A River Runs Through It
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40 free A River Runs Through It trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
A River Runs Through It is a story about two brothers, the stern minister who raised them and the trout streams of Montana. It was told first in a slim 1976 novella and then in a 1992 film that sent a generation to the water with fly rods. It is quiet, funny and finally heartbreaking, which is why people keep going back to it. This quiz covers both versions: what happens to Norman and Paul, who played them, where and how the film was made, the awards it chased, and the life of the man who wrote the book in his seventies. It suits anyone who has seen the film or read the novella, for class or for pleasure. Most questions reward a good memory of the story, and a few reach into the production and the author's life for the keenest fans.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actor won career-making praise as the reckless Paul Maclean in A River Runs Through It?
Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt won most of the praise, and the part is often called his career-making performance. He was his own harshest critic, saying later that he could have done better.
Q 02Which children's author followed Norman Maclean as editor-in-chief of his college humor magazine?
Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss, then a student called Theodor Geisel, took over the Jack-O-Lantern when Maclean stepped down. Maclean remembered his successor as the craziest guy he had ever met.
Q 03Narration written for A River Runs Through It is engraved beneath an arena statue of which basketball great?
Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan's statue at the United Center carries the film's words about watching a moment of perfection. The passage was written for the screen and does not appear in the novella.
Q 04Which child actor won a Young Artist Award for playing the boy Norman Maclean in A River Runs Through It?
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Joseph Gordon-Levitt was ten when the film was shot, and his category was for film actors under ten. He grew up to star in Inception and The Dark Knight Rises.
Q 05Which Academy Award did A River Runs Through It win, its only Oscar from three nominations?
Best Cinematography
Best Cinematography went to Philippe Rousselot, a Frenchman who has also won three César Awards at home. The film's score and its screenplay were nominated but lost.
Q 06Which Hollywood star directed A River Runs Through It and also narrates it as the older Norman Maclean?
Robert Redford
Robert Redford auditioned 26 actors for the voice-over before deciding to read it himself. He had been captivated by the novella ever since reading it in 1980.
Q 07What does Neal Burns bring on the fishing trip in A River Runs Through It, proving he is no fly fisherman?
A can of worms
A can of worms marks Neal as a bait fisherman among men raised to cast a fly. He also turns up drunk, and spends the day drinking instead of fishing.
Q 08Reverend Maclean of A River Runs Through It, who treats fly fishing almost as worship, preaches in which church?
Presbyterian
Presbyterian elders invited the real John Maclean to Montana in 1909, which is how the family came west. He had been ordained sixteen years earlier, after studying at a seminary near San Francisco.
Q 09Which honor did a fiction jury recommend for the novella A River Runs Through It, only for its board to refuse?
Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize jurors chose the novella in 1977, but the board overruled them and gave no fiction award at all that year. The board is said to have called it a lean year for fiction.
Q 10After drinking all the beer and passing out naked beside the river, what do Neal Burns and his companion suffer?
Severe sunburn
Severe sunburn is the price of sleeping off the brothers' beer under a Montana sky. Jessie is furious with Norman, who left Neal with the beer instead of fishing beside him.
Q 11In which Montana city, where three rivers meet, do the Maclean brothers grow up in A River Runs Through It?
Missoula
Missoula owes much of its fame as a fly-fishing town to the book and the film. The real Macleans moved there when Norman was six, after its church called Reverend Maclean to the pulpit.
Q 12Which Montana river, a tributary of the Clark Fork, do the Macleans fish in A River Runs Through It?
Blackfoot
Blackfoot water rises at the Continental Divide and joins the Clark Fork about five miles east of the Macleans' town. The family in the film calls it the Big Blackfoot.
Q 13Which Ivy League college does Norman Maclean leave Montana to attend in A River Runs Through It?
Dartmouth
Q 21Which Montana river stood in for the Macleans' own stream in the fly-fishing scenes of A River Runs Through It?
Gallatin
Gallatin water near Bozeman, in the south of the state, played the family's stream in the west. Meriwether Lewis named the Gallatin in 1805 after the Treasury secretary of the day.
Q 22At which event does Norman Maclean first meet the flapper Jessie Burns in A River Runs Through It?
