1990 Movie Trivia
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70 free 1990 Movie trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
1990 was a strange, brilliant year at the movies. A pottery-wheel romance became the biggest film in the world, an eight-year-old defending his house became a Christmas institution, and a submarine thriller, a Coen brothers gangster picture and a Kevin Costner Western all landed within months of each other. This 1990 movie trivia quiz has 70 free questions with answers on the films released that year, and only that year, so it goes deeper than any 90s round. The easy questions cover the hits everyone has seen: Home Alone, Pretty Woman, Die Hard 2, Kindergarten Cop, Predator 2, Back to the Future Part III. The harder ones ask which studio walked away from Home Alone, what Pretty Woman was originally called, where Total Recall was filmed, which pulp hero Sam Raimi wanted before he invented Darkman, and which effects house built the Ninja Turtles. There are questions on the year's Oscar winners, on cult favourites like Tremors, Troll 2 and Jacob's Ladder, and on the foreign films that broke through, from Nikita to Cyrano. Every answer has been checked against a reference page and each question shows its source once you answer, so you can settle arguments as well as start them.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which film was the highest-grossing movie of 1990 at the worldwide box office?
Ghost
Ghost took more than $500 million worldwide on a budget of about $22 million, edging out Home Alone, which beat it by almost $70 million in North America.
Q 02In Home Alone, Kevin McCallister's family accidentally leaves him behind while flying to which city?
Paris
The McCallisters fly to Paris for Christmas; eight-year-old Kevin, asleep in the attic, is left to defend the suburban Chicago house against two burglars.
Q 03Which studio rescued Home Alone after Warner Bros. shut it down over a rising budget?
20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox took the film on after Warner Bros. halted it for going over budget; John Hughes had quietly sounded Fox out in advance, and it grossed more than $470 million worldwide.
Q 04What was the title of the original, much darker screenplay that became Pretty Woman?
3000
The script was called 3000, after the $3,000 Vivian is paid for the week; Disney's Touchstone softened J.F. Lawton's dark drama into a romantic comedy.
Q 05Pretty Woman takes its title from a 1964 song by which singer?
Roy Orbison
Roy Orbison's 'Oh, Pretty Woman' gave the film its title; he wrote it after co-writer Bill Dees joked that a pretty woman never needs any money as Orbison's wife headed out shopping.
Q 06Goodfellas is adapted from which 1985 nonfiction book by Nicholas Pileggi?
Wiseguy
Wiseguy is Pileggi's account of Henry Hill, a mob associate turned informant; Scorsese retitled the film because a Brian De Palma comedy and a TV crime series had just used near-identical names.
Q 07Which actor won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Goodfellas?
Joe Pesci
Joe Pesci won Best Supporting Actor as Tommy DeVito, the film's only win from six nominations; his 'funny how?' scene grew out of improvised rehearsals.
Q 08Much of the dialogue in Dances With Wolves is spoken in which language, with English subtitles?
Lakota
Lakota: Doris Leader Charge of Sinte Gleska University translated the script and coached the cast, and much of the film was shot in South Dakota.
Q 09Who won the Best Director Oscar for Dances With Wolves on his directing debut?
Kevin Costner
Kevin Costner had urged writer Michael Blake to turn his Western screenplay into a novel, then bought the rights and directed it himself; the film won seven Oscars from twelve nominations.
Q 10Total Recall was filmed on vast sets at the Estudios Churubusco studios in which country?
Mexico
Mexico: the production built its Mars at Estudios Churubusco in the capital and also shot in Mexico City's Metro stations, which doubled as the future.
Q 11Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, is based on a short story by which science fiction author?
Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick's 1966 story 'We Can Remember It for You Wholesale' was bought for the screen by Ronald Shusett in 1974; a planned sequel later became Minority Report.
Q 12Which horror legend plays the Inventor in Edward Scissorhands?
Vincent Price
Vincent Price plays the Inventor, Edward's creator, who dies before finishing him; Price had narrated Burton's 1982 animated short Vincent.
Q 13Tim Burton drew Edward Scissorhands from his childhood in which suburban California city?
Burbank
Burbank: Burton based the pastel suburb on his own neighbourhood there, though the film was shot in Lutz, Florida, with Caroline Thompson writing the script.
Q 21Which film was Ivan Reitman's first collaboration with Arnold Schwarzenegger, before Kindergarten Cop?
