Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
60 free Al Pacino trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Al Pacino trivia quiz follows the actor from a South Bronx tenement to the Kennedy Center. The early questions cover the childhood nicknames, the junior-high teacher who told his grandmother he was 'made to do this', the years of odd jobs and homelessness, HB Studio and Charlie Laughton, the Actors Studio and Lee Strasberg, and the two Tony Awards he won before he was a film star. Then come the films: The Godfather and the rumour about the boycotted Oscars, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Scarface, the Revolution flop that sent him back to the stage, Sea of Love, Dick Tracy, the double nomination year of Scent of a Woman and Glengarry Glen Ross, Heat, The Devil's Advocate, Donnie Brasco and The Irishman. A final strand covers the rest: the Emmys for Angels in America and You Don't Know Jack, the Razzie for Jack and Jill and the accountant who made it necessary, Looking for Richard and his Shakespeare obsession, the four children, the sobriety since 1977, the AFI 100 lines he owns, and the memoir Sonny Boy. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on every question. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our Robert De Niro and The Godfather quizzes next.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which New York neighbourhood was Al Pacino born in 1940?
East Harlem
Pacino was born in East Harlem, Manhattan, on April 25, 1940; after his parents divorced when he was two, his mother moved him to the South Bronx to live with her parents.
Q 02Pacino's maternal grandparents had emigrated to New York from which Sicilian town?
Corleone
Corleone: his mother Rose Gerardi's parents came from Corleone, Sicily, the town whose name Mario Puzo borrowed for the Godfather family; Pacino grew up in their South Bronx home.
Q 03Pacino's memoir title 'Sonny Boy' was his mother's nickname for him, from a song by whom?
Al Jolson
Al Jolson: Pacino's mother sang him Jolson's 1928 hit 'Sonny Boy', and the nickname became the title of his 2024 memoir.
Q 04Which junior high teacher visited Pacino's grandmother to say he was 'made to do this'?
Blanche Rothstein
Blanche Rothstein, his junior high teacher, cast him in school plays and visited his grandmother to say he was 'made to do this'; he went on to the High School of Performing Arts.
Q 05Rejected by the Actors Studio as a teen, Pacino trained at which school, where he met mentor Charlie Laughton?
HB (Herbert Berghof)
HB (Herbert Berghof) Studio took Pacino in after the Actors Studio turned him down as a teenager; there he met Charlie Laughton, the teacher who became his lifelong mentor.
Q 06Under which teacher did Pacino study method acting at the Manhattan academy that had once rejected him?
Lee Strasberg
Strasberg later acted alongside him in The Godfather Part II and ...And Justice for All.
Q 07How old was Pacino when his mother died, a year before his grandfather also died?
22
He was 22 when his mother Rose died in 1962; his maternal grandfather died the following year, and Pacino said losing both sent him into a tailspin.
Q 08For which 1968 off-Broadway play, in which he played the street punk Murph, did Pacino win an Obie Award?
The Indian Wants the Bronx
The Indian Wants the Bronx, Israel Horovitz's 1968 one-act, won Pacino the Obie for Best Actor as the punk Murph; John Cazale played Gupta, and manager Martin Bregman signed Pacino after seeing it.
Q 09Which actress did Pacino meet on stage in Boston in 1967, beginning a five-year romance?
Jill Clayburgh
Jill Clayburgh met Pacino doing theatre in Boston in 1967; they lived together in New York until 1972, and she later starred in An Unmarried Woman.
Q 10Pacino won his first Tony Award in 1969 for which play, which closed after just 39 performances?
Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?
Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? was Pacino's Broadway debut, at the Belasco Theatre in 1969; it closed after 39 performances, but his Bickham won the Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Play.
Q 11Pacino's first lead film role, in 1971, cast him as what?
A heroin addict
A heroin addict: in The Panic in Needle Park (1971) Pacino played Bobby, a small-time hustler strung out around Manhattan's Sherman Square, opposite Kitty Winn; he had debuted in Me, Natalie in 1969.
Q 12Which character did Pacino play in The Godfather?
Michael Corleone
Michael Corleone, the war-hero youngest son who takes over the family, was Coppola's choice despite Paramount's push for a bigger star; Pacino's performance earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination.
Q 13According to his 2024 memoir, why did Pacino really skip the Oscars ceremony for The Godfather?
Q 21What is the name of the Cuban drug lord Pacino plays in Scarface (1983)?
Tony Montana
Tony Montana, the Cuban refugee who builds a Miami cocaine empire in Brian De Palma's Scarface, gave Pacino the line 'Say hello to my little friend'; the film became a hip-hop touchstone.
Q 22Which 1985 Hugh Hudson flop drove Pacino away from films until 1989?
