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50 free A Beautiful Mind trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This A Beautiful Mind trivia quiz covers Ron Howard's 2001 Best Picture winner and the mathematician behind it. It starts with the film itself: John Nash arriving at Princeton in 1947, the bar scene that inspires his theory of governing dynamics, William Parcher's Pentagon assignment, Charles and little Marcee, the diode Nash cuts his arm open to find, and the pen ceremony that closes the movie. Then it goes behind the scenes to Akiva Goldsman's decision to hide the hallucinations from the audience, Greg Cannom's ageing makeup, James Horner's score with Charlotte Church, the actresses who nearly played Alicia, and the flash-of-light trick used to show a mathematical epiphany. A separate round covers the real John Forbes Nash Jr.: his Bluefield childhood, the one-line recommendation letter to Princeton, the Nash equilibrium, his 1994 Nobel, the 2015 Abel Prize and the taxi crash that killed him and Alicia days later. There are also questions on what the film changed, from the invented characters to the RAND years it left out. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed A Beautiful Mind?
Ron Howard
It won him the Best Director Oscar the year after How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
Q 02Who plays John Nash?
Russell Crowe
Tom Cruise was considered before the director settled on Crowe.
Q 03Who plays Alicia, Nash's wife?
Jennifer Connelly
The role won her the Best Supporting Actress Oscar; Weisz turned it down and Theron auditioned.
Q 04Who wrote the 1998 biography the film is based on?
Sylvia Nasar
Producer Brian Grazer bought the rights after reading an excerpt in Vanity Fair.
Q 05Which university does Nash arrive at in 1947 at the start of the film?
Princeton
He shares the Carnegie Scholarship for Mathematics with his rival Martin Hansen.
Q 06What is Nash's roommate Charles Herman studying?
Literature
Charles turns out to be a hallucination, as does his niece Marcee.
Q 07What everyday situation inspires Nash's breakthrough on governing dynamics?
Approaching women at a bar
He argues that a cooperative approach beats every man going for the same woman.
Q 08Who plays William Parcher, the shadowy Defense Department handler?
Ed Harris
Between two Oscar-nominated roles, Harris also played a German sniper in Enemy at the Gates the same year.
Q 09What does Parcher have implanted in Nash's arm?
A diode
Nash later slices his arm open to find it and discovers there is nothing there.
Q 10What is Nash's secret assignment for Parcher?
Finding hidden patterns in magazines and newspapers
He grows paranoid as he papers his study with clippings.
Q 11Where is Nash giving a guest lecture when he is forcibly sedated?
Harvard
The Harvard scenes were actually shot at Manhattan University; Harvard rarely allows filming since Love Story damaged its trees.
Q 12Who plays Dr. Rosen, the psychiatrist?
Christopher Plummer
He had just played Mike Wallace in The Insider, also opposite Crowe.
Q 13What treatment is Nash given after his diagnosis?
Insulin shock therapy
He later stops his antipsychotic medication in secret because of the side effects.
What clue finally convinces Nash that his companions are hallucinations?
Q 21What was Goldsman's central storytelling trick?
Hiding that scenes are hallucinations until a set point
The idea was to let the audience experience Nash's confusion for themselves.
Q 22How did the director decide Nash's hallucinations should always be introduced?
First heard, then seen
The real Nash only ever had auditory hallucinations.
Q 23What visual device signals one of Nash's mathematical epiphanies?
A flash of light over an object or person
Marcee never ages
The little girl has stayed the same age for years.
Q 15Where does Alicia find the baby when she discovers Nash has relapsed?
In a running bathtub
Nash was convinced Charles was watching the child.
Q 16Who plays Charles, the imaginary roommate?
Paul Bettany
He met his future wife, who plays Alicia, on the set and married her in 2003.
Q 17Which honour does Nash receive in the film's 1994 climax?
The Nobel in Economics
He shared the real 1994 prize with John Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten.
Q 18What do the professors do to honor Nash near the end of the film?
Lay their pens on his table
The pen ceremony tradition is entirely fictional.
Q 19Which mathematician had a cameo as a professor laying down his pen?
Dave Bayer
The Barnard College professor was the film's mathematics consultant.
Q 20Who wrote the screenplay?
Akiva Goldsman
He won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar and later reteamed with the same director on The Da Vinci Code.
Mathematicians described such moments to the filmmakers as 'the smoke clearing'.
Q 24Who composed the score?
James Horner
He and the director talked about maths being like a kaleidoscope of evolving ideas.
Q 25Which Welsh singer performs the soprano vocals on the score?
Charlotte Church
Horner wanted a voice balanced between a child's and an adult's.
Q 26Who created the ageing makeup, developing a new silicone that halved application time?
Greg Cannom
Crowe asked that the makeup push his features toward the real Nash's face.
Q 27Roughly what proportion of the film was shot in chronological order?
90%
Three separate trips were made to the real university campus.
Q 28Which actor was the director's earlier, abandoned schizophrenia film Laws of Madness going to star?
Brad Pitt
It was scrapped after its real-life subject, Michael Laudor, killed his fiancée in 1998.
Q 29How many Oscars did A Beautiful Mind win?
Four
Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay and Supporting Actress; Crowe went home empty-handed.
Q 30Which film led the nominations that year with thirteen, ahead of A Beautiful Mind's eight?
The Fellowship of the Ring
Fellowship also won four awards on the night.