Twins
Twins (1988) paired Schwarzenegger with Danny DeVito as unlikely brothers; with the studio wary of him in a comedy, he, DeVito and Reitman gave up their salaries for a share of the profits.
Q 22In Misery, which actor plays novelist Paul Sheldon, held captive by his obsessive fan Annie Wilkes?
James Caan
James Caan took the role after several leading men passed; Kathy Bates won Best Actress as Annie Wilkes in Rob Reiner's adaptation of Stephen King's novel.
Q 23In Back to the Future Part III, what name does Marty McFly go by in the Old West?
Clint Eastwood
Q 14The turtle costumes in the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film were built by which effects company?
Jim Henson's Creature Shop
Jim Henson's Creature Shop built the suits in London, with puppeteers working each turtle's face by remote control; Henson died in May 1990, less than two months after the film opened.
Q 15Which independent studio, then best known for Freddy Krueger, picked up the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film mid-production?
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, 'the house that Freddy built', took the film on after the major studios passed, fearing a flop; made for about $13.5 million, it grossed over $200 million.
Q 16Die Hard 2 traps John McClane at which airport as terrorists seize the air traffic control system?
Washington Dulles
Washington Dulles is snowed in while mercenaries seize its landing systems; McClane must fight past airport police and a military commander as planes circle low on fuel.
Q 17Who directed Die Hard 2 after John McTiernan left to make The Hunt for Red October?
Renny Harlin
Renny Harlin, who had made A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, took over; the script was adapted from Walter Wager's novel 58 Minutes, a thriller that had nothing to do with John McClane.
Q 18The Hunt for Red October is adapted from a 1984 novel by which author?
Tom Clancy
Tom Clancy was an insurance agent when the Naval Institute Press bought his debut for $5,000 as its first novel; it introduced CIA analyst Jack Ryan, played on screen by Alec Baldwin.
Q 19In which category did The Hunt for Red October win its only Academy Award?
Best Sound Editing
Best Sound Editing was the only Oscar, from three nominations, for a thriller whose Soviet submarine is built to slip past sonar unheard; its other nods were for Sound and Film Editing.
Q 20Kindergarten Cop's school scenes were shot in which Oregon town, already famous as the home of The Goonies?
Astoria
Astoria's John Jacob Astor Elementary played the film's school; most of the filming took place after term ended in June 1990, which let pupils and teachers appear as extras.
Clint Eastwood is the alias Marty gives in 1885; he later survives a duel with Buford 'Mad Dog' Tannen by wearing a stove door as a bulletproof vest.
Q 24What title did the filmmakers want for The Godfather Part III before Paramount rejected it?
The Death of Michael Corleone
The Death of Michael Corleone was the title they wanted, seeing the film as an epilogue to the saga; the 2020 recut finally used it, as The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone.
Q 25Who played Mary Corleone in The Godfather Part III after Winona Ryder withdrew from the role?
Sofia Coppola
Sofia Coppola, the director's daughter, stepped in when Winona Ryder withdrew with nervous exhaustion, and her casting drew charges of nepotism; she later won a screenwriting Oscar for Lost in Translation.
Q 26Who produced, directed and starred in the 1990 comic-strip adaptation Dick Tracy?
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty produced, directed and starred as Tracy, and held the film to a few flat primary colours to echo the comic strip; Al Pacino was Oscar-nominated as Big Boy Caprice.
Q 27Tremors is set in which fictional isolated Nevada desert town?
Perfection
The town is Perfection, Nevada, menaced by subterranean worms nicknamed Graboids; the film was shot in Inyo County, California, on a purpose-built set near Lone Pine.
Q 28Which country singer made her acting debut in Tremors?
Reba McEntire
Reba McEntire plays survivalist Heather Gummer, wife of Michael Gross's Burt, in her first acting role; she postponed her honeymoon until the shoot was over.
Q 29Which actor plays exterminator Delbert McClintock in the spider thriller Arachnophobia?
John Goodman
John Goodman plays exterminator Delbert McClintock; the film used more than 300 Avondale spiders from New Zealand, chosen because they are big but harmless to people.
Q 30The five main characters in Flatliners, who deliberately induce near-death experiences, are what?
Medical students
Medical students: four of the five have their hearts stopped in turn, then find themselves haunted by figures from their pasts; Kiefer Sutherland, who led the cast, returned for the 2017 follow-up.