2000s Movies
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This 2000s movie trivia quiz has 119 free questions with answers and covers the films released between 2000 and 2009, from Gladiator and Memento at the start of the decade to Avatar and The Hangover at the end. Expect the blockbusters (Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Spider-Man, The Dark Knight, Iron Man), the comedies everyone still quotes (Mean Girls, Anchorman, Napoleon Dynamite, Superbad, Zoolander, Elf), the Pixar and DreamWorks hits, and every Best Picture winner from Gladiator to The Hurt Locker. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who went to the movies in the 2000s, a third are medium, and the rest dig into casting stories, box-office records and behind-the-scenes details that will separate the film buffs from the casual fans. Every answer has been checked against a primary or encyclopaedic source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 119 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which 2000 film won Best Picture and Best Actor for Russell Crowe as the general-turned-slave Maximus?
Gladiator
Gladiator won Best Picture and Best Actor for Russell Crowe; Oliver Reed, who played the trainer Proximo, died mid-shoot, so his last scenes were finished with a body double and a digital copy of his face.
Q 02In Ridley Scott's 2000 Roman epic, which actor played the emperor Commodus opposite Russell Crowe?
Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Phoenix's Commodus dies in a duel in the Colosseum, but the real emperor was strangled by a champion wrestler on the last day of AD 192, in a plot hatched by his own advisers.
Q 03What condition does Guy Pearce's Leonard suffer from in Christopher Nolan's Memento (2000)?
Anterograde amnesia
Leonard has anterograde amnesia: he cannot form new memories after his injury, so he relies on Polaroids, notes and tattoos; Nolan adapted the story from his brother Jonathan's short story 'Memento Mori'.
Q 04In Cast Away (2000), Tom Hanks's character Chuck Noland works as a systems analyst for which company?
FedEx
Noland works for FedEx, which appears throughout the film without paying for the placement; production paused for a year so Hanks could lose about 50 pounds and grow out his hair and beard.
Q 05Which company made the volleyball that is Chuck Noland's companion in Cast Away, giving it its name?
Wilson
Wilson is the brand printed on the ball, so Chuck gives it that name; screenwriter William Broyles Jr. got the idea when a stray ball washed up on the beach where he had marooned himself for research.
Q 06Which 2001 film was the first ever winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature?
Shrek
Shrek was first voiced by Chris Farley, who had recorded most of the ogre's dialogue before his death in 1997; Mike Myers then took over the role.
Q 07Which author and illustrator wrote the 1990 picture book behind DreamWorks' hit about a grumpy green ogre?
William Steig
William Steig spent decades as a New Yorker cartoonist and only turned to children's books in his sixties; he was in his eighties when this one appeared.
Q 08Which actor voiced Lord Farquaad, the pint-sized tyrant who sends an ogre to rescue Princess Fiona?
John Lithgow
John Lithgow's Lord Farquaad is told he can only become a king by marrying a princess, so he picks Fiona from the Magic Mirror's line-up of three and sends someone else to face her dragon.
Q 09Which Home Alone filmmaker directed Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001)?
Chris Columbus
Chris Columbus directed the first two Harry Potter films; his Dumbledore, Richard Harris, had turned the part down and changed his mind only when his young granddaughter insisted he take it.
Q 10Which word replaced 'Philosopher's' in the American title of the first Harry Potter film?
Sorcerer's
Sorcerer's Stone was the title Scholastic gave the book in the United States, so the cast filmed every scene that names the stone twice, once for each title.
Q 11In Zoolander, Mugatu brainwashes Derek into assassinating the prime minister of which country?
Malaysia
Malaysia's film censors called the comedy 'definitely unsuitable' and it never played there; neighbouring Singapore went further and banned it outright.
Q 12Which American actress played the very British heroine of Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)?
Renée Zellweger
Renée Zellweger prepared by spending weeks undercover at a London publisher, working as a trainee in its publicity department while a dialect coach tuned her English accent.
Q 13Which actor played Peter Parker when Spider-Man (2002) became cinema's first $100 million opening weekend?
Tobey Maguire
Q 21The Bride's yellow tracksuit in Kill Bill: Volume 1 pays homage to which unfinished Bruce Lee film?