A Fourth of July dance
A Fourth of July dance is where the film stages it. The real Norman met Jessie at a December party, then walked into a blizzard for help when her car's radiator froze.
Q 23In which Montana city does Paul Maclean live and work while Norman is away at college in the East?
Helena
Dartmouth keeps Norman in the East for six years, and the real Maclean stayed on there as an instructor after graduating. In the film Reverend Maclean offers to pay for any college he picks.
Q 14Which job does the adult Paul Maclean hold in A River Runs Through It, when he is not fishing or gambling?
Newspaper reporter
Newspaper reporter is the trade that earns Paul a local name as the fishing newspaperman. The real Paul Maclean was known for exposing political corruption.
Q 15Which card game leaves Paul Maclean deep in debt to dangerous men at the Lolo Hot Springs speakeasy?
Poker
Poker, a big game in the speakeasy's back room, has Paul owing more than he can pay. When he tries to sit in again, the dealer refuses to let him play.
Q 16How does Paul Maclean die near the end of A River Runs Through It, just before Norman leaves Montana?
Beaten to death
Beaten to death and left in an alley is the news the police bring to Norman. The real Paul was killed in 1938, and nobody was ever arrested for it.
Q 17Which city's university offers Norman Maclean a post teaching literature late in A River Runs Through It?
Chicago
Chicago kept the real Maclean teaching until he retired, and only then did he write the novella. Its university press published the book, the first fiction it had ever issued.
Q 18The Maclean family of A River Runs Through It traces its roots to islands off the west coast of which country?
Scotland
Scotland's Hebrides were the family's first country, and Maclean traced his brother's drinking and gambling back to those island ancestors. Reverend Maclean himself grew up speaking Gaelic in Canada.
Q 19How are the Maclean boys schooled in A River Runs Through It before their afternoons of fishing?
At home, from their father
At home, from their father, the boys study each morning under a strict code of his own. The real Maclean said those lessons, with the Bible read aloud, gave him his ear for rhythm.
Q 20Which actor plays Reverend Maclean, the stern minister who teaches his sons to cast, in A River Runs Through It?
Tom Skerritt
Tom Skerritt took the part in the same year he began his Emmy-winning run as the sheriff in Picket Fences. Film fans already knew him as the captain in Alien.
Helena, the state capital, is Paul's home when Norman comes back from the East. In 2000 its Independent Record gathered memories from people who had known both real brothers.
Q 24Which actor plays the adult Norman Maclean, the steadier older brother, in A River Runs Through It?
Craig Sheffer
Craig Sheffer came to the part from the horror film Nightbreed and the teen drama Some Kind of Wonderful. A later generation knows him as Keith Scott in One Tree Hill.
Q 25At which film festival did A River Runs Through It have its premiere, a month before reaching American cinemas?
Toronto
Toronto hosted the first screening in September 1992, and the film then opened on only twelve American screens. It widened to 800 after three strong weeks.
Q 26Which London-born actress plays the Montana flapper Jessie Burns in A River Runs Through It?
Emily Lloyd
Emily Lloyd had become a star at sixteen in Wish You Were Here. She had also turned down the lead in Pretty Woman, the part that made Julia Roberts famous.
Q 27Which angling practice do the end credits of A River Runs Through It urge on modern fishermen?
Catch and release
Catch and release is what enlightened anglers practice today, the credits say, noting that the Macleans kept their catch as was common in their day. They add that no fish were killed or injured during filming.
Q 28Why did the makers of A River Runs Through It not shoot the fishing scenes on the Macleans' real river?
It was too polluted
It was too polluted from clearcut logging to be used, so other Montana rivers played the part. A benefit screening in Bozeman later raised money to help restore it.
Q 29In the last sermon of A River Runs Through It, what does Reverend Maclean say we can give those we cannot help?
Unconditional love
Unconditional love, even without understanding, is the minister's answer to losing Paul. He never names his son in the sermon, and he dies not long after preaching it.
Q 30What nickname does the woman Neal Burns brings along on the fishing trip go by in A River Runs Through It?
Rawhide
Rawhide is a woman Neal met only the night before. The pair drink through the afternoon while the Maclean brothers are away along the bank with their rods.