80s Movie Trivia
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148 free 80s Movie trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
52 free 80s Movie trivia questions with answers. The 1980s gave us the blockbuster as we know it. E.T. broke every record, Back to the Future recast its lead a month into filming, and a Christmas action movie about a barefoot cop rewrote the rules of the genre. This quiz runs the whole decade, from The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 to Driving Miss Daisy in 1989. Expect the crowd-pleasers you can quote by heart alongside the questions that separate the casual fan from the film buff: which action star was originally cast as the Predator, why room 217 became room 237, and how much cash Ford offered to swap the DeLorean for a Mustang. There are easy warm-ups, a solid middle, and a handful of genuinely hard ones about Oscar history and production trivia. Every answer was checked against the film's own history and primary references, so you can play these 80's movie trivia questions and answers at a movie night or trivia party without worrying about a wrong answer sparking an argument.
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Q 01In E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which candy does Elliott use to lure the alien into his home?
Reese's Pieces
Reese's Pieces got the part after Mars turned down a request to use M&M's; Hershey said yes, and within two weeks of the film's 1982 release sales of the candy had soared.
Q 02Which Spielberg film finally took E.T.'s title as highest-grossing film of all time, in 1993?
Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park took the worldwide record from E.T. in 1993, yet E.T. stayed North America's top earner for four more years, until the Star Wars Special Edition reissue overtook it.
Q 03Which actor was originally cast as Marty McFly in Back to the Future and replaced weeks into filming?
Eric Stoltz
Eric Stoltz spent several weeks filming before Robert Zemeckis decided he was wrong for the part; reshooting his scenes with first choice Michael J. Fox added $4 million to the budget.
Q 04At what speed does the DeLorean in Back to the Future activate time travel?
88 mph
88 mph gave the crew a problem: a 1979 federal rule had capped car speedometers at 85 mph, so they had to build the DeLorean a custom dial to show it.
Q 05Which carmaker offered $75,000 to have Doc Brown's time machine be one of its cars instead of a DeLorean?
Ford
Ford offered $75,000 to make the time machine a Mustang; co-writer Bob Gale replied that Doc Brown does not drive a Mustang. Early drafts had the machine inside a refrigerator.
Q 06The Breakfast Club's five students serve Saturday detention at which fictional Illinois school?
Shermer High
Shermer High School, in John Hughes's fictional Shermer, Illinois, is the setting; the library set was built in a gym because the real library at Maine North High School was too small.
Q 07Which band performed The Breakfast Club anthem "Don't You (Forget About Me)"?
Simple Minds
Simple Minds turned the song down flat at first, wanting to record only their own material, and relented after Bryan Ferry had passed on it too; it then took them to No. 1 in America.
Q 08Whom did George Lucas hire to direct The Empire Strikes Back in his place?
Irvin Kershner
Irvin Kershner, whom Lucas had known as a teacher in USC's film program, took the job; Lucas wanted to avoid the stress he had suffered directing Star Wars and concentrated on his effects company.
Q 09Who voiced and puppeteered Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back?
Frank Oz
Frank Oz, Jim Henson's longtime Muppets collaborator, performed and voiced Yoda; Lucas had considered dubbing in another actor's voice but kept Oz's.
Q 10Which TV star was cast as Indiana Jones before contractual obligations forced him out?
Tom Selleck
Tom Selleck had been cast, but CBS held him to his Magnum, P.I. contract, so Harrison Ford took the part of Indiana Jones weeks before shooting began.
Q 11How does Indiana Jones beat the Cairo swordsman in Raiders?
Shoots him
Shoots him: the scene was planned as a long whip-against-sword duel, but the film's star was sick with dysentery in Tunisia, so the whole fight shrank to a single weary gunshot.
Q 12In Ghostbusters, what form does Gozer take after Ray thinks of a childhood corporate mascot?
The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man
Ray's thought of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, a fictional brand mascot, becomes Gozer's destructor form; the team destroys it by crossing the streams Egon had warned against.
Q 13The real firehouse used as the Ghostbusters headquarters exterior stands in which Manhattan neighbourhood?
Tribeca
Q 21Which car does Ferris borrow from Cameron's father in Ferris Bueller's Day Off?
Ferrari 250 GT California
The Ferrari 250 GT California was far too rare to wreck, with only about 100 ever built, so John Hughes had replicas made for the wide shots and the crash.
Q 22During the parade in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Ferris lip-syncs "Danke Schoen" and which Beatles song?
