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48 free Gremlins trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
50 free Gremlins trivia questions with answers. Gremlins arrived in the summer of 1984 as a Christmas movie with teeth: a cute mogwai, three rules nobody follows, and a small town overrun by reptilian imps. This quiz covers the whole franchise, from the spec script written in a mouse-infested loft to the 1990 sequel that turned a Manhattan skyscraper into a playground for a Brain, a bat and a very forward female gremlin, and on to the animated prequel set in 1920s Shanghai. Easy questions cover the rules, the cast and who voices Gizmo. Harder ones dig into the creature effects, the department store where the villain meets sunlight, the actor behind Mr. Wing, the toy and cereal tie-ins, the video game that closed out an Atari console, and how two Spielberg productions forced the MPAA to invent PG-13. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and other primary pages, and the citation sits under each question, so you can settle any argument about whether Gremlins counts as a Christmas film. Built for movie nights, 80s nostalgia rounds and anyone who has ever set a clock forward to see what happens.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed the 1984 film Gremlins?
Joe Dante
Joe Dante directed Gremlins; he had come up cutting trailers for Roger Corman's New World Pictures before Spielberg's Amblin hired him for the 1984 film.
Q 02Which future Home Alone director wrote Gremlins as a spec script?
Chris Columbus
Chris Columbus wrote Gremlins on spec after hearing mice scurrying around his loft at night; Steven Spielberg bought the script, launching Columbus's career years before Home Alone.
Q 03Rand Peltzer buys the mogwai as a Christmas present in an antique store located in which neighborhood?
Chinatown
The antique shop is in Chinatown; its owner Mr. Wing refuses to sell the mogwai, and his grandson secretly hands Gizmo over for $200 along with the three rules.
Q 04Which of the three mogwai rules is stressed as the most important, 'above all'?
never feed it after midnight
Never feed it after midnight is the rule the grandson calls the most important; the other two, avoiding bright light and water, cover what kills a mogwai and what makes it multiply.
Q 05What is the name of the snowy small town where Billy Peltzer works at the local bank?
Kingston Falls
Kingston Falls is the town; its picture-postcard setting deliberately echoes It's a Wonderful Life, a clip of which plays on television in the film.
Q 06Which actor plays Billy Peltzer?
Zach Galligan
Zach Galligan, a relative unknown, won the part of Billy after Spielberg saw his screen test with the actress cast as Kate and pushed for him.
Q 07Which Fast Times at Ridgemont High actress plays Billy's girlfriend Kate Beringer?
Phoebe Cates
Phoebe Cates played Kate; Gremlins was the highest-grossing film of her career, and she largely left acting in the mid-1990s, later opening a New York boutique.
Q 08Which country singer-songwriter plays Billy's inventor father, Randall Peltzer?
Hoyt Axton
Hoyt Axton, the country singer-songwriter, played Rand Peltzer; after an introductory scene was cut, his voice was kept as the film's narrator.
Q 09The actor who plays Rand Peltzer wrote which 1971 Three Dog Night song that spent six weeks at No. 1?
Joy to the World
Rand Peltzer's actor wrote Joy to the World, which Three Dog Night held at No. 1 for six weeks in 1971; he also wrote The Pusher for Steppenwolf and Greenback Dollar for the Kingston Trio.
Q 10Which comedian, later the host of Deal or No Deal, provided the voice of Gizmo?
Howie Mandel
Howie Mandel voiced Gizmo while starring as Dr. Wayne Fiscus on St. Elsewhere, and he returned to voice the mogwai in the 1990 sequel.
Q 11Which prolific voice actor, famous for Scooby-Doo's Fred, voiced the gremlins' leader?
Frank Welker
Frank Welker, the longtime voice of Scooby-Doo's Fred, voiced the gremlins' leader in 1984 and returned for the 1990 sequel to voice the new leader, Mohawk.
Q 12What is the aggressive mogwai leader, named for the white tuft on his head, called?
Stripe
Stripe is the leader; in the original draft Gizmo himself was to turn into the villain, but Spielberg vetoed it because audiences would want the cute mogwai kept around.
Q 13In which department store's fountain does the lead gremlin try to spawn more of his kind?
Montgomery Ward
Q 21Which film was the first released theatrically under the new PG-13 rating in 1984?
