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50 free D. W. Griffith trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This D. W. Griffith trivia quiz covers the silent-era director whom Chaplin called the teacher of us all and whose most famous film is still condemned as racist propaganda. The easy questions are ones any film-history student could answer: the 1915 epic, the studio he founded with Chaplin, Pickford and Fairbanks, his favourite leading lady, and the state where he was born. The harder end is for cinephiles: the 1908 short that was his directing debut, the Dickens novel that inspired his cross-cutting, the first film ever shot in Hollywood, the four-reel feature Biograph did not want, the novel and play behind The Birth of a Nation and its White House screening, the four stories and rocking cradle of Intolerance, the ice floes of Way Down East, the first film United Artists ever distributed, his two sound films, the honorary Oscar of 1936, the DGA award that dropped his name in 1999, and the hotel lobby where he collapsed in 1948. Billy Bitzer, Mack Sennett, Linda Arvidson, Thomas Dixon and the Gish sisters get questions too. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the director, his films and his collaborators before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our silent film, Charlie Chaplin and classic Hollywood quizzes next.
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Q 01In which state was D. W. Griffith born in 1875?
Kentucky
His father, Roaring Jake Griffith, was a Confederate colonel and state legislator.
Q 02What do the initials D. W. stand for?
David Wark
He first acted under the stage name Lawrence Griffith.
Q 03In which year was The Birth of a Nation released?
1915
It became the most successful box-office attraction of its time and provoked riots and NAACP bans.
Q 04Which Edison Studios producer rejected Griffith's script in 1907 but gave him an acting part instead?
Edwin Porter
The film was Rescued from an Eagle's Nest.
Q 05How many shorts did Griffith direct for Biograph in 1908, his first year as a director?
48
Biograph co-founder Harry Marvin gave him the job when the McCutcheons faltered.
Q 06What was Griffith's 1908 directorial debut?
The Adventures of Dollie
A kidnapped girl floats down a river in a sealed barrel toward a waterfall.
Q 07Which cameraman did Griffith meet at Biograph and work with for years?
Billy Bitzer
Bitzer had filmed McKinley's nomination in 1896 for Biograph's first programme.
Q 08Which novelist's technique inspired Griffith's cross-cutting between parallel stories?
Dickens
Criticised for it, he replied: Well, doesn't Dickens write that way?
Q 09Which 1910 Griffith short was the first film shot in Hollywood?
In Old California
Biograph had wintered its company in Los Angeles.
Q 10Which 1911 short has a telegraph girl fending off robbers until help arrives?
The Lonedale Operator
It intercut three primary spaces, unusual for the time.
Q 11Which 1912 Griffith short is regarded as an early gangster film?
The Musketeers of Pig Alley
It was shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Q 12What was Griffith's first feature film, made in 1914?
Judith of Bethulia
Biograph feared a film that long would hurt the audience's eyes.
Q 13Who starred as Judith in Griffith's 1914 biblical feature?
Blanche Sweet
Griffith left Biograph soon after, taking his stock company with him.
Which Mexican revolutionary played himself in a Griffith co-production shot during the civil war?
Q 21Which Wagner piece did Joseph Carl Breil use as the Klan's leitmotif in the score?
Ride of the Valkyries
Breil's love theme, The Perfect Song, is called the first marketed film theme song.
Q 22The Birth of a Nation's love theme was later used for which radio and TV sitcom?
Amos 'n' Andy
It was published as The Perfect Song.
Q 23How many historical periods does Intolerance intercut?
Four
Babylon's fall, the Crucifixion, the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre and a modern story.
Pancho Villa
The Life of General Villa was made for the Mutual Film Corporation.
Q 15With which two producers did Griffith form the Triangle Film Corporation?
Ince and Sennett
Harry Aitken and his brother Roy headed the company.
Q 16Whose 1905 novel and play was the basis of The Birth of a Nation?
Thomas Dixon Jr.
Griffith paid $10,000 for the rights, though he could only afford $2,500 up front.
Q 17Under what title did Griffith first produce his 1915 epic through Reliance-Majestic?
The Clansman
It was renamed The Birth of a Nation and is often called the first Hollywood epic.
Q 18Which president watched The Birth of a Nation at the White House?
Woodrow Wilson
Dixon had been Wilson's friend at Johns Hopkins.
Q 19Where did The Birth of a Nation premiere on 8 February 1915?
Clune's Auditorium, Los Angeles
It played to 3,000 people and ran there for seven months.
Q 20Which organisation campaigned to have The Birth of a Nation banned?
The NAACP
The film is blamed for helping revive the Ku Klux Klan months later.
Q 24What recurring image links the stories of Intolerance?
A mother rocking a cradle
The figure represents Eternal Motherhood and the passing of generations.
Q 25What was Intolerance's actual production cost, according to the film's accounts?
About $386,000
Publicity claimed close to $2 million; a third went on the Babylonian sequences.
Q 26Who played the Mountain Girl in Intolerance's Babylonian story?
Constance Talmadge
Prince Belshazzar was played by Alfred Paget.
Q 27Which government asked Griffith to make the 1918 propaganda film Hearts of the World?
British
It aimed to shift neutral American opinion about the war.
Q 28With which three stars did Griffith found United Artists in 1919?
Chaplin, Pickford and Fairbanks
The idea was to let artists control their own interests rather than depend on studios.
Q 29Which 1919 Griffith film was the first ever distributed by United Artists?
Broken Blossoms
It stars Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess and Donald Crisp.
Q 30Griffith's 1919 East End melodrama is based on a story from which collection by Thomas Burke?
Limehouse Nights
The story was called The Chink and the Child.