss once the old man is shot?

The Godfather drew protests from an Italian-American civil rights league led by mobster Joseph Colombo, which wanted the words mafia and Cosa Nostra cut from the script.

Which adventure film has an archaeologist race Nazi forces excavating at Tanis, Egypt, for a biblical relic?

Raiders of the Lost Ark grew from George Lucas's wish to modernize the serial films of the early 20th century. Philip Kaufman suggested the sacred chest as the hero's goal.

Which thriller has a child psychologist counsel a deeply troubled boy who claims to be visited by the dead?

The Sixth Sense established M. Night Shyamalan as a leading maker of thrillers and introduced audiences to his fondness for twist endings.

Which epic has a Roman general betrayed by an emperor's ambitious son, enslaved and bent on avenging his family?

Gladiator lost Oliver Reed, who plays Proximo, to a heart attack before all his scenes had been filmed. It still won five Oscars, including Best Picture.

Which film has a journeyman southpaw who collects for a Mafia loan shark fight the champion on New Year's Day?

Rocky was written by Sylvester Stallone in three and a half days, soon after he watched Chuck Wepner take on Muhammad Ali in 1975.

Which film has a cardiologist's teenage daughter fall for an instructor at a Catskills resort in the summer of 1963?

Dirty Dancing, drawn from its screenwriter's own childhood, became the first film to sell a million copies on video.

Which comedy has a divorced voice actor disguise himself as an elderly housekeeper to be near his children?

Mrs. Doubtfire won the Academy Award for Best Makeup for the transformation, even though its reviews were mixed.

Which Korean film has a poor family infiltrate a wealthy home, then find a man hiding from loan sharks in a bunker?

Parasite became the first non-English-language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The hidden room was built by the house's architect and kept secret from its owners.

Which horror film has a photographer meet his girlfriend's family and get hypnotized by a spoon stirring in a teacup?

Get Out sends his mind into a dark void the mother calls the sunken place, leaving his body paralyzed. She claims the session is meant to cure his smoking.

Which film has a call-center chaiwala surprise everyone on an Indian quiz show by answering every question correctly?

Slumdog Millionaire won 8 of the 10 Academy Awards it was nominated for, the most of any 2008 film, including Best Picture and Best Director.

Which thriller has a man with anterograde amnesia use photos, notes and tattoos to hunt his wife's killer?

Memento grew from the short story Memento Mori by the director's brother, Jonathan Nolan, and it runs its color scenes in reverse order to mimic the hero's condition.

Which film sends a cyborg assassin from 2029 to 1984 to kill a waitress whose future son will save the world?

The Terminator came to James Cameron in a fever dream during the release of his first film, Piranha II: The Spawning.

Which Hitchcock film has a man in a hip-to-foot cast watch his neighbors and decide a salesman has killed his wife?

Rear Window was retold in 2007 as Disturbia, which swaps the plaster cast for house arrest and the single killing for a suspected serial killer.

Which film has a guardian angel show a suicidal man the sleazy town Bedford Falls would be had he never been born?

It's a Wonderful Life became a holiday favorite after its U.S. copyright lapsed in 1974 and hundreds of local television stations began showing it every season.

Which French film has a shy waitress steal her father's garden gnome and have it photographed at world landmarks?

Amélie has its heroine pass the gnome to a flight attendant friend, who mails back the pictures to nudge her father into touring the world himself.

Which Studio Ghibli film has a girl take a job in a witch's bathhouse after her parents are turned into pigs?

Spirited Away became the highest-grossing film in Japanese history on its release. Its heroine, Chihiro, works for the witch Yubaba to free her parents and get home.

Which Italian film has a father convince his son that their concentration camp is a game with a tank as first prize?

Life Is Beautiful was partly inspired by director Roberto Benigni's own father, who spent two years in the Bergen-Belsen camp during World War II.

Which film has a stranded botanist grow potatoes in bio-waste and make water from leftover rocket fuel?

The Martian adapts Andy Weir's 2011 novel, with Matt Damon as the astronaut who farms inside a habitat his crew calls the Hab.

Which film opens with a struggling screenwriter floating face down in the swimming pool of a former silent film star?

Sunset Boulevard lets the dead man narrate, a device one New York Times critic called completely unworthy of its writers. The faded star dreams of a triumphant return to the screen.

Which film has a private investigator in 1937 Los Angeles hired to trail the water department's chief engineer?

Chinatown draws on the California water wars, the early 20th-century disputes that ended with Los Angeles securing water rights in the Owens Valley.

Which film has a reporter set out to decode the last word of a newspaper magnate who dies in his mansion, Xanadu?

Citizen Kane modelled its title character on real media barons, chiefly William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, with Orson Welles in the role.

Which comedy has two Chicago musicians witness a gangland shooting and hide in an all-female band on a train to Miami?

Some Like It Hot based the shooting on the real Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, and its two men join the band disguised as Josephine and Daphne.

Which Hitchcock film has a former San Francisco detective asked by an old acquaintance to follow his wife?

Vertigo was the first film to use the dolly zoom, a camera effect that distorts perspective to convey the hero's fear of heights.

Which film has an insurance clerk lend his home to superiors for their affairs, then fall for an elevator operator?

The Apartment won five Oscars, including Best Picture. Its clerk does not know that the woman he likes is having an affair with the head of personnel.

Which film noir has an insurance salesman help a woman kill her husband and stage it as a train-related accident?

Double Indemnity takes its title from the policy clause that pays out more for such a death, which is why the killers frame it that way.

Which film has a man rob a Brooklyn bank to pay for his lover's surgery and end up in a hostage standoff?

Dog Day Afternoon dramatizes a real 1972 hold-up at a Chase Manhattan branch, a story its screenwriter took from a Life magazine article.

Which cult comedy pairs a young man who stages fake suicides and drives a hearse with a 79-year-old woman?

Harold and Maude flopped with critics and audiences on release, then built a following in repertory theatres and first turned a profit in 1983.

Which film has a young man seduced by an older married woman, only to fall for her daughter, Elaine?

The Graduate nearly lost its star: Dustin Hoffman had been cast in Mel Brooks's The Producers and begged to be let go so he could audition.

Which action film has a passenger named Annie take the wheel of a bomb-rigged Los Angeles city bus?

Speed arms the bomb once the bus passes 50 miles per hour and sets it to explode if the bus drops back below that. Its bomber, an ex-cop turned extortionist, first targets an elevator holding 13 people.