Dr. Strangelove
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50 free Dr. Strangelove trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb took the most frightening subject of its day, accidental nuclear war, and made it one of the funniest films ever shot. More than half a century on, its paranoid general, its bickering leaders and its War Room still shape how people picture the Cold War. This quiz covers the whole film: the plot and the logic of the doomsday machine, Peter Sellers and his multiple roles, the supporting cast, and the real people and ideas the satire was aimed at. It also goes behind the camera, to the sets, the music, the rival film Kubrick fought in court, the awards race and the ending that was cut. The questions start with the scenes everybody remembers and work towards details for dedicated Kubrick fans. Every answer comes with a short explanation, which makes the set useful for film students and teachers as well as quiz nights.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which event on the day of Dr. Strangelove's first test screening forced the studio to delay the release?
Kennedy's assassination
Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963, fell on the very day of the first test screening. The premiere was pushed into late January because the public was judged to be in no mood for nuclear satire.
Q 02Stanley Kubrick won arguments with his Turgidson actor on the Dr. Strangelove set by beating him at which game?
Chess
Chess was played frequently on the set, and Kubrick kept winning. Those victories, more than any argument, got his star to go along with scenes the two men disagreed about.
Q 03Dr. Strangelove, a satire of American nuclear war plans, was filmed at Shepperton Studios in which country?
England
England hosted the studio shoot, on three main sound stages near London. Peter Sellers was in the middle of a divorce and unable to leave the country, so the War Room had to be built there.
Q 04What does Major Kong wave as he rides the falling bomb toward its target in Dr. Strangelove?
A cowboy hat
A cowboy hat is in his hand as the Texan pilot whoops his way down. He ends up astride the weapon because he climbed into the bomb bay to fix the wiring on its jammed doors.
Q 05In Dr. Strangelove, which public health measure does General Ripper believe is a Soviet plot against Americans?
Water fluoridation
Water fluoridation is the general's obsession, and he starts a nuclear war to stop it. The joke was topical: far-right activists of the 1950s really did call fluoride a Communist plot.
Q 06Stanley Kubrick filmed and then cut which slapstick ending set in the War Room of Dr. Strangelove?
A pie fight
A pie fight among everyone in the War Room was shot as the original finale. Kubrick dropped it, later saying it played as farce and did not fit the satirical tone of the rest of the film.
Q 07Which musical beat Dr. Strangelove to the Academy Award for Best Picture, with Mary Poppins also in the race?
My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady took Best Picture, leaving Kubrick's satire with four nominations and no wins. Peter Sellers also lost Best Actor, to the musical's own Rex Harrison.
Q 08Which former rodeo performer plays Major Kong, the Texan pilot who rides the bomb, in Dr. Strangelove?
Slim Pickens
Slim Pickens spent nearly 20 years in rodeo before turning to acting. Kubrick never told him the film was a comedy, so he played the part completely straight.
Q 09Where does the title character of Dr. Strangelove propose sheltering several hundred thousand people from fallout?
Deep underground mines
Deep underground mines, he argues, would keep the radiation out. General Turgidson at once frets that the Soviets will dig in too and leave America behind in mine shafts.
Q 10In Dr. Strangelove, why does the Soviet doomsday machine fail to deter the attack that triggers it?
It was kept secret
It was kept secret, so nobody could be deterred by it. The Soviet premier had planned to unveil the machine to the world at the Party Congress the following week.
Q 11Which actor, later the first to decline a Best Actor Oscar, plays the Joint Chiefs chairman in Dr. Strangelove?
George C. Scott
George C. Scott turned down his Oscar for Patton, arguing that performances cannot be compared. Here he plays General Buck Turgidson, who urges the President to back the rogue attack with an all-out strike.
Q 12Which future star made his film debut as Lothar Zogg, the bombardier on Major Kong's plane in Dr. Strangelove?
James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones made his screen debut here, years before his voice became famous as Darth Vader in Star Wars and Mufasa in The Lion King.
Q 13Which wartime Vera Lynn song plays over the nuclear explosions in the final scene of Dr. Strangelove?
Q 21Which star of Kubrick's heist film The Killing returned to play General Ripper in Dr. Strangelove?
Sterling Hayden
Sterling Hayden had retired from acting when Kubrick coaxed him back for the role. He went on to play the police captain McCluskey in The Godfather.
Q 22Which Cold War thriller novel, first published as Two Hours to Doom, is the basis for Dr. Strangelove?
Red Alert
Red Alert was a deadly serious novel, written under a pseudonym while its author was a serving RAF officer. The film's title character does not appear in the book at all.
