50 Fun Facts About Guess the Movie

Which 1933 film ends with a giant ape from Skull Island swatting at biplanes from the top of the Empire State Building?

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 together 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 opens with a preliminary vote of eleven to one, with Juror 8 alone demanding discussion before any verdict on the teenage defendant.

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 relentless 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 pits Kimble against Deputy Marshal Samuel Gerard, whose own investigation deduces the one-armed man and builds a suspect list.

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

Fargo's pregnant police chief unpicks the scheme after the kidnappers, promised half of an $80,000 ransom and a new Oldsmobile, leave bodies in the snow.

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 has three gunslingers chase buried Confederate gold to a three-way standoff in a cemetery?

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 was written, directed and effects-supervised by Takashi Yamazaki, whose Shirogumi team spent eight months on the visual effects.

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 won Best Animated Feature at the 97th Academy Awards, the first Oscar nomination and the first win for any film from Latvia.

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

The Prestige casts Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as the rivals, Robert Angier and Alfred Borden, who begin as assistants under the same mentor in 1890s London.

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 on the Senate floor 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, and its Golden Lion at Venice made it the first Japanese film to find a major international audience.

Which 1956 sci-fi film has alien seed pods grow emotionless duplicates of the residents of Santa Mira, California?

Invasion of the Body Snatchers has each pod absorb a sleeper's memories and personality until only the copy remains, one stripped of every human emotion.

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

The Deer Hunter won five Oscars including Best Picture, yet its captivity scenes were attacked as contrived because no case of the game was ever documented in the war.

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 started with an unconventionally high budget of around 500 million yen, set to match the epic scale of Katsuhiro Otomo's 2,000-page manga.

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

Cinema Paradiso's Alfredo is later blinded when a reel of nitrate film explodes in his face, and 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 was the feature debut of both director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, and its portal sits in the Mertin-Flemmer building.

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 joined Cimarron (1931) and Dances with Wolves (1990) as the only Westerns to have won Best Picture at that point.

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 won the 2007 Academy Award for best foreign-language film, with Ulrich Mühe as the listening captain and Sebastian Koch as the playwright.

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

Whiplash won J. K. Simmons the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and the feature grew out of an 18-minute short film of the same story.

Which Wes Anderson film has concierge Gustave H. and lobby boy Zero steal back 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's dance number Naatu Naatu won the Oscar for Best Original Song, the first song from an Asian film to take the award.

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 plunges from their chalet near Grenoble?

Anatomy of a Fall also won the Palm Dog at Cannes for the dog playing Snoop, companion to Sandra's visually impaired eleven-year-old son Daniel.

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 was the first Iranian film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and the first non-English film in five years nominated for its screenplay.

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 made Cuarón the first person to win Best Cinematography and Best Director for one film in a single night, and was Mexico's first Best Foreign Language Film winner.

Which 2020 drama has touring drummer Ruben lose his hearing and move reluctantly into a rural shelter run by Joe?

Sound of Metal won Oscars for Best Sound and Best Film Editing, and earned Riz Ahmed a Best Actor nomination as Ruben.