100 Fun Facts About Movies

Which 1997 film was the first to pass $1 billion at the worldwide box office?

Titanic (1997), directed by James Cameron, was the first film to pass $1 billion at the worldwide box office, finishing its original run at about $1.84 billion.

Who directed the 1975 thriller Jaws?

Steven Spielberg directed Jaws, which is often credited as the first summer blockbuster and changed the movie industry forever.

In The Wizard of Oz (1939), what color are Dorothy's iconic slippers?

Dorothy's ruby slippers are red. In L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel they were Silver Shoes; MGM changed them to red in 1939 to show off three-strip Technicolor.

Which actor played the title character in the original 1990 film Edward Scissorhands?

Tim Burton had never seen Depp's hit TV show 21 Jump Street, but he was always Burton's first choice; it began a partnership that ran to eight films.

What is the name of the fictional African country in Marvel's Black Panther?

Wakanda is the hidden, vibranium-rich African nation ruled by T'Challa in Black Panther (2018); in the comics it debuted with the character in Fantastic Four #52 in 1966.

Which film features the famous line "Here's looking at you, kid"?

The line is from Casablanca (1942). Humphrey Bogart says it four times to Ingrid Bergman, and it was not in the script — reportedly born while he taught her poker between takes.

Who played Forrest Gump in the 1994 film of the same name?

Tom Hanks won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Forrest Gump, marking his second consecutive Best Actor win.

Which animated Disney film features the song "Let It Go"?

"Let It Go" is sung by Idina Menzel as Elsa in Disney's Frozen (2013). The song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

In The Shawshank Redemption, what is Andy Dufresne's profession before prison?

Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, was a banker before being wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife and her lover.

Which film franchise features a character named Ethan Hunt?

Ethan Hunt is the main character of the Mission: Impossible franchise, played by Tom Cruise since the first film in 1996.

Which film won Best Picture in 2020, the first non-English language film to do so?

Bong Joon-ho's Parasite (2019) became the first non-English language film to win Best Picture at the 92nd Academy Awards in 2020.

Which film was the first to pass $2.5 billion at the worldwide box office?

Avatar (2009), directed by James Cameron, was the first film past $2.5 billion worldwide, reaching about $2.7 billion in its original run; a 2022 re-release later pushed it beyond $2.9 billion.

Which ageing patriarch of the Corleone crime family did Marlon Brando play?

Marlon Brando played Vito Corleone, the aging patriarch of the Corleone crime family, winning the Best Actor Oscar for the role (which he famously declined).

Which director is known for films such as Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, and Django Unchained?

Quentin Tarantino directed all three films and is known for his distinctive dialogue, nonlinear storylines, and stylized violence.

What is Rosebud in the 1941 film Citizen Kane?

Only the audience ever learns the answer: the staff toss the sled into a furnace unread, and Welles had a working furnace built on stage to film the word burning.

Which 1994 animated film features the song "Circle of Life"?

"Circle of Life" opens Disney's The Lion King (1994), composed by Elton John with lyrics by Tim Rice.

Who directed the Dark Knight trilogy (2005-2012)?

Christopher Nolan directed Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), casting Christian Bale in a grittier, more realistic Batman than the Burton and Schumacher films.

For which film did Leonardo DiCaprio finally win the Academy Award for Best Actor?

DiCaprio won Best Actor for The Revenant (2015) at the 2016 Oscars, on his fifth acting nomination, after a brutal sub-zero shoot in which he ate a real raw bison liver on camera.

Which actress has won the most Academy Awards for acting?

Katharine Hepburn won four Best Actress Oscars, from Morning Glory (1933) to On Golden Pond (1981), and never attended a ceremony to collect one; Meryl Streep and Frances McDormand have three acting wins each.

What year was the first Star Wars film (Episode IV: A New Hope) released?

Star Wars opened on 25 May 1977 in only about three dozen US cinemas and was rushed into wide release when it became a surprise blockbuster; its budget was about $11 million.

Which film studio produced the Toy Story franchise?

Pixar Animation Studios produced all Toy Story films. Toy Story (1995) was the first feature-length computer-animated film ever made.

What is the name of the hobbit played by Elijah Wood in the Lord of the Rings trilogy?

Elijah Wood played Frodo Baggins, the hobbit who carries the One Ring to Mount Doom in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Which actor has played James Bond the most times in official EON Productions films?

