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46 free Good Will Hunting trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
42 free Good Will Hunting trivia questions with answers. Good Will Hunting started as a homework assignment Matt Damon turned in late and too long, spent a year at Castle Rock as a thriller about the NSA, and only got made because Robin Williams cut his fee and Kevin Smith walked the script into Harvey Weinstein's office. Then it won two Oscars. This quiz runs 46 questions on the film itself (the bench, the bar, 'It's not your fault', Sean's World Series story, the NSA speech), the cast (Williams, Skarsgård, Minnie Driver, the Afflecks), the long road to production (the $600,000 sale, the oral-sex test scenes, Mel Gibson, Terrence Malick's ending) and the aftermath: nine nominations, the youngest screenwriting winners ever, Elliott Smith in a white suit at the Oscars. It starts easy and works up to questions for people who know who Derrick Bridgeman is. Every answer has been checked against reference sources, shown under each question once you answer, so it works for a movie night or a 90s film round at pub trivia.
30 of 46 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who wrote the screenplay for Good Will Hunting?
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon wrote the script themselves and won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in March 1998.
Q 02Who directed Good Will Hunting?
Gus Van Sant
Gus Van Sant, whom Affleck and Damon wanted from the start, directed it and was nominated for the Best Director Oscar.
Q 03Who plays Billy McBride, one of Will's South Boston friends?
Cole Hauser
Cole Hauser plays Billy McBride, one of Will's three South Boston friends; he had appeared with Damon and Affleck in 1992's School Ties.
Q 04What was Will Hunting's job at MIT?
Janitor
Janitor is Will's job: he mops MIT's corridors, where he solves Lambeau's blackboard problem anonymously; Affleck's father had worked as a janitor at Harvard.
Q 05Which star plays the therapist Sean Maguire, in what many consider his finest dramatic role?
Robin Williams
Robin Williams plays Sean Maguire, the widowed South Boston therapist whose sessions finally get through to Will.
Q 06Where does Sean Maguire teach psychology?
Bunker Hill Community College
Bunker Hill Community College is where Sean teaches psychology, a far cry from the MIT career of his old college roommate Lambeau.
Q 07Who plays MIT professor Gerald Lambeau?
Stellan Skarsgård
Stellan Skarsgård plays Gerald Lambeau, the Fields Medal-winning MIT professor who discovers Will's gift and pushes him toward Sean.
Q 08Who plays Skylar, the Harvard student Will falls for?
Minnie Driver
Minnie Driver plays Skylar and earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination; she and Damon were a couple during filming.
Q 09Where is Skylar planning to go to medical school?
Stanford
Stanford is where Skylar is headed for medical school; Will's refusal to go to California with her triggers their breakup and, eventually, his final drive west 'to see about a girl'.
Q 10What was the script originally about, before the thriller plot was cut?
A physics genius chased by NSA agents
A physics genius chased by NSA agents was the original thriller premise; Rob Reiner and William Goldman both urged the writers to drop it and focus on Will and Sean.
Q 11Which studio first bought the Good Will Hunting script, in 1994?
Castle Rock
Castle Rock, Rob Reiner's company, bought the script in 1994 in a bidding war; the writers later took it into turnaround after disagreements over how it would be made.
Q 12How did the writers test whether their first studio's executives were still reading the rewrites?
They inserted a scene of Will and Sean having oral sex
They inserted a scene of Will and Sean having oral sex, and nobody at the first studio mentioned it; Harvey Weinstein asked them to remove it, proving he had read the script.
Q 13Which director brought the script to Harvey Weinstein at Miramax and served as executive producer?
Q 21Which song beat 'Miss Misery' to the Best Original Song Oscar?
My Heart Will Go On
My Heart Will Go On, Celine Dion's theme from James Cameron's blockbuster, took the award; presenter Madonna read the winner with a sarcastic 'What a shocker!'.
Q 22Who composed the film's score?
Danny Elfman
Danny Elfman composed the score, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Original Dramatic Score, and arranged the orchestral version of 'Between the Bars' on the soundtrack.
Q 23Which sporting event did Sean give up tickets to on the night he met his wife?
Game 6 of the 1975 World Series
Kevin Smith
Kevin Smith, who had directed Affleck in Mallrats, passed the script to Miramax and took a co-executive producer credit; he declined to direct it himself.
Q 14How much did Miramax pay to buy the script out of turnaround in 1995?
$1 million
$1 million is what Miramax paid to take the script out of turnaround, matching what the first studio demanded to recoup its costs.
Q 15Which actor-director developed the film for months before Damon asked him to step aside?
Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson was attached to direct but kept delaying for other projects; Damon feared he and Affleck would be too old for the roles by the time he was free.
Q 16Where did the writers get the title Good Will Hunting?
A script by high-school friend Derrick Bridgeman
A script by high-school friend Derrick Bridgeman supplied the title; the writers paid him $10,000 for it, and he has a small cameo in the film.
Q 17What was the film's approximate budget and worldwide gross?
$10 million and $226 million
$10 million and $226 million are the rough figures: shot cheaply for Miramax in the spring of 1997, it went on to earn more than twenty times its budget worldwide.
Q 18How did Good Will Hunting fare at the 70th Academy Awards?
Nine nods, two wins
Nine nods, two wins: it was nominated for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Screenplay, Editing, Score and Song, winning Supporting Actor and Original Screenplay.
Q 19At what age did the film's co-writer become the youngest person ever to win a screenwriting Oscar?
25
25 was Affleck's age when he collected the Best Original Screenplay Oscar in March 1998; Damon, at 27, was the second youngest winner.
Q 20Which singer-songwriter wrote 'Miss Misery' for the film and performed it at the Oscars?
Elliott Smith
Elliott Smith, whose songs Van Sant had used throughout the film, wrote 'Miss Misery' and reluctantly performed it in a white suit at the March 1998 ceremony.
Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, with Carlton Fisk's famous 12th-inning home run, is the game Sean skipped, telling his friends he had to go 'see about a girl'.
Q 24What are the last words of the film, improvised on set by the actor playing Sean?
Son of a bitch stole my line
Son of a bitch stole my line is what Sean says on reading Will's note, an improvised closing line by the actor; the film then ends with Will driving west.
Q 25What phrase does Sean repeat to Will in the film's emotional climax?
It's not your fault
It's not your fault is repeated by Sean until Will breaks down, after they compare the abuse each suffered as boys.
Q 26Where were most of the film's interiors shot?
Toronto
Toronto hosted most of the interior shooting, with University of Toronto buildings such as Knox College standing in for MIT and Harvard; exteriors were shot around Boston.
Q 27Where was the famous bench scene between Will and Sean filmed?
Boston Public Garden
Boston Public Garden holds the bench where Sean's long speech to Will about life and love was shot; the bench became a fan memorial after the actor's death in 2014.
Q 28Which South Boston bar was used for the scenes of Will and his friends drinking?
L Street Tavern
L Street Tavern, a real South Boston bar, appears as the local where Will, Chuckie, Morgan and Billy drink; it became a tourist stop after the film.
Q 29Who plays Judge Malone in the courtroom scene?
Jimmy Flynn, the head teamster
Jimmy Flynn, the head teamster on Boston film shoots, plays the judge; he had himself once stood trial for murder in Boston and been acquitted.
Q 30Which Nobel-winning physicist told the writers that Will should be a mathematician, not a physicist?
Sheldon Glashow
Sheldon Glashow, the Harvard Nobel laureate, told them a physics prodigy was implausible and sent them to his brother-in-law, an MIT mathematician who became the film's consultant.