Twist and Shout
Ferris mimes the Beatles' 1963 recording of 'Twist and Shout' from a parade float; the scene was shot during Chicago's real Von Steuben Day Parade in September 1985.
Q 23Which former football star did Orion suggest for the Terminator before Cameron rejected him?
O. J. Simpson
Tribeca is home to Hook & Ladder Company 8 on North Moore Street; it was a working station the crew could not take over, so the interiors were shot in a disused Los Angeles firehouse.
Q 14Who sang the number-one theme song to Ghostbusters?
Ray Parker Jr.
Ray Parker Jr. held number one for three weeks, then was sued by Huey Lewis, who said the theme copied his 'I Want a New Drug'; the two settled out of court.
Q 15In The Shining, which room number replaced the novel's Room 217 at the request of the hotel used for exteriors?
237
237 was a room the real hotel did not have: Oregon's Timberline Lodge asked Kubrick to drop the novel's 217, fearing guests would refuse to sleep in a room made infamous by a horror film.
Q 16Jack Nicholson's improvised 'Here's Johnny' line in The Shining borrowed Ed McMahon's introduction from which TV show?
The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson opened with McMahon's cry; Kubrick, long resident in England, did not recognize the reference and nearly used a different take.
Q 17The 1988 action film Die Hard was adapted from which 1979 novel by Roderick Thorp?
Nothing Lasts Forever
Nothing Lasts Forever came to Thorp in a dream after he watched The Towering Inferno; as the sequel to The Detective, filmed with Frank Sinatra, it obliged the studio to offer him the lead first.
Q 18Die Hard was filmed almost entirely in and around which real Los Angeles skyscraper?
Fox Plaza
Fox Plaza, 20th Century Fox's own newly built Century City tower, played Nakatomi Plaza; it was still under construction, so the crew could stage action on its unfinished floors.
Q 19What is Maverick's real name in Top Gun?
Pete Mitchell
Pete Mitchell is Maverick's real name; Tom Cruise, offered the role while filming Legend in London, was reluctant until that film's director, Ridley Scott, brother of Top Gun's Tony Scott, talked him into it.
Q 20Which band's song from Top Gun won the Academy Award for Best Original Song?
Berlin
Berlin's 'Take My Breath Away' won the Oscar but divided the band: founder John Crawford disliked a hit none of them had written, and the group broke up in 1987, the year of its win.
Orion's Mike Medavoy suggested O. J. Simpson, but James Cameron felt the affable Simpson would not be believable as a killer; Schwarzenegger, first proposed for Kyle Reese, took the role instead.
Q 24Which Terminator line did Schwarzenegger ask to change because he struggled with one word?
"I'll be back"
The line is 'I'll be back'; Schwarzenegger found the contraction awkward and asked for 'I will be back', but Cameron refused, and the phrase recurred in Schwarzenegger's later films.
Q 25Which film imagined a neon, rain-soaked Los Angeles of 2019?
Blade Runner
Blade Runner moved its story to Los Angeles: the Philip K. Dick novel it adapts, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, takes place in San Francisco.
Q 26Which actor was originally attached to play Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop and rewrote it as a straight action film?
Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone stripped out the comedy and renamed the hero Axel Cobretti; the studio rejected his costly rewrite, so he carried the ideas into Cobra and Eddie Murphy took the part.
Q 27Who composed and performed the Beverly Hills Cop instrumental theme "Axel F"?
Harold Faltermeyer
Harold Faltermeyer played every instrument on 'Axel F' himself; by his account the producers were lukewarm about the theme until director Martin Brest backed it, and it went on to reach No. 3 in America.
Q 28Sigourney Weaver earned a rare Oscar nomination for a science-fiction role in which film?
Aliens
Aliens earned Weaver a Best Actress nomination, yet the studio had tried to make it without her to avoid her salary; James Cameron and producer Gale Anne Hurd quit until she was kept as the star.
Q 29In The Princess Bride, which phrase of Westley's does Buttercup come to realize is a declaration of love?
"As you wish"
"As you wish" is all Westley ever says to her orders, and it means he loves her; the grandfather closes the film with the same words when asked to read the story again.
Q 30Which professional wrestler played the rhyme-loving Fezzik in The Princess Bride?
André the Giant
André the Giant joined when a clashing wrestling date in Tokyo was cancelled; in pain after back surgery, the strongman could not lift Robin Wright, who was suspended on cables instead.