Roger Moore made seven EON Bond films, from Live and Let Die (1973) to A View to a Kill (1985); Sean Connery made six for EON and Daniel Craig five.

In which 1999 film does Keanu Reeves play a hacker named Neo?

Keanu Reeves stars as Neo in The Matrix (1999), directed by the Wachowskis. The film revolutionized visual effects, particularly the "bullet time" technique.

Which 1952 musical, co-directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, spoofs Hollywood's switch to talkies?

Singin' in the Rain (1952), co-directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, is set as Hollywood switches from silents to talkies; Kelly's title number, splashing through puddles, is its most famous sequence.

Which Martin Scorsese film stars Robert De Niro as unstable Vietnam veteran Travis Bickle?

Robert De Niro starred as the mentally unstable Vietnam veteran Travis Bickle in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976).

What was Walt Disney's first feature-length animated film?

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was Walt Disney's first animated feature and the first full-length cel-animated film; it earned Disney an honorary Oscar presented with seven miniature statuettes.

Who composed the scores for Star Wars, Jaws and the Indiana Jones films?

John Williams composed all three, winning Oscars for Jaws and Star Wars among his five wins; his more than 50 nominations trail only Walt Disney's total.

Which 2017 Jordan Peele horror film explores racial tensions through a thriller lens?

Get Out was Jordan Peele's directorial debut and won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

In Jurassic Park (1993), what type of dinosaur is the primary large predator that terrorizes the park?

The Tyrannosaurus rex, which breaks out when the electric fences fail, is the film's centrepiece; Stan Winston's animatronic weighed around five tonnes and malfunctioned when soaked by the rain machines.

Which film won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Picture in 1929?

Wings (1927), a silent World War I film, won the first Academy Award for Best Picture (then called Outstanding Picture) at the 1st ceremony in 1929.

Which director holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations for Best Director?

William Wyler received 12 Best Director nominations over his career, winning three times for Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), and Ben-Hur (1959).

In The Silence of the Lambs (1991), what is Hannibal Lecter's profession?

Hannibal Lecter is a psychiatrist, a brilliant doctor turned cannibal killer; Anthony Hopkins won the Best Actor Oscar for the role with only about 16 minutes of screen time.

Which Alfred Hitchcock film features the famous shower scene?

The shower scene in Psycho (1960) is one of the most famous sequences in cinema history. It features rapid editing with over 70 camera angles in 45 seconds.

What small generator does Tony Stark build in a cave to power his chest magnet and first suit?

The arc reactor: Stark builds the first miniature one in captivity with fellow prisoner Yinsen to keep shrapnel from his heart, then builds an improved one at home that powers both his chest and the Mark II suit.

Which in-camera effect, first devised for Vertigo, keeps the subject the same size while the background stretches?

Dolly zoom: Paramount cameraman Irmin Roberts pulled the camera back while zooming in for Vertigo (1958); the effect was later reused for Chief Brody's beach shot in Jaws.

Which 1972 film, considered one of the greatest ever made, follows the Corleone crime family?

Several directors turned it down before Coppola signed on, and the studio then fought him over casting Brando and Pacino; the AFI ranks it the second-greatest American film, behind Citizen Kane.

Which actress starred as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs?

Jodie Foster won Best Actress as FBI trainee Clarice Starling; The Silence of the Lambs (1991) was the third film to sweep the 'Big Five' Oscars — Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay.

In Inception (2010), what object does Cobb use as his totem?

The top was originally his wife's; the script's last line reads 'Behind him, on the table, the spinning top is STILL SPINNING', and Nolan has refused to say whether it falls.

How many Academy Awards did Ben-Hur (1959) win, a record later equalled but never beaten?

Eleven, matched by Titanic (1997) and The Return of the King (2003); only Return of the King won every category it was nominated in.

Which country's film industry is often referred to as "Bollywood"?

Bollywood refers to the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India. It is one of the largest film industries in the world by number of films produced.

Which film introduced the character of Indiana Jones?

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), directed by Steven Spielberg from a George Lucas story, introduced Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones and grossed nearly $390 million worldwide on a budget of about $20 million.

What is the name of the computer system that becomes self-aware in The Terminator franchise?

