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182 free Beauty and the Beast trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
44 free Beauty and the Beast trivia questions with answers. Beauty and the Beast trivia questions for anyone who has ever hummed along with a candelabra. This 182-question quiz covers the whole story: the 1740 French fairy tale and its 1756 rewrite, Jean Cocteau's 1946 film, the 1987 TV series, Disney's 1991 animated classic, the Broadway musical that ran for 13 years, and the 2017 live-action remake that grossed over a billion dollars. The easy questions are about Belle, Gaston, Lumière, Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts. The harder ones dig into the making of the film: the London studio where it started as a non-musical, the lyricist who died eight months before release, the song cut and restored a decade later, the one-take recording of the title ballad, the Oscar record it set, and why the Beast has the horns of a bison and the tail of a wolf. Every answer is checked against a documented source, so you can host a Disney night, settle a family argument, or just find out how much you really remember. Be our guest.
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Q 01Which two first-time directors made Disney's 1991 Beauty and the Beast?
Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise
Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, both first-time feature directors, took over after Richard Purdum's non-musical version was scrapped in favour of a musical.
Q 02The 1991 movie premiered as an unfinished work in progress at which event two months before its release?
The New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival screened the rough cut on 29 September 1991, with pencil tests in place of finished animation; that version was later included on the 2002 Platinum Edition DVD.
Q 03Beauty and the Beast (1991) was the first animated film ever nominated for which Academy Award?
Best Picture
Best Picture: at the 1992 ceremony it became the first animated film nominated for the top award, eighteen years before the category widened to ten nominees.
Q 04Which two Disney films had earned the studio's only Best Picture nominations before Beauty and the Beast?
Mary Poppins and Dead Poets Society
Mary Poppins (1964) and Touchstone's Dead Poets Society (1989) were Disney's only earlier Best Picture nominees; neither The Little Mermaid nor Who Framed Roger Rabbit made the cut.
Q 05How many of the film's songs were nominated for the Best Original Song Oscar, a record at the time?
Three
'Beauty and the Beast' won over 'Belle' and 'Be Our Guest'; The Lion King, Dreamgirls and Enchanted later matched the feat.
Q 06How old was lyricist Howard Ashman when he died eight months before the film's release?
40
Ashman was 40, born 17 May 1950 and dead of AIDS complications on 14 March 1991; he never saw the finished film, and Tim Rice completed his unfinished Aladdin lyrics.
Q 07Which song was cut from the 1991 film over timeline problems and restored for the 2002 IMAX edition?
Human Again
Human Again was dropped over story-timeline problems, revived for the 1994 Broadway show, and finally animated as a second-act number for the 2002 IMAX special edition.
Q 08Angela Lansbury reportedly recorded the Oscar-winning title song in how many takes?
One
She had doubted she was the right singer for it; Menken and Ashman asked for one take and she reduced the studio to tears.
Q 09Before Ashman pushed for simple names, Mrs. Potts was nearly called what?
Mrs. Chamomile
Mrs. Chamomile was her working name until Ashman asked for short, simple names for the household objects, which is how we got Mrs. Potts, Chip, Lumière and Cogsworth.
Q 10Which Broadway singer voiced Belle, chosen partly because she sounded a little like Judy Garland?
Paige O'Hara
Paige O'Hara, a Broadway veteran of Show Boat, won the part after the filmmakers decided they wanted a heroine who sounded 'more like a woman than a girl'.
Q 11Which former teen idol of Ice Castles and One on One voiced the Beast?
Robby Benson
Robby Benson, star of One on One (1977) and Ice Castles (1978), voiced the Beast; he had screen-tested for Luke Skywalker in 1975 and later directed episodes of Friends.
Q 12The Beast's head and horns were modelled on which animal?
An American bison
An American bison (buffalo) supplied the head and horns; the animators assembled the rest of the Beast from a menagerie of other animals.
Q 13Which actor voiced Lumière, the French-accented candelabra?
Jerry Orbach
Jerry Orbach, later Lennie Briscoe on Law & Order and a Tony winner for Promises, Promises, voiced Lumière and sang lead on 'Be Our Guest'.