Revolution
Revolution, Hugh Hudson's 1985 epic with Pacino as fur trapper Tom Dobb, was savaged by critics; he blamed a rushed production and stayed off screen until 1989, returning to the stage instead.
Q 23Pacino returned to film in 1989 playing a detective hunting a killer who finds victims through what?
Newspaper singles ads
He was terrified by his sudden fame and working in Boston theatre
In Sonny Boy Pacino writes that he was terrified by his sudden fame and stayed in Boston, where he was doing a Shakespeare play on stage, rather than attend the 1973 ceremony; he denies snubbing the supporting category.
Q 14Which 1973 film pairing Pacino with Gene Hackman won the Palme d'Or at Cannes?
Scarecrow
Scarecrow, Jerry Schatzberg's 1973 road movie with Pacino and Gene Hackman as drifters Lion and Max, shared the Grand Prix (the Palme d'Or) at Cannes with The Hireling.
Q 15Serpico (1973) told the true story of a New York policeman who did what?
Went undercover to expose corrupt fellow officers
Serpico's Frank Serpico went undercover to expose corrupt fellow officers: the real plainclothes cop refused bribes, went to the New York Times in 1970 and testified to the Knapp Commission.
Q 16What Academy Awards first did The Godfather Part II (1974) achieve?
First sequel to win Best Picture
First sequel to win Best Picture: The Godfather Part II took six Oscars in 1975, including Best Picture and Best Director for Francis Ford Coppola, a feat no sequel had managed before.
Q 17Dog Day Afternoon (1975) was based on the true story of which bank robber?
John Wojtowicz
John Wojtowicz robbed a Brooklyn Chase Manhattan branch in August 1972 to fund his partner's gender-confirmation surgery; Pacino's Sonny Wortzik is based on him, and the 14-hour standoff gave the film its 'Attica!' chant.
Q 18In Bobby Deerfield, Pacino played what kind of sportsman?
A racing driver
A racing driver: Bobby Deerfield is a Formula One driver who falls for a terminally ill woman, played by Marthe Keller; Sydney Pollack directed, and the role brought Pacino a Golden Globe nomination.
Q 19What had Pacino done with the Kramer vs. Kramer role that won the 1979 Oscar?
Turned it down
Turned it down: Pacino passed on the role of Ted Kramer, and the actor who took it beat Pacino's ...And Justice for All performance for the 1979 Best Actor Oscar.
Q 20Which 1980 Pacino film drew protests from New York's gay community during filming?
Cruising
Cruising, William Friedkin's thriller with Pacino as a cop hunting a killer in Manhattan's gay leather bars, was picketed during its 1979 shoot by activists who called it homophobic.
Newspaper singles ads: in Sea of Love (1989) Pacino's detective Frank Keller dates women who answered rhyming personal ads, one of them Ellen Barkin's Helen, to catch a killer.
Q 24For playing which villain in Dick Tracy (1990) did Pacino earn an Oscar nomination?
Big Boy Caprice
Big Boy Caprice, the hunchbacked mob boss under heavy prosthetics in Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy, earned Pacino a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the 1991 Oscars.
Q 25Which Scarface co-star reunited with Pacino as the waitress in Frankie and Johnny (1991)?
Michelle Pfeiffer
Michelle Pfeiffer, who had played Elvira in Scarface, was the waitress Frankie to Pacino's short-order cook Johnny; Kathy Bates had originated the role off-Broadway in 1987.
Q 26For which film did Pacino finally win the Academy Award for Best Actor?
Scent of a Woman
Scent of a Woman (1992) won Pacino the Best Actor Oscar as the blind, retired Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, whose 'Hoo-ah!' became a catchphrase.
Q 27The year he won Best Actor, Pacino was also a supporting nominee for which film?
Glengarry Glen Ross
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) earned Pacino a Best Supporting Actor nomination as salesman Ricky Roma in the same year he won Best Actor, making him the first man nominated for two different films at once.
Q 28Which Michael Mann film first put Pacino and Robert De Niro in a scene together?
Heat
Heat (1995): Michael Mann put Pacino's Vincent Hanna and De Niro's Neil McCauley across a coffee-shop table, their first shared scene; they had no scenes together in The Godfather Part II.
Q 29Pacino's 1996 directorial debut, a docudrama, explored which Shakespeare play?
Richard III
Richard III: Looking for Richard mixes rehearsals, street interviews and staged scenes from Shakespeare's play, with Pacino as the hunchbacked king; it won him a Directors Guild documentary award.
Q 30Pacino's law-firm boss opposite Keanu Reeves in a 1997 thriller turns out to be whom?
Satan
Satan: in The Devil's Advocate Pacino's John Milton, head of a Manhattan law firm, is revealed as the devil tempting Keanu Reeves's young lawyer Kevin Lomax.