Skynet, built by Cyberdyne Systems for the US military, becomes self-aware on 29 August 1997 in the films' timeline and launches its nuclear strike — Judgment Day — when its operators try to switch it off.

Which 1989 James Cameron film won the Visual Effects Oscar for its computer-generated water 'pseudopod'?

The Abyss (1989) won the Visual Effects Oscar for ILM's computer-generated water 'pseudopod', which the crew nicknamed the 'water weenie'; the technique led directly to Terminator 2's liquid-metal T-1000.

Who was the first African American to win the Academy Award for Best Actor?

Sidney Poitier won Best Actor for Lilies of the Field (1963), becoming the first African American to receive the award. Denzel Washington was the second, in 2002.

In which Wes Anderson film do a group of Boy Scout-like characters help two young lovers escape?

Moonrise Kingdom follows two 12-year-olds who run away together on a New England island, prompting a search by the Khaki Scouts.

Which Vietnam War film is split between Marine boot camp and the Battle of Hue?

Full Metal Jacket (1987) is split into two parts: the first follows Marine recruits in boot camp at Parris Island, and the second follows them in combat during the Battle of Hue.

What is the MacGuffin in Alfred Hitchcock's film North by Northwest (1959)?

The MacGuffin is microfilm of government secrets, hidden inside a pre-Columbian statue; Hitchcock, who popularised the term, called it 'the emptiest, the most nonexistent' of all his MacGuffins.

Which film features the quote "You can't handle the truth!"?

In A Few Good Men (1992), Jack Nicholson's Colonel Jessep bellows 'You can't handle the truth!' at Tom Cruise's Lieutenant Kaffee under cross-examination; Aaron Sorkin adapted the script from his own stage play.

Which Japanese director made Seven Samurai, Rashomon and Yojimbo?

Akira Kurosawa directed all three: Seven Samurai (1954) inspired the Western The Magnificent Seven, Rashomon (1950) was co-written with Shinobu Hashimoto, and Yojimbo (1961) was remade as A Fistful of Dollars.

Which comedy has Bill Murray's TV weatherman reliving the same day over and over?

Groundhog Day (1993), directed by Harold Ramis, traps Bill Murray's weatherman Phil Connors in a repeating 2 February in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania; the title became shorthand for any endlessly repeating situation.

Which John Hughes film confines five students to a Saturday detention?

The Breakfast Club (1985) traps five high-school archetypes — a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal — in Saturday detention at Shermer High; Simple Minds' 'Don't You (Forget About Me)' topped the US chart.

Which Federico Fellini film follows gossip journalist Marcello Rubini through Rome's nightlife?

La Dolce Vita (1960) follows Marcello Mastroianni's journalist Marcello Rubini through the nightlife of the Via Veneto; it won the 1960 Palme d'Or and gave the world the word 'paparazzi', from the photographer Paparazzo.

What did the Jaws crew nickname their constantly failing mechanical sharks?

The mechanical sharks were nicknamed Bruce after the director's lawyer, Bruce Ramer; because the three full-size pneumatic props kept failing, the shark is largely kept off screen and suggested by the score.

Who directed The Godfather (1972)?

Francis Ford Coppola and Puzo shared the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for it.

Which film won Best Picture for 1998 in a famous upset over Saving Private Ryan?

Shakespeare in Love won Best Picture for 1998 over Saving Private Ryan after a heavy Miramax campaign; Gwyneth Paltrow won Best Actress and Judi Dench Best Supporting Actress for about eight minutes on screen.

Who wrote and directed the original Star Wars film?

George Lucas wrote and directed the original Star Wars, later retitled Episode IV – A New Hope; he handed the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, to director Irvin Kershner.

Jurassic Park (1993) was adapted from a 1990 novel by whom?

Michael Crichton co-wrote the screenplay with David Koepp for Steven Spielberg's film.

The Shawshank Redemption was adapted from a 1982 novella by which author?

The novella is titled Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. Frank Darabont wrote and directed the 1994 film.

Which 1994 Quentin Tarantino film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes?

Pulp Fiction took the 1994 Palme d'Or from a jury chaired by Clint Eastwood and went on to gross more than $200 million worldwide on a budget of about $8 million.

The Matrix (1999) was written and directed by which pair of siblings?

The Wachowskis wrote and directed The Matrix; Warner Bros. backed it after the success of their 1996 thriller Bound, and it won four Oscars, including Best Visual Effects.

