Famous Movie Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
8correct to beat the crowd
97 free Famous Movie trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
15 free Famous Movie trivia questions with answers. Famous Movie trivia lives in two places on BrainPickle. This page is the shorter set; the main quiz is Movies trivia, with our deepest question pool on the topic and a source behind every answer.
30 of 97 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed the 1960 horror film Psycho, with its celebrated shower scene?
Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock directed and produced Psycho (1960), shooting it cheaply in black and white with the crew from his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Q 02In Citizen Kane, Rosebud is revealed as a trade name printed on which object?
A sled
Rosebud is the trade name on Kane's childhood sled; as his possessions are burned in the final scene, the name shows through the flames.
Q 03In L. Frank Baum's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, what colour are Dorothy's magic shoes?
Silver
Silver in Baum's 1900 novel, the shoes became ruby slippers for the 1939 MGM film because red took better advantage of the new three-strip Technicolor process.
Q 04Which nickname did the crew of Jaws give its malfunctioning mechanical sharks?
Bruce
Bruce was the name of Spielberg's lawyer, Bruce Ramer; because the pneumatic sharks kept breaking down at sea, Spielberg mostly suggested the monster with John Williams's music instead.
Q 05Who directed The Godfather (1972)?
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola first turned The Godfather down as 'pretty cheap stuff', then took the job largely because his own studio, American Zoetrope, was deep in debt to Warner Bros.
Q 06Which film was the first to match Ben-Hur's record of eleven Oscar wins?
Titanic
Titanic won eleven of its fourteen nominations in March 1998, yet none for acting: Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart were both nominated and both went home empty-handed.
Q 07Who wrote and directed the original 1977 Star Wars film?
George Lucas
George Lucas was so sure Close Encounters would outgross Star Wars that he swapped 2.5% of the profits with Steven Spielberg before release; Spielberg still collects his share.
Q 08Jurassic Park (1993) was adapted from a 1990 novel by whom?
Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton set a fixed price of $1.5 million for the film rights; four studios bid before the novel was even published, and Steven Spielberg won them with Universal's backing.
Q 09The Shawshank Redemption was adapted from a 1982 novella by which author?
Stephen King
Stephen King sold Frank Darabont the rights to his novella for $5,000, never cashed the cheque, and years later sent it back framed with a note: 'In case you ever need bail money.'
Q 10Which 1994 Quentin Tarantino film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes?
Pulp Fiction
Pulp Fiction took the Palme d'Or in May 1994 after TriStar had turned the script down as 'too demented', leaving Miramax to finance the whole film itself.
Q 11The Matrix (1999) was written and directed by which pair of siblings?
The Wachowskis
The Wachowskis followed it with two sequels in 2003, Reloaded and Revolutions, and the film's 'bullet time' effect became the most imitated shot of its decade.
Q 12Casablanca (1942) is set in December 1941 in a port city then under French control in which North African country?
Morocco
Morocco made headlines just in time: Warner Bros. rushed the film into release in November 1942, weeks after the Allied invasion of North Africa had put the real Casablanca in the news.
Q 13In E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Elliott lures the alien back to the house with a trail of which sweet?
Reese's Pieces
Q 21Besides the award for its score, The Wizard of Oz won which other competitive Oscar?
Best Original Song
Best Original Song went to 'Over the Rainbow', a number the studio almost cut because it felt a slow ballad so early stalled the story.
Q 22In The Wizard of Oz, who reveals the Wizard to be an ordinary man by pulling back a curtain?
Toto
Toto tugs the curtain aside to expose the humbug Wizard; Terry, the Cairn terrier who played him, was injured when a guard actor stepped on her paw, and a stand-in dog filled in while she healed.
Q 23Jaws was shot mostly on location on which Massachusetts island?
Martha's Vineyard
Reese's Pieces got the placement after Mars, Incorporated refused to let M&M's appear in the 1982 film; the Hershey candy's sales rose sharply afterwards.
Q 14Hattie McDaniel became the first African American Oscar winner for which 1939 film?
Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind won Hattie McDaniel the Best Supporting Actress award as Mammy, yet at the ceremony itself she was seated at a segregated table at the side of the room.
Q 15Which sentient computer runs the Discovery One in 2001: A Space Odyssey?
HAL 9000
HAL 9000 sings 'Daisy Bell' as he is shut down because Arthur C. Clarke had watched a real IBM computer synthesise that song on a visit to Bell Labs in the early 1960s.
Q 16Which author sold Paramount an option on The Godfather when it was still an unfinished manuscript?
Mario Puzo
Mario Puzo ignored his agent and took Paramount's $12,500 option on a sixty-page draft because he badly needed money; the price rose to $80,000 only if a film was made.
Q 17Warner Bros. paid a then-record sum for which unproduced stage play, later filmed as Casablanca?
Everybody Comes to Rick's
Everybody Comes to Rick's grew out of Murray Burnett's 1938 trip to Nazi-occupied Vienna and a nightclub in the south of France; Warner Bros. bought it unstaged for $20,000.
Q 18In Casablanca, which song does Ilsa ask the pianist Sam to play?
"As Time Goes By"
"As Time Goes By" survived by luck: composer Max Steiner wanted to replace it with a tune of his own, but Ingrid Bergman had already cut her hair for her next film, so the scenes could not be reshot.
Q 19Which British actress won the role of Scarlett O'Hara after a much-publicized search?
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh was still uncast when the burning of Atlanta was filmed late in 1938; legend has it that producer David O. Selznick first met her on the set that night.
Q 20David O. Selznick paid $50,000 in 1936 for the screen rights to which author's Civil War novel?
Margaret Mitchell
Margaret Mitchell's novel had been on sale for only a month when Selznick bought it in July 1936, pushed into the deal by his story editor Kay Brown.
Martha's Vineyard stood in for the fictional Amity Island; shooting on the open ocean there sent the film wildly over budget and schedule.
Q 24Who demands $10,000 in Jaws to hunt down and kill the shark?
Quint
Quint names his price after a $3,000 bounty on the shark sets off a chaotic amateur hunt; the grizzled fisherman was played by Robert Shaw.
Q 25Which actor was originally cast as Marty McFly in Back to the Future before Michael J. Fox replaced him?
Eric Stoltz
Eric Stoltz shot for several weeks before being replaced; Michael J. Fox had been the first choice but was tied up with Family Ties.
Q 26In Back to the Future, the DeLorean must reach what speed to travel through time?
88 miles per hour
88 miles per hour is the magic number, along with 1.21 gigawatts, which in 1955 only a lightning bolt can supply.
Q 27In The Shining, Hallorann warns Danny to stay out of which room number at the Overlook Hotel?
237
Room 237 replaced the novel's 217 at the request of Oregon's Timberline Lodge, which supplied the exteriors and did not want a real room stigmatised.
Q 28The Shining ends on a 1921 photograph of a July 4th ball showing which character front and centre?
Jack Torrance
Jack Torrance grins from the middle of the crowd; Kubrick had Jack Nicholson's face superimposed onto a genuine 1921 photograph of a dance.
Q 29Sylvester Stallone refused to sell his Rocky script unless he could do what?
Star in it
Star in it: Stallone wrote the script in about three days and turned down a six-figure offer for it alone, holding out until the studio let him play Rocky.
Q 30What was the approximate production budget of Rocky (1976)?
About $1 million
About $1 million was the whole budget, yet Rocky became the highest-grossing film of 1976, taking roughly $225 million worldwide, and won Best Picture.