Q 21What was the 1991 film's initial worldwide gross, making it the third-highest-grossing film of the year?
$331 million
$331 million on first release, the third-biggest worldwide total of 1991; it was also the first animated film to pass $100 million in the United States.
Q 22Beauty and the Beast became the first animated film to win which Golden Globe?
Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, at the January 1992 Golden Globes; The Lion King (1995) and Toy Story 2 (2000) later repeated the win for animation.
Q 23In which year was the 1991 film added to the US National Film Registry?
2002
Q 14David Ogden Stiers voiced Cogsworth and also performed which other job in the film?
Narrated the prologue
Stiers narrated the prologue as well as voicing Cogsworth, the castle's mantel-clock majordomo; the Enchantress has no lines and Monsieur D'Arque was voiced by Tony Jay.
Q 15'Be Our Guest' was originally written to be sung to which character?
Maurice
It was first staged for Maurice, Belle's father, and partly animated before the directors decided the showstopper belonged to the heroine, so it was restaged for Belle.
Q 16What invention is Belle's father taking to the fair when he gets lost and stumbles on the Beast's castle?
A wood-chopping machine
Maurice's wood-chopping machine is the invention he hauls toward the fair; when his horse comes home alone, Belle rides it back to the Beast's castle.
Q 17Gaston bribes Monsieur D'Arque, the warden of what, to have Belle's father locked up?
The insane asylum
The plan is to blackmail Belle into marriage in exchange for her father's release.
Q 18Which actor was rejected as Gaston for not sounding arrogant enough, then landed Prince Charming in Shrek?
Rupert Everett
Rupert Everett auditioned but was told he did not sound arrogant enough; he later voiced Prince Charming in Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third.
Q 19Disney's 1991 Beauty and the Beast used CAPS, a digital ink-and-paint system developed for Disney by which company?
Pixar
Pixar built CAPS with Disney in 1989; it scanned pencil drawings and coloured them digitally, which let the ballroom's swooping computer-generated backgrounds blend with hand-drawn characters.
Q 20In 1987 Disney revived Beauty and the Beast as a non-musical drama at a satellite studio in which city?
London
London: Disney's satellite studio there had been set up for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Richard Purdum was hired to direct the non-musical version that was later scrapped.
2002, the same year as its IMAX re-release: the Library of Congress named it to the National Film Registry that December, and the AFI later ranked it the seventh-best animated film ever.
Q 24The pop single of 'Beauty and the Beast' paired Celine Dion with which American singer?
Peabo Bryson
Peabo Bryson was hired because Disney feared the then-little-known Dion could not carry US radio alone; the duet won a Grammy.
Q 25At the 1993 Grammys the Dion–Bryson duet lost Record and Song of the Year to which track?
Tears in Heaven
Eric Clapton's 'Tears in Heaven' took both Record and Song of the Year at the February 1993 ceremony; the duet still won a Juno for Single of the Year.
Q 26How many Oscars did Alan Menken win for his Disney films from 1989 to 1995?
Eight
Eight: score and song Oscars for each of The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Pocahontas; he later completed an EGOT with a Daytime Emmy in 2020.
Q 27The Broadway musical opened in April 1994 and ran for how many performances?
5,461
5,461 performances: it opened at the Palace Theatre on 18 April 1994 and closed 29 July 2007 as Broadway's sixth-longest-running show at the time.
Q 28Which lyricist wrote the six new songs for the Broadway musical with Alan Menken?
Tim Rice
Tim Rice, who had finished Ashman's Aladdin lyrics, wrote the new Broadway songs including 'If I Can't Love Her' and 'Home'; the show was Disney's first Broadway musical and won one Tony, for costumes.
Q 29Who directed the 2017 live-action Beauty and the Beast?
Bill Condon
Bill Condon, director of Dreamgirls and the two Breaking Dawn films, made the 2017 remake, his first musical since Dreamgirls and the biggest hit of his career.
Q 30Which actor played the Beast opposite Emma Watson in 2017?
Dan Stevens
Dan Stevens, formerly Matthew Crawley on Downton Abbey, played the Beast through motion capture and sang the new ballad 'Evermore' inside the film.