Casablanca (1942) takes place in a city that was then under French control in which country?

Morocco's Casablanca was under Vichy French control in December 1941, when Rick Blaine runs his nightclub and gambling den there.

In E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Elliott lures the alien back to the house with a trail of which sweet?

Reese's Pieces got the job after Mars refused to let M&M's be used, so the production went with the rival brand.

Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Oscar for which 1939 film?

She won Best Supporting Actress for playing Mammy, and was the first Black actor both nominated for and awarded an Oscar.

What is the name of the sentient computer that controls the Discovery One in 2001: A Space Odyssey?

HAL 9000 stands for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer; it runs Discovery One and turns on the crew, and its calm voice was provided by Canadian actor Douglas Rain.

Which actor was originally cast as Marty McFly and fired weeks into filming Back to the Future?

Eric Stoltz shot for about five weeks before Robert Zemeckis replaced him with Michael J. Fox, the original first choice, who then shot the film at night while taping Family Ties by day.

Roughly how many times was Back to the Future rejected by studios before Universal took it on?

The script was rejected more than forty times, often as not raunchy enough for 1980s teen comedies (Disney found the mother-son romance too risqué); Zemeckis's hit Romancing the Stone (1984) finally unlocked a deal at Universal.

Sylvester Stallone wrote Rocky after watching Muhammad Ali fight which journeyman boxer in 1975?

Chuck Wepner lasted into the 15th round; Stallone wrote the script in about three and a half days and refused to let anyone else star.

How much was John Candy paid for his one day of work on Home Alone?

$414 was Candy's entire fee for playing polka king Gus Polinski; he did it as a favour to John Hughes, shot his scenes in one 23-hour session and improvised much of his dialogue.

Which studio shut down Home Alone over budget concerns before 20th Century Fox picked it up?

Warner Bros. pulled the plug when the budget crept past the $10 million John Hughes had promised; 20th Century Fox took it over, and the film cost about $18 million and grossed $476.7 million worldwide.

Which 1979 film was promoted with the tagline "In space no one can hear you scream"?

Alien (1979), directed by Ridley Scott, carried the line, written by Barbara Gips, whose husband Philip designed the cracking-egg poster; the crew of the space tug Nostromo numbered just seven.

Which Hayao Miyazaki film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2003?

Spirited Away won Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards in March 2003, the first hand-drawn and first non-English-language winner of the category; it had shared Berlin's Golden Bear in 2002.

Which 1959 Billy Wilder comedy ends with the line "Well, nobody's perfect"?

Some Like It Hot's closer was never meant to survive the final cut; Wilder liked it so much that his tombstone reads 'I'm a writer, but then, nobody's perfect'.

Schindler's List was shot in which Polish city, where its real events took place?

Kraków: principal photography ran 72 days in 1993 in and around the city; Roman Polanski, who survived the Kraków ghetto as a child, turned down the chance to direct it.

Which 1973 film became the first horror movie nominated for the Best Picture Oscar?

The Exorcist picked up ten nominations in all and won two, for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound; William Friedkin directed.

Who won the Best Director Oscar for the 2013 space survival film Gravity?

Alfonso Cuarón won Best Director for Gravity at the 86th Academy Awards, where the film led with ten nominations and seven wins; Sandra Bullock's Best Actress nomination was one of its losses.

Fight Club (1999) was adapted from a 1996 novel by which author?

Chuck Palahniuk's 1996 novel was optioned by producer Laura Ziskin for Fox 2000 Pictures, which hired Jim Uhls to write the screenplay that David Fincher directed.

In Rear Window (1954), what is the job of James Stewart's wheelchair-bound character?

L. B. 'Jeff' Jefferies is a photojournalist laid up with a leg broken while shooting a car race, so he passes the time watching the courtyard of his Greenwich Village building.

Who composed the score for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)?

Ennio Morricone composed the score, whose coyote-howl main theme became one of the most recognised pieces of film music; he scored all three of Sergio Leone's Dollars films.

Mel Gibson plays which Scottish warrior in Braveheart (1995)?

William Wallace's story comes via Blind Harry's 15th-century epic poem; the screenplay was written by Randall Wallace, no relation.

In Amélie (2001), the heroine works as a waitress in which district of Paris?

