1960s Movies
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100 free 1960s Movies trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This 1960s movie trivia quiz covers the films released between 1960 and 1969, from Psycho, Spartacus and The Apartment at the start of the decade to Easy Rider, Butch Cassidy and Midnight Cowboy at the end. Expect the epics (Lawrence of Arabia, Cleopatra, Doctor Zhivago), the musicals (West Side Story, Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Oliver!), the birth of Bond, the spaghetti westerns, Hitchcock's last great scares, Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove and 2001, and the New Hollywood shock of Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who grew up watching these films on television, a third are medium, and the rest dig into casting stories, budgets, records and Oscar trivia that will separate the film buffs from the casual fans. Every Best Picture winner of the decade gets a look-in. Every answer has been checked against an encyclopaedic source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who plays the shy motel proprietor Norman Bates in Hitchcock's Psycho (1960)?
Anthony Perkins
Anthony Perkins played Norman Bates, a role he returned to in Psycho II (1983); Hitchcock shot Psycho in black and white with the crew of his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Q 02Which Billy Wilder comedy, starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, won Best Picture for 1960?
The Apartment
The Apartment won Best Picture for 1960; Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine starred, and it inspired the 1968 Broadway musical Promises, Promises.
Q 03Who replaced the original director of Spartacus (1960) after Kirk Douglas removed him?
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was hired after Kirk Douglas fired Anthony Mann; it was the only film he directed without complete artistic control, a lack he complained about during the shoot.
Q 04Which 1961 musical won 10 Oscars, including Best Picture, from 11 nominations?
West Side Story
West Side Story won 10 of its 11 nominations; co-director Jerome Robbins was dismissed when the film ran over budget, yet he and Robert Wise still shared the Best Director Oscar.
Q 05Who wrote 'Moon River' with Henry Mancini for Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)?
Johnny Mercer
Johnny Mercer wrote the words to Henry Mancini's tune; a Paramount executive wanted the song taken out after a preview, yet it stayed in and won the Best Original Song Oscar.
Q 06Which actor made his debut as James Bond in Dr. No (1962)?
Sean Connery
Sean Connery was not what Ian Fleming had pictured, but the author changed his mind after Dr. No and gave Bond a Scottish father in a later novel.
Q 07Who played T. E. Lawrence in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962)?
Peter O'Toole
Peter O'Toole got the part after Albert Finney, David Lean's first choice, reportedly turned it down; it brought the first of his eight Best Actor nominations.
Q 08Gregory Peck won his Best Actor Oscar for playing which lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)?
Atticus Finch
Atticus Finch was based on Harper Lee's own father, an Alabama lawyer who once defended two Black men accused of murdering a white storekeeper; both were hanged.
Q 09Elizabeth Taylor signed on to Cleopatra (1963) for what record-setting salary?
$1 million
Elizabeth Taylor was paid $1 million plus a share of the gross for Cleopatra; the shoot began at Pinewood in 1960, shut down, and restarted in Rome under Joseph L. Mankiewicz in 1961.
Q 10Which 1963 Best Picture winner starred Albert Finney as Henry Fielding's roguish foundling?
Tom Jones
Tom Jones won four Oscars from ten nominations; Albert Finney had taken 10% of its earnings, and the film's success let him produce his own next picture, Night Must Fall.
Q 11Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) is set in which northern California town?
Bodega Bay
The Birds is set in Bodega Bay, a fishing village on the Sonoma County coast where Hitchcock shot on location; it introduced Tippi Hedren, and Evan Hunter built a new story around Daphne du Maurier's premise.
Q 12Who became the first Black actor to win the Best Actor Oscar, for Lilies of the Field (1963)?
Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier won Best Actor for 1963 as Homer Smith, a handyman who builds a chapel for East German nuns in the Arizona desert; he was the first Black winner of that award.
Q 13Steve McQueen's motorcycle jump is the famous stunt from which 1963 POW film?
The Great Escape
Q 21Which 1965 film overtook Gone with the Wind as the highest-grossing film ever?
The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music passed Gone with the Wind in 1966 and held the record for five years, until a reissue put Gone with the Wind back on top in 1971.
Q 22Doctor Zhivago (1965) could not be shot in the USSR, so which southern European country stood in for snowbound Russia?
