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50 free A Few Good Men trivia questions with answers. A Few Good Men is the courtroom drama everyone can quote, and this quiz digs well past the famous line. The questions cover Rob Reiner's 1992 film and Aaron Sorkin's 1989 play: the cast from Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson and Demi Moore down to the bit parts that launched Noah Wyle and Joshua Malina, the plot from Santiago's death to the verdict, the real 1986 Guantanamo hazing that inspired it, Sorkin's cocktail-napkin drafts, the Broadway and West End productions, the Oscar nominations and the box office. Easy questions ask who directed it and where the story is set; the hard ones want the musical Sorkin was bartending during, the university whose cadets performed the opening drill, and the real Marine found murdered in 1994. Good for movie-night arguments and anyone who has watched the cross-examination scene more times than they will admit. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the film, the play and the people involved, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
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Q 01Who directed the 1992 film A Few Good Men?
Rob Reiner
Reiner also produced it, and it became the most commercially successful film of his career.
Q 02Who wrote the screenplay, adapting his own 1989 stage play?
Aaron Sorkin
It was Sorkin's first produced screenplay; The American President and The West Wing followed.
Q 03Who plays Navy lawyer Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee?
Tom Cruise
He was cast on March 22, 1991, six years after playing another cocky Navy officer in Top Gun.
Q 04Who plays Colonel Nathan Jessep, the base commander at the center of the case?
Jack Nicholson
The role earned him his tenth Oscar nomination despite only about ten days on set.
Q 05Which actress plays Lieutenant Commander Joanne Galloway?
Demi Moore
The part came between Ghost and Indecent Proposal in her hottest run of box-office years.
Q 06Who plays the prosecutor, Marine Captain Jack Ross?
Kevin Bacon
He made the film the year after playing Willie O'Keefe in Oliver Stone's JFK.
Q 07Who plays Santiago's hard-line platoon commander, the lieutenant accused of relaying the order?
Kiefer Sutherland
He had already worked with Reiner as the bully Ace in Stand by Me.
Q 08Which actor and impressionist plays Kaffee's co-counsel Sam Weinberg?
Kevin Pollak
Weinberg is one of many best-friend-of-the-lead roles in his career, alongside Grumpy Old Men and The Usual Suspects.
Q 09Which Seinfeld actor was originally cast as Weinberg but had to withdraw?
Jason Alexander
Seinfeld's second-season renewal pulled him out, and a stand-up comic best known for his impressions took over the part.
Q 10Who plays Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Markinson, the officer who secretly meets Kaffee?
J. T. Walsh
Walsh and Nicholson also appeared together in Hoffa that same year; Nicholson later dedicated his As Good as It Gets Oscar to him.
Q 11At which military base does Private Santiago die?
Guantanamo Bay
The base is on Cuba's south shore, and Santiago's request to be transferred off it is what sets the plot in motion.
Q 12What term do the defendants use for the unofficial punishment they were ordered to inflict?
Code red
The phrase was reportedly real Marine slang for hazing at the time but has since dropped out of use.
Q 13What does Kaffee realize about Santiago's wall locker that exposes the transfer story as a lie?
His clothes were never packed
The epiphany hits Kaffee while staring into his own closet, and it is what convinces him to put Jessep on the stand.
Q 21Which veteran screenwriter's uncredited rewrite did Sorkin like so much he folded it back into A Few Good Men?
William Goldman
Goldman later became a mentor to Sorkin.
Q 22What 'smoking gun' from the stage version was removed for the film?
A forged logbook
Without it, the film's climax rests entirely on Kaffee provoking Jessep into confessing on the stand.
Q 23Which production company, co-founded by the director in 1987, made the film?
Castle Rock Entertainment
Alan Horn at the company called the producer after TriStar had passed on the project for lacking stars.
Q 14Of what are the two defendants ultimately convicted?
Conduct unbecoming
They are cleared of murder and conspiracy but still face dishonorable discharge, which Downey cannot understand.
Q 15The film's title comes from what?
A Marine recruiting slogan
The Marines were 'looking for a few good men' in a recruiting campaign that ran from 1971 to 1984.
Q 16A phone call from which relative gave Sorkin the idea for the story?
His sister
Deborah Sorkin was heading to Guantanamo to defend Marines accused in a hazing ordered by a superior officer.
Q 17Sorkin famously drafted much of the story on cocktail napkins while doing what job?
Bartending at a Broadway theatre
He typed the napkins into a computer each night when he got home, building up many drafts.
Q 18Sorkin was tending bar during the first act of which musical when he scribbled those napkins?
La Cage aux Folles
The show was running at the Palace Theatre, where he worked the bar.
Q 19On which computer did Sorkin type up his napkin notes?
Macintosh 512K
He and his roommates had bought it together, and he would empty his pockets of napkins into it each night.
Q 20Which producer bought the film rights in 1988, before the play had even premiered?
David Brown
Brown had read about Sorkin's one-act play Hidden in This Picture in The New York Times, and the deal was reportedly well into six figures.
Q 24Roughly how much did the film gross worldwide?
$243 million
The budget was between $33 and $40 million, and it held the number one spot at the US box office for three straight weeks.
Q 25What was the film's lead reportedly paid for playing Kaffee?
$12.5 million
Demi Moore later matched that figure with her then-record $12.5 million for Striptease.
Q 26Nicholson earned $500,000 a day for how many days of shooting?
Ten
That works out to $500,000 a day, which he called one of the few times the money was well spent.
Q 27Which actor auditioned for Jessep before the role went to Nicholson?
James Woods
Nicholson later grumbled that Columbia moved the release date to compete directly with his other 1992 film.
Q 28Nicholson complained that Columbia moved the release to clash with which of his other 1992 films?
Hoffa
Hoffa opened on Christmas Day 1992, and Nicholson blamed its weak performance on the scheduling.
Q 29The film was up for how many Academy Awards?
Four
Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Nicholson, Best Film Editing and Best Sound; it went home empty-handed.
Q 30Which film beat A Few Good Men to the Best Picture Oscar that year?
Unforgiven
A Few Good Men was actually the highest-grossing of the five Best Picture nominees.