Fatal Attraction Trivia
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50 free Fatal Attraction trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Fatal Attraction was the biggest film in the world in 1987 and gave the language the phrase "bunny boiler". This quiz covers the film scene by scene, from the affair and Madame Butterfly to the acid, the rabbit, the kidnapping and the bathtub, and then goes behind the camera: the actresses who turned the role down, Glenn Close's audition and concussion, the original ending in which Alex frames Dan, and why it was reshot. It also covers the box office and Oscar nominations, the psychiatric readings of Alex Forrest, the 2014 West End play and the 2023 Paramount+ series with Lizzy Caplan and Joshua Jackson. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who has seen the movie, a third are medium and the rest are for people who have watched the alternate ending. Every answer is checked against the film's reference pages.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed Fatal Attraction (1987)?
Adrian Lyne
He was nominated for the Best Director Oscar and later made Indecent Proposal and Unfaithful.
Q 02Who plays Alex Forrest, the spurned lover in Fatal Attraction?
Glenn Close
Glenn Close was not the producers' first choice, so she came to her audition with her long hair left wild and won them over.
Q 03Who plays Dan Gallagher, the cheating attorney in Fatal Attraction?
Michael Douglas
Michael Douglas backed the reshot ending at once, while his two co-stars objected to it.
Q 04Which actress plays Beth Gallagher, the wife in Fatal Attraction?
Anne Archer
Anne Archer was nominated for an Oscar and a BAFTA as Beth, yet objected when the studio scrapped the original ending.
Q 05Which British short film by James Dearden was expanded into Fatal Attraction?
Diversion
Diversion was Dearden's own short, and the feature script built on it was turned down by several major studios, including the one that later made it.
Q 06What is Alex Forrest's job in Fatal Attraction?
Associate editor for a client of Dan's firm
Associate editor for a client of Dan's firm: the pair meet at a party, then at a weekend business meeting while his family is away.
Q 07Which opera does Alex Forrest invite Dan to see in Fatal Attraction?
Madame Butterfly
Madame Butterfly is by Puccini, and the film's original ending was staged as a re-enactment of the opera's finale.
Q 08What does Alex Forrest do to the Gallagher family's pet rabbit in Fatal Attraction?
Boils it on their stove
Boils it on their stove: the family comes home to find the pot simmering, a scene that gave English the phrase 'bunny boiler'.
Q 09How does Alex Forrest get to meet Beth in Fatal Attraction?
Posing as a buyer for their apartment
Posing as a buyer for their apartment gets Alex past Dan, who had changed the family's phone number to shut her out.
Q 10Where does Alex Forrest take Ellen after collecting her from school in Fatal Attraction?
An amusement park
An amusement park: Alex returns Ellen unharmed, but Beth crashes her car while searching for her and ends up in hospital.
Q 11What does Alex Forrest pour on Dan's car in Fatal Attraction?
Acid
Acid ruins the car, and when Dan goes to the police they say they cannot act against Alex without probable cause.
Q 12Who kills Alex Forrest in the reshot ending of Fatal Attraction?
Beth, with a gun
Beth, with a gun: Dan seems to have drowned Alex in the bath, but she rears up from the water and Beth shoots her.
Q 13How does Alex Forrest die in Fatal Attraction's original ending?
She slashed her own throat
She slashed her own throat with a knife Dan had handled, so police arrested him until Beth found a tape of Alex threatening suicide.
Q 21Which film beat Fatal Attraction to finish as 1987's top-grossing movie in the United States?
Three Men and a Baby
Three Men and a Baby topped the US chart, but overseas takings made Fatal Attraction the year's biggest film worldwide.
Q 22Fatal Attraction went home empty-handed from six Oscar nominations; which film beat it to Best Picture?
The Last Emperor
The Last Emperor won all nine of its nominations that night, beating Fatal Attraction in four of its six categories, Best Picture and Best Director among them.
Q 23Fatal Attraction's only BAFTA win went to Steven Spielberg's regular collaborator Michael Kahn in which category?
Best Editing
Q 14By its producers' account, why was the ending of Fatal Attraction reshot?
Test audiences hated Alex triumphing
Test audiences hated Alex triumphing, so writer James Dearden reluctantly wrote a new finale, persuaded it would make the film a bigger hit.
Q 15Which of her Big Chill co-stars talked Fatal Attraction's lead actress into filming the new ending?
William Hurt
William Hurt, by her account, told her she had made her point and should buck up and do it, after she had resisted the reshoot for weeks.
Q 16Which director turned down Fatal Attraction because it was too similar to Play Misty for Me?
John Carpenter
John Carpenter dismissed the script as simply Play Misty for Me, although producer Sherry Lansing recalled begging him to direct it.
Q 17Which comedian passed on playing Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction because of the rabbit scene?
Tracey Ullman
Tracey Ullman was sent the script, though never formally offered the part, and decided the scene went too far.
Q 18Which French actress did Fatal Attraction's director first have in mind for Alex Forrest?
Isabelle Adjani
Isabelle Adjani was his first idea, but she reportedly spoke too little English, and he chose to cast against type instead.
Q 19What injury put Fatal Attraction's lead actress in hospital while filming the bathroom finale?
A concussion
A concussion sent her to hospital during the violent bathroom struggle, part of a reshot ending she had fought against filming at all.
Q 20Made for about $14 million, Fatal Attraction took roughly how much at cinemas worldwide?
$320 million
$320 million, by the lowest published tally, was more than twenty times the budget, yet the film had opened to only $7.6 million in its first US weekend.
Best Editing went to Michael Kahn and Peter E. Berger; at the Oscars a year earlier Kahn had competed against himself, nominated for this film and for Empire of the Sun, and lost.
Q 24Fatal Attraction is credited with triggering what late-1980s film trend?
The erotic thriller boom
The erotic thriller boom is credited to the film, a hit big enough to put its two stars on the cover of Time magazine.
Q 25Which future sitcom star plays the Gallaghers' babysitter in Fatal Attraction?
Jane Krakowski
Jane Krakowski's Christine arrives in the opening minutes to mind Ellen, which frees her parents to go to the book party where Dan first meets Alex.
Q 26Psychiatrists have used Alex Forrest as an illustration of which condition?
Borderline personality disorder
Borderline personality disorder fits her fear of abandonment, rage and self-harm, though people with it far more often harm themselves than others.
Q 27Only two female villains outrank Alex Forrest, seventh of the AFI's 50 screen villains: the Wicked Witch of the West and who?
Nurse Ratched
Nurse Ratched ranks fifth, one place behind the Wicked Witch, though Fatal Attraction's own writer insists Alex is emphatically not a monster.
Q 28Whose 2013 murder trial was widely dubbed a real-life Fatal Attraction?
Jodi Arias
Jodi Arias was convicted of murdering her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander; prosecutors cast her as a jealous lover who attacked him after he tried to end the relationship.
Q 29At which West End theatre did the 2014 stage version of Fatal Attraction open?
Theatre Royal Haymarket
Theatre Royal Haymarket staged it with the film's own screenwriter adapting, and he rewrote Alex as a tragic figure, not a monster.
Q 30Who directed the 2014 West End stage version of Fatal Attraction?
Trevor Nunn
Trevor Nunn directed Natascha McElhone, who agreed to play Alex only on the understanding that the character would not be demonised.