Spain
Spain: a whole Moscow street was built outside Madrid, but the snow the crew had counted on largely failed to arrive in the country's warmest winter in 50 years.
Q 23In which 1960s Bond film does 007 flee by jetpack, then battle frogmen over two stolen atomic bombs?
Thunderball
The Great Escape's motorcycle jump was actually performed by stuntman Bud Ekins, McQueen's friend; McQueen won Best Actor at the 1963 Moscow International Film Festival for the role.
Q 14Ray Harryhausen animated a sword fight against seven skeleton warriors for which 1963 film?
Jason and the Argonauts
Jason and the Argonauts sets its hero and two of his men against seven skeletons, a fight that took Ray Harryhausen over four months to animate; he regarded the film as his best.
Q 15In Dr. Strangelove (1964), how many different characters does Peter Sellers play?
Three
Three roles: President Merkin Muffley, Dr. Strangelove himself and RAF Group Captain Mandrake; Peter Sellers was also cast as Major Kong, but a sprained ankle handed that part to Slim Pickens.
Q 16Goldfinger (1964) turned which car into the biggest-selling toy of the year via Corgi?
Aston Martin DB5
Aston Martin DB5: Fleming's novel gave Bond an older DB Mark III, but the filmmakers fitted the firm's new DB5 prototype with gadgets, and sales of the real car rose after the film.
Q 17Mary Poppins (1964) was the feature-film debut of which actress, who won the Best Actress Oscar for it?
Julie Andrews
Julie Andrews made her film debut as Mary Poppins and won Best Actress for 1964, the same year she had been passed over for the screen version of My Fair Lady, her own Broadway role.
Q 18Who played Eliza Doolittle in the 1964 film of My Fair Lady?
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn played Eliza Doolittle, with Marni Nixon dubbing most of her singing; Rex Harrison repeated his stage Higgins and won Best Actor as the film took eight Oscars for 1964.
Q 19Clint Eastwood's first leading role was in which 1964 spaghetti western?
A Fistful of Dollars
A Fistful of Dollars, Sergio Leone's unofficial remake of Kurosawa's Yojimbo, gave Clint Eastwood his first lead for a fee of $15,000; Kurosawa's lawsuit won him a share of the worldwide gross.
Q 20Who directed the Beatles' 1964 film A Hard Day's Night?
Richard Lester
Richard Lester cut the songs to the beat of the music, a style later seen as the forerunner of the pop video; MTV sent him an award naming him 'Father of the Music Video'.
Thunderball was meant to be the first Bond film, but a lawsuit over its story held it back until 1965 and left the man who sued, Kevin McClory, as its credited producer.
Q 24Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) starred which real-life married pair as George and Martha?
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton had married in 1964; to play the 50-year-old Martha, Taylor, still in her early thirties, gained weight and wore a wig, and she won Best Actress.
Q 25Who played Sir Thomas More in the 1966 Best Picture winner A Man for All Seasons?
Paul Scofield
Paul Scofield had played More on the London stage, but the studio wanted a bigger name; director Fred Zinnemann insisted on him, shot on a tight budget, and Scofield won Best Actor.
Q 26In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), who plays 'the Ugly'?
Eli Wallach
Eli Wallach played Tuco, 'the Ugly', alongside Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef; the Italian title, Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, actually orders them good, ugly, bad.
Q 27Which duo recorded the soundtrack for The Graduate (1967), including 'Mrs. Robinson'?
Simon & Garfunkel
Simon & Garfunkel's hit began as a sketch Paul Simon called 'Mrs. Roosevelt'; director Mike Nichols heard it and told him it was now about Mrs. Robinson.
Q 28Who both produced Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and starred in it as Clyde Barrow?
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty produced it at 30 despite the misgivings of studio head Jack Warner; his deal gave him 40% of the profits of what became one of 1967's biggest hits.
Q 29Which 1967 Best Picture winner gave us the line 'They call me Mister Tibbs!'?
In the Heat of the Night
In the Heat of the Night is set in Sparta, Mississippi, but most of it was shot far to the north in Sparta, Illinois; Rod Steiger won Best Actor as the police chief.
Q 30Which actor, who died 17 days after filming ended, made his ninth and final film with Katharine Hepburn in 1967?
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy died on 10 June 1967, 17 days after completing Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, his ninth film with Katharine Hepburn; she said she never watched it because the memories were too painful.