Montmartre: her workplace, the Café des 2 Moulins on rue Lepic, is a real Montmartre café that became a tourist stop after the film; Jean-Pierre Jeunet co-wrote the script with Guillaume Laurant.

Apocalypse Now is loosely based on which Joseph Conrad novella?

Heart of Darkness (1899) supplied the river journey to find Kurtz; screenwriter John Milius moved it from the Congo to the Vietnam War, and production problems stretched the shoot to more than a year.

Blade Runner (1982) adapts a 1968 novel by which science fiction writer?

The source is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Interest in filming it began almost as soon as the book was published.

What is the name of Russell Crowe's betrayed Roman general in Gladiator (2000)?

Maximus Decimus Meridius, betrayed by Commodus and sold as a gladiator; Gladiator won five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Russell Crowe, and grossed about $460 million worldwide.

Which film won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, in 2002?

Shrek won the first Best Animated Feature Oscar at the 74th Academy Awards in March 2002, beating Monsters, Inc. and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius; Ice Age was nominated the following year.

In Dr. Strangelove (1964), how many different characters does Peter Sellers play?

Three: the US President, the RAF exchange officer and the title scientist, for which Sellers was nominated for Best Actor.

Who directed the 1927 German expressionist science-fiction film Metropolis?

The script came from Thea von Harbou's own 1925 novel. Lang said the film was born from his first sight of New York's skyscrapers in 1924.

Which film was wrongly announced as Best Picture at the 2017 Oscars before Moonlight?

La La Land was read out by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway after an envelope mix-up; it still won six awards, the most of the night, from a record-tying fourteen nominations.

Who directed Slumdog Millionaire (2008)?

Danny Boyle directed it and won the Best Director Oscar; the film was loosely based on Vikas Swarup's 2005 novel Q & A, with Loveleen Tandan credited as co-director for the India shoot.

In The Truman Show (1998), what is the name of Truman's island hometown?

Seahaven Island is a set inside a giant domed soundstage, said in the film to be visible from space, where creator Christof controls nearly every detail of Truman's life; exteriors were shot in Seaside, Florida.

Die Hard (1988) takes place almost entirely inside which Los Angeles skyscraper?

Nakatomi Plaza, headquarters of the Nakatomi Corporation, where John McClane arrives on Christmas Eve for his estranged wife's office party; the exterior is Fox Plaza in Century City, Los Angeles.

How many Oscars did Everything Everywhere All at Once win at the 2023 ceremony?

Seven: from eleven nominations it won Best Picture, Best Director, three acting awards (Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis), Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing.

Which actor won Best Actor for playing J. Robert Oppenheimer in the 2023 biopic?

Cillian Murphy became the first Irish-born performer to win the award; the film took seven Oscars from thirteen nominations.

Who directed Barbie, the highest-grossing film of 2023?

Greta Gerwig directed Barbie and wrote it with her partner Noah Baumbach; it grossed about $1.44 billion, the first film directed solely by a woman to pass $1 billion.

In Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, a knight challenges Death to which game?

Chess buys Antonius Block, Max von Sydow's knight back from the Crusades, as long as the game lasts, in a Sweden ravaged by the Black Death.

Which Sunset Boulevard character says "Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up"?

Norma Desmond, Gloria Swanson's faded silent star, delivers the line as she descends her staircase in the final scene; AFI ranked it the seventh-greatest movie quote.

Which 1969 film is the only X-rated movie ever to win the Best Picture Oscar?

Midnight Cowboy (1969) won Best Picture while carrying an X rating, later re-rated R; it also won Best Director for John Schlesinger and Best Adapted Screenplay for Waldo Salt.

In Life of Pi (2012), what is the name of the Bengal tiger stranded with Pi?

Richard Parker, a name the tiger got through a clerical mix-up with his hunter in Yann Martel's novel; boy and tiger share a lifeboat for 227 days, and Ang Lee won Best Director for the film.

In The Shining (1980), which number is Danny warned to stay away from at the hotel?

Room 237 was 217 in the novel but changed for the film; cook Dick Hallorann gives the warning after recognising that the boy 'shines'.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) was filmed largely in the deserts of which African country?

Namibia: unexpected rain turned the original Broken Hill location in Australia into a wildflower meadow, so filming moved to the Namib Desert near Swakopmund in 2012; the film won six Oscars.