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50 free Amitabh Bachchan trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Amitabh Bachchan trivia for Bollywood fans, KBC viewers and anyone who has watched Sholay more times than they can count. The quiz starts before the fame: the poet father who chose the surname Bachchan, the boy nearly named Inquilaab, the All India Radio audition he failed, and the debut as a mere voice in Bhuvan Shome. Then it follows the career arc that Truffaut called a 'one-man industry': Salim-Javed insisting on him for Zanjeer, the angry young man years of Deewaar, Sholay, Don and Amar Akbar Anthony, six hits in a single year in 1978, the near-fatal Coolie accident that changed a film's ending, the myasthenia gravis diagnosis, the brief Lok Sabha seat, the ABCL collapse and the humble visit to Yash Chopra that led to Mohabbatein. Later rounds cover Kaun Banega Crorepati, Black, Paa, Piku, Pink, The Great Gatsby, Kalki 2898 AD, the four National Awards, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the Madame Tussauds first, and the Olympic torch in London. Questions run from easy to expert, and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. See also our Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan and Indian cinema quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city was Amitabh Bachchan born in 1942?
Allahabad
The city is now called Prayagraj, and has an Amitabh Bachchan Road and sports complex.
Q 02What was the profession of Amitabh's father, Harivansh Rai Bachchan?
Hindi poet
'Bachchan' was his pen name; the family's real surname was Srivastava.
Q 03What name were Amitabh's parents originally going to give him?
Inquilaab
It means 'Revolution'; the poet Sumitranandan Pant suggested Amitabh instead.
Q 04What does the pen name 'Bachchan', adopted by his father, mean in colloquial Hindi?
Child-like
His father opposed the caste system and dropped the surname Srivastava for his published work.
Q 05From which Delhi University institution did Bachchan graduate with a science degree in 1962?
Kirori Mal College
He had been at school at Sherwood College in Nainital.
Q 06Which job did Bachchan famously fail to get after an audition in the late 1960s?
All India Radio newsreader
The man later celebrated for his baritone was turned down for his voice.
Q 07Bachchan's 1969 film debut was as what in Mrinal Sen's Bhuvan Shome?
A voice narrator
His first acting role came the same year as one of seven leads in Saat Hindustani.
Q 08For which 1971 film opposite Rajesh Khanna did Bachchan win his first Filmfare Award?
Anand
He played a doctor with a cynical view of life and took Best Supporting Actor.
Q 09Which screenwriting duo insisted Bachchan be cast in Zanjeer (1973)?
Salim-Javed
Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar conceived the 'angry young man' after several stars turned the role down.
Q 10Which nickname did Bachchan's roles in Zanjeer, Deewaar and Trishul earn him?
Angry young man
The phrase became a metaphor for a generation's frustration during the Emergency era.
Q 11In which year did Bachchan marry Jaya Bhaduri?
1973
Zanjeer and Abhimaan, both with Jaya, came out around the same time as the wedding.
Q 12What was the name of Bachchan's character in Sholay (1975)?
Jaidev
The film became the highest-grossing in Indian history at the time and BBC India's 'Film of the Millennium'.
Q 13Who directed Deewaar (1975), with Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor as brothers on opposite sides of the law?
Yash Chopra
Indiatimes ranks it among the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films.
Q 14In Kabhi Kabhie (1976), Bachchan played a young poet named what?
Q 21How did director Manmohan Desai respond to Bachchan's 1982 on-set accident?
He changed the ending so the character lived
The character had been written to die; Desai felt it wrong to kill on screen a man who had just cheated death.
Q 22With which illness was Bachchan diagnosed in 1984?
Myasthenia gravis
It left him pessimistic; before every release he would predict 'Yeh film to flop hogi!'
Q 23Which constituency did Bachchan win in the 1984 Lok Sabha election?
Allahabad
He took 68.2 percent of the vote against former UP chief minister H. N. Bahuguna, then resigned in 1987.
Amit Malhotra
The romantic role was a sharp break from his angry-young-man image; Khayyam wrote the hit score.
Q 15Which character won Bachchan his first Filmfare Best Actor Award in 1977, in a film about three separated brothers?
Anthony Gonsalves
Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor played the other two brothers in the year's top-grossing film.
Q 16In Don (1978), Bachchan played the gang leader and which look-alike?
Vijay
The double role won him his second Filmfare Best Actor Award.
Q 17How many of Bachchan's six 1978 releases were box office successes?
All six
Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Trishul and Don finished as the year's top three grossers.
Q 18In which 1979 film did Bachchan first use his own singing voice for a song?
Mr. Natwarlal
It earned him nominations for both Best Actor and Best Male Playback Singer.
Q 19Bachchan's 1981 Bengali debut Anusandhan was shot simultaneously in Hindi under what title?
Barsaat Ki Ek Raat
The Shakti Samanta thriller ran for over 23 weeks in West Bengal.
Q 20On the set of which film did Bachchan suffer a near-fatal injury on 26 July 1982?
Coolie
A table corner ruptured his spleen during a fight scene with Puneet Issar.
Q 24Which scandal linked to brother Ajitabh prompted Amitabh Bachchan to quit parliament in 1987?
Bofors
Ajitabh later won damages from Sweden's Dagens Nyheter over the allegations.
Q 25Bachchan won his first National Film Award for Best Actor for playing a Mafia don in which 1990 film?
Agneepath
It came during a stretch of box-office failures before his semi-retirement in 1992.
Q 26Bachchan's company ABCL lost millions sponsoring which 1996 event in Bangalore?
The Miss World pageant
The fiasco and lawsuits helped push the company into collapse in 1997.
Q 27Which 2000 film, offered after Bachchan went to a director friend asking for work, relaunched his career?
Mohabbatein
It also marked his first appearance with Shah Rukh Khan.
Q 28Kaun Banega Crorepati, first hosted by Bachchan in 2000, is the Indian version of which show?
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
The fifth season in 2011 broke ratings records and won CNN IBN's Indian of the Year for entertainment.
Q 29In Black (2005), Bachchan played an ageing teacher of a girl with which condition?
Deaf-blindness
The Sanjay Leela Bhansali film won him a second National Award for Best Actor.
Q 30Sarkar (2005), in which Bachchan starred with son Abhishek, was an adaptation of which Hollywood film?
The Godfather
Sequels Sarkar Raj and Sarkar 3 followed in 2008 and 2017.