Red Dawn
Red Dawn, released August 10, 1984, was the first film to reach theaters with a PG-13; the rating had been introduced on July 1, weeks after Gremlins opened with a plain PG.
Q 22Who composed the score for Gremlins, including the mischievous 'Gremlin Rag'?
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerry Goldsmith composed the score, including the 'Gremlin Rag', and won a Saturn Award for it; like Chuck Jones and Spielberg he also sneaks into the film in a cameo.
Q 23The composer of Gremlins won his only Academy Award, from 18 nominations, for which film?
The Omen
It is the Montgomery Ward store; the leader had left the cinema early for candy across the street, which is why he alone survived the gas explosion that killed the rest.
Q 14In her monologue about hating Christmas, Kate reveals her father died how?
he broke his neck climbing down the chimney
Kate says he broke his neck climbing down the chimney dressed as Santa; the director refused to cut the monologue, arguing it captured the film's mix of horror and holiday cheer.
Q 15Which future Goonies star plays Pete Fountaine, the kid who accidentally spills water on Gizmo?
Corey Feldman
Corey Feldman, soon to star in The Goonies, played Pete; his spill spawns five new mogwai, and the mischievous ones sabotage Billy's bedside clock so they get fed late.
Q 16How does Steven Spielberg make his cameo in Gremlins?
as a man on a recumbent bicycle
Spielberg appears as a man on a recumbent bicycle at the inventors' convention; other cameos include the film's composer in a telephone booth and animator Chuck Jones as Mr. Jones.
Q 17Gremlins opened in North America on June 8, 1984, the same day as which other blockbuster?
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters opened the same day and won the weekend with $13.6 million to Gremlins' $12.5 million; both films finished in 1984's domestic top four.
Q 18Roughly what was the production budget of Gremlins?
$11 million
Gremlins cost about $11 million to make; Warner Bros. released it in June 1984 and it finished as one of the year's four highest-grossing films in North America.
Q 19Approximately how much did Gremlins gross in its North American run?
$148 million
Gremlins grossed about $148 million in North America, the fourth-highest domestic total of 1984, and passed $200 million worldwide once overseas markets were added.
Q 20Complaints about violence in Gremlins and which other 1984 PG film led to the PG-13 rating?
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, released two weeks before Gremlins, drew the same complaints; Spielberg, connected to both, suggested an intermediate rating and the MPAA created PG-13 in July 1984.
The Omen, in 1976, brought the composer his only Oscar from 18 nominations; his last completed score was Looney Tunes: Back in Action in 2003, another film by the Gremlins director.
Q 24Gremlins puppet designer Chris Walas later won a makeup Oscar for which film?
The Fly
The Fly, in 1986, won Chris Walas the Academy Award for Best Makeup alongside Stephan Dupuis, and that win led to his directing debut on The Fly II in 1989.
Q 25Which scene from the much darker original screenplay was cut before filming?
Lynn Peltzer is decapitated by gremlins
Lynn Peltzer being decapitated, her head tossed down the stairs, was cut from the original darker script, as were the gremlins eating Billy's dog and attacking a McDonald's.
Q 26Which company produced Gremlins brand breakfast cereal in the mid-1980s?
Ralston
Ralston was the go-to maker of movie tie-in cereals in the era, cranking out boxes for Batman and Barbie too.
Q 27In the 1984 Atari 2600 game, what food must Billy catch before the mogwai eat it?
hamburgers
Hamburgers fall from the top of the screen and Billy must catch them before the mogwai eat them and turn into gremlins; a second phase has him fighting the descending gremlins.
Q 28A Gremlins game holds the distinction of being the last game ever released for which console?
Atari 5200
The Atari 5200 version of Gremlins, released in 1986, was the last official game for that console and a substantially different game from the earlier Atari 2600 cartridge.
Q 29Which children's author, a former fighter pilot, published a book called The Gremlins in 1943?
Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl, a former RAF fighter pilot, wrote The Gremlins in 1943; Walt Disney published and optioned it, and the little saboteurs had been aviator folklore since the 1920s.
Q 30The word 'mogwai' comes from Cantonese, where it means what?
devil
Mogwai means devil or demon in Cantonese, written 魔怪, which is why Mr. Wing warns that great responsibility comes with owning one.