Game of Death
Game of Death was still unfinished when Bruce Lee died in 1973; the studio pieced it together with stand-ins and released it five years later, yellow-and-black jumpsuit and all.
Q 22In School of Rock (2003), Dewey Finn poses as a substitute teacher at which prep school?
Horace Green
Dewey gets into Horace Green by taking a phone call meant for his roommate Ned Schneebly and turning up in his place; Ned is played by Mike White, who also wrote the film.
Q 23In Elf (2003), Buddy's love interest Jovie works at which New York department store?
Gimbels
Tobey Maguire shot the famous upside-down kiss in pouring rain with water running into his nose, leaving him gasping for breath between takes.
Q 14Which actor played Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, in Spider-Man (2002)?
Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe insisted on wearing the Goblin suit and doing nearly all the physical work himself, feeling that a stuntman could not carry the character's body language.
Q 15The Ring (2002), starring Naomi Watts, was an American remake of a horror film from which country?
Japan
Japan's Ringu, Hideo Nakata's 1998 thriller about a cursed videotape, came first; Hollywood followed it with remakes of other Japanese horrors, such as The Grudge two years later.
Q 16In which country is Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth (2006) set?
Spain
Spain's civil war had ended five years before the film's 1944 setting, yet guerrillas still fight Franco's troops from the forest, hunted by Ofelia's stepfather, a Francoist captain.
Q 17Peter Jackson shot the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy back to back in which country?
New Zealand
New Zealand, Jackson's homeland, was so keen to cash in that its government gave a cabinet member, Pete Hodgson, the job the press called 'Minister of the Rings'.
Q 18Johnny Depp said he based his Captain Jack Sparrow performance on which rock star?
Keith Richards
Keith Richards returned the compliment four years later, turning up in the third film, At World's End, as Jack's father, Captain Teague.
Q 19In Finding Nemo (2003), what kind of fish are Marlin and his son Nemo?
Clownfish
Clownfish are all born male, and when a group's dominant female dies her mate changes sex to take her place, a twist the film leaves out of the widowed Marlin's story.
Q 20Which comedian and talk-show host voiced the forgetful fish Dory in Finding Nemo?
Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen DeGeneres voiced Dory; director Andrew Stanton wrote the part for her after hearing her change subject five times in one sentence on her sitcom.
Gimbels was a real Manhattan store, the great rival of Macy's, but the chain had shut for good in 1987, sixteen years before Buddy turned up to redecorate it overnight.
Q 24Which Rosalind Wiseman parenting book was Tina Fey's Mean Girls (2004) based on?
Queen Bees and Wannabes
Queen Bees and Wannabes is a non-fiction guide for the parents of teenage girls, with advice but no story, so the plot and characters of Mean Girls are Tina Fey's own invention.
Q 25In Mean Girls, what is the Plastics' scrapbook of insults about classmates and teachers called?
The Burn Book
The Burn Book comes back to bite: Regina writes herself into it, then scatters its pages through the school corridors so that the blame lands on Cady and the other Plastics.
Q 26Napoleon Dynamite (2004) is set in Preston, in which US state?
Idaho
Idaho's Preston is where director Jared Hess went to high school; he went back to shoot his first film there, and the state legislature later passed a resolution commending him and the town.
Q 27How much was Jon Heder originally paid for starring in Napoleon Dynamite?
$1,000
$1,000 was Jon Heder's whole fee for the lead; once the box-office millions began rolling in, he renegotiated and received a cut of the profits.
Q 28Anchorman (2004) is set at KVWN Channel 4, a 1970s TV station in which city?
San Diego
San Diego's news team left so much on the cutting-room floor that the outtakes and abandoned subplots were stitched into a whole second film, Wake Up, Ron Burgundy, released straight to DVD.
Q 29In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, what is the memory-erasing firm called?
Lacuna
Lacuna Inc. wipes Clementine from Joel's memory only because he discovers she has already had him erased; the title is a line from Alexander Pope's poem 'Eloisa to Abelard'.
Q 30The Passion of the Christ (2004) is entirely in Latin, Hebrew and which other language?
Aramaic
Aramaic and the other two were meant to go untranslated: Mel Gibson first planned to release the film with no subtitles at all, trusting the images to carry the story.