Q 23Kubrick sued the makers of which rival Sidney Lumet nuclear thriller so that Dr. Strangelove would open first?
Fail Safe
We'll Meet Again
We'll Meet Again dates from 1939, and its promise of reunion turns bitterly ironic as the world ends. Kubrick used Lynn's 1953 recording, made with an armed services chorus.
Q 14Which Hollywood star was offered the role of Major Kong in Dr. Strangelove after Peter Sellers dropped out?
John Wayne
John Wayne was offered the part once an injury forced Sellers out, but never took it. It went to a veteran character actor from Westerns, who said his salary jumped five times afterwards.
Q 15Which earlier Kubrick film, starring Peter Sellers in several disguises, inspired his multiple roles in Dr. Strangelove?
Lolita
Lolita cast Sellers as a playwright who keeps turning up in new disguises, and the studio credited him with its success. It made his playing several parts a condition of financing the next film.
Q 16Kubrick had the War Room table in Dr. Strangelove covered in green baize to suggest which game?
Poker
Poker was the idea: the leaders sit under a ring of lamps as if gambling for the fate of the world. The green cloth cannot even be seen on screen, because the film is in black and white.
Q 17The gleaming black floor of the War Room in Dr. Strangelove was inspired by dance scenes in which star's films?
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire's dance numbers gave the designer the idea for a shiny black floor. In the finished set it mirrors the gigantic strategic maps that cover one wall.
Q 18Which British comedian took on Peter Sellers's multiple roles in the 2024 West End stage version of Dr. Strangelove?
Steve Coogan
Steve Coogan played several parts in the show, the first stage version the Kubrick family ever authorised. It opened at the Noël Coward Theatre and was later broadcast to cinemas worldwide.
Q 19Dr. Strangelove's ex-Nazi scientist evokes which real US program that recruited German experts after World War II?
Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip secretly brought more than 1,600 German scientists and engineers to America after the war. Several were confirmed former Nazi Party members, which is the film's uncomfortable joke.
Q 20Dr. Strangelove's rebellious saluting arm lent its name to a nickname for which real neurological condition?
Alien hand syndrome
Alien hand syndrome makes a limb seem to act on its own, without conscious control. It has been called Dr. Strangelove syndrome, after the adviser who cannot stop his arm from saluting.
Fail Safe told almost the same story as a straight-faced drama, with Henry Fonda as the president. The suit was settled out of court, and the rival opened months later to mediocre ticket sales.
Q 24Which studio agreed to finance Dr. Strangelove only if Peter Sellers played at least four major roles?
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures made the demand, and Kubrick accepted it as the kind of stipulation the movie business runs on. Sellers ended up playing three parts after giving up the fourth.
Q 25Peter Sellers gave up a fourth role in Dr. Strangelove, the bomber pilot, after which injury?
A sprained ankle
A sprained ankle, suffered while leaving a restaurant, meant he could no longer work in the cramped cockpit set. He had already been anxious about managing the pilot's Texan accent.
Q 26Which RAF officer, played by Peter Sellers, deduces the recall code from General Ripper's doodles in Dr. Strangelove?
Lionel Mandrake
Lionel Mandrake spends the crisis locked in an office with the general who launched the attack. Sellers found the part the easiest of his three, having mimicked his superiors while serving in the RAF.
Q 27Which placid American President, partly modeled on Adlai Stevenson, does Peter Sellers play in Dr. Strangelove?
Merkin Muffley
Merkin Muffley was first played with a comic head cold, which made the crew laugh so much that takes were ruined. Kubrick had Sellers play him straight, though the cold survives in several scenes.
Q 28The title character of Dr. Strangelove is usually held to be based partly on which real-life rocket scientist?
Wernher von Braun
Wernher von Braun was a central figure in Nazi Germany's rocket program before being recruited to the United States. Sellers said he was always the model, denying rumors that it was Henry Kissinger.
Q 29The Soviet doomsday machine in Dr. Strangelove is a network of buried bombs salted with which element?
Cobalt
Cobalt bombs began as a thought experiment by physicist Leo Szilard about a weapon that could poison the whole planet. In the film, the fallout would leave Earth's surface uninhabitable for 93 years.
Q 30The full title of Dr. Strangelove spoofs a 1948 self-help book about how to stop worrying by which author?
Dale Carnegie
Dale Carnegie wrote How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, and the film's subtitle twists it. Among the titles Kubrick considered and dropped was Wonderful Bomb.