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50 free François Truffaut trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This François Truffaut trivia quiz covers the critic-turned-director who became the most accessible face of the French New Wave. The easy questions handle the basics: his debut film, the boy actor who played his alter ego Antoine Doinel, the love triangle of Jules and Jim, the Oscar-winning film about making a film, and the Spielberg blockbuster in which he played a French scientist. From there it moves through his savage years at Cahiers du Cinéma, the auteur theory, André Bazin, the Doinel cycle with Claude Jade, and his week-long interview with Alfred Hitchcock. The harder half is for cinephiles: the Cornell Woolrich thrillers, the English-language Fahrenheit 451 shot by Nicolas Roeg, The Wild Child and the doctor he played in it, Isabelle Adjani's record Oscar nomination for Adèle H., the ten Césars for The Last Metro, the furious 1973 letters between Truffaut and Godard, the production company named after a Renoir film, and the hitchhiker he threw out of his car for not liking films. If you enjoyed our Hitchcock or classic cinema quizzes, this is the deep dive on one director. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for Truffaut and each of the films named before publishing.
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Q 01Truffaut is regarded as one of the founders of which film movement?
The French New Wave
Historian Tony Judt called him 'not only the main theorist behind the revolution in French cinema' but 'by far its most consistently successful practitioner'.
Q 02What was Truffaut's 1959 directorial debut?
The 400 Blows
He made it after seeing Orson Welles's Touch of Evil at Expo 58, and it drew 4.1 million admissions in France.
Q 03Which actor played Truffaut's alter ego Antoine Doinel in five films over twenty years?
Jean-Pierre Léaud
He was 14 when he answered a flyer for the audition, and the two were sometimes mistaken for each other in the street.
Q 04For which magazine did Truffaut write his notoriously brutal reviews as a young critic?
Cahiers du Cinéma
He was nicknamed 'The Gravedigger of French Cinema' and was the only French critic not invited to Cannes in 1958.
Q 05Which critic became Truffaut's mentor, got him out of military prison and found him a job at his new magazine?
André Bazin
Truffaut had joined the army at 18 and spent two years trying to escape it, ending up jailed for attempted desertion.
Q 06Which idea, holding that a film's director is its true author, did Truffaut champion?
The auteur theory
American critic Andrew Sarris helped it gain ground in the 1960s after a cool early reception.
Q 07What was the title of Truffaut's incendiary 1954 article attacking the 'tradition of quality' in his country's films?
A Certain Trend of French Cinema
It named eight directors, from Renoir to Tati, as incapable of the 'vile' characters he saw in mainstream French films, and got him a job at a national weekly.
Q 08How old was Truffaut when he saw his first film, Abel Gance's Paradis Perdu, and began his obsession?
Eight
He later set himself the goals of watching three films a day and reading three books a week after quitting school at 14.
Q 09Which childhood friend inspired the character René in The 400 Blows and later worked as an assistant on Truffaut's films?
Robert Lachenay
Truffaut spent as much time as possible away from an unhappy home, often at his friend's.
Q 10Which award did The 400 Blows win at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival?
Best Director
It was also nominated for the Palme d'Or and for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Q 11In The 400 Blows, Antoine is accused by his teacher of plagiarising which French novelist?
Balzac
He had paraphrased the writer from memory in an essay about his grandfather's death; the film ends with a famous freeze-frame at the sea.
Q 12How does The 400 Blows famously end?
With a freeze-frame of Antoine at the sea
Editor Walter Murch said the shot 'electrified' him as a young man.
Q 13Which Godard landmark of the New Wave was based on a premise supplied by Truffaut?
Breathless
The two colleagues later fell out spectacularly and never spoke again after 1973.
Q 21Which future director served as cinematographer on Fahrenheit 451, Truffaut's first film in colour?
Nicolas Roeg
The film flopped commercially and Truffaut never worked outside France again.
Q 22Which actress played Christine Darbon, Antoine Doinel's fiancée and later wife, in three films?
Claude Jade
Truffaut fell in love with her during Stolen Kisses and they were briefly engaged; she then made her Hollywood debut in Hitchcock's Topaz.
Q 23Which 1979 film closed the Antoine Doinel cycle with the couple's divorce?
Love on the Run
Truffaut made it after The Green Room flopped at the box office.
Q 14Which singer starred as the pianist in Truffaut's second feature, Shoot the Piano Player?
Charles Aznavour
Truffaut said he realised mid-shoot that he hated gangsters, so he turned up the comedy; critics loved it, audiences did not.
Q 15Shoot the Piano Player was based on the novel Down There by which American crime writer?
David Goodis
Truffaut returned to American pulp repeatedly, adapting Woolrich twice and Charles Williams for his final film.
Q 16Which actress played Catherine, the woman at the centre of the love triangle in Jules and Jim?
Jeanne Moreau
She won the best actress prize at the 1962 Étoile de Cristal, and Truffaut cast her again in The Bride Wore Black.
Q 17In Jules and Jim, what nationality is the shy writer Jules?
Austrian
He and Jim end up fighting on opposite sides in the First World War, each dreading meeting the other at the front.
Q 18Which novelist wrote the books behind both Jules and Jim and Two English Girls?
Henri-Pierre Roché
Truffaut called his passionate-triangle situation, with everyone in love with everyone, a subject dear to his heart.
Q 19Which Hollywood film was Truffaut approached to direct in 1963, before he passed and it went to Arthur Penn?
Bonnie and Clyde
Writers David Newman and Robert Benton wanted to bring the New Wave to Hollywood; Warren Beatty ended up producing.
Q 20Fahrenheit 451, Truffaut's only English-language film, was adapted from a novel by which author?
Ray Bradbury
He barely spoke English, and star Oskar Werner stormed off set, forcing him to shoot scenes with a body double from behind.
Q 24The Bride Wore Black and Mississippi Mermaid, Truffaut's Hitchcock homages, were both based on novels by which writer?
Cornell Woolrich
Mississippi Mermaid paired Catherine Deneuve with Jean-Paul Belmondo in an identity-bending romantic thriller.
Q 25In The Wild Child, Truffaut made his acting debut as which real 18th-century physician?
Jean Marc Gaspard Itard
The doctor tried to civilise Victor of Aveyron, a feral boy found in a forest in 1798.
Q 26What is the original French title of Day for Night?
La Nuit américaine
It is the French name for shooting daylight scenes through a filter so they look like night.
Q 27What is the name of the melodrama being made within Day for Night?
Meet Pamela
Truffaut plays its director, Ferrand, and the film opens with a dedication to Lillian and Dorothy Gish.
Q 28Which Academy Award did Day for Night win?
Best Foreign Language Film
Truffaut himself was nominated twice the following year, and the film took three BAFTAs.
Q 29Which actress in Day for Night was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar and won the BAFTA?
Valentina Cortese
She plays Séverine, the fading Italian diva who cannot remember her lines.
Q 30Which former friend wrote Truffaut a raucous 1973 letter calling him 'a liar' over Day for Night, prompting a 20-page reply?
Jean-Luc Godard
Truffaut shot back that his old colleague was 'the Ursula Andress of militancy'; the two never spoke again.