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50 free Knives Out trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Knives Out trivia quiz covers all three of Rian Johnson's Benoit Blanc mysteries: Knives Out (2019) and the Thrombey family, Glass Onion (2022) and Miles Bron's Greek island, and Wake Up Dead Man (2025) with its locked-room murder in an upstate New York church. Expect questions on the casts, the plots and their twists, the Radiohead, Beatles and U2 songs the titles come from, the Massachusetts and Spetses locations, the $469 million Netflix deal, and the Agatha Christie films Johnson was riffing on. Roughly a third of the questions are easy for anyone who has seen the films, a third are medium, and the rest dig into how Daniel Craig built Blanc's accent, where Harlan Thrombey's name came from, and which cameos slipped past you. If you have not seen Wake Up Dead Man yet, be warned that a few questions give away the ending. Every answer has been checked against an encyclopaedic source and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who wrote and directed Knives Out and both of its sequels?
Rian Johnson
He first conceived the film after finishing Brick in 2005 and finally wrote it after coming off Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Q 02Who plays the detective Benoit Blanc?
Daniel Craig
He initially turned the part down because of No Time to Die, then a three-month delay on the Bond film freed him up.
Q 03What is the name of the wealthy mystery novelist whose death Blanc investigates in Knives Out?
Harlan Thrombey
Johnson borrowed the surname from a 1981 Choose Your Own Adventure book, Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey?
Q 04Which veteran actor plays the dead novelist at the centre of Knives Out, in one of his final film roles?
Christopher Plummer
He described Harlan as a 'stern, bright and rough-hewn' father with a crass sense of humour.
Q 05Who plays Marta Cabrera, Harlan's nurse?
Ana de Armas
Johnson worried she was too beautiful for the underdog part until her audition; she nearly turned it down because the character description sounded clichéd.
Q 06What physical reaction does Marta have whenever she tells a lie?
She vomits
So she gives the police answers that are accurate but incomplete, and the tell is what finally traps the killer.
Q 07Which Marvel star plays Harlan's spoiled grandson Ransom Drysdale?
Chris Evans
Johnson wanted his Captain America goodwill as 'ammunition' against the audience, and Evans signed on partly because they were filming near his Massachusetts home.
Q 08Who plays Linda Drysdale, Harlan's daughter and the family's self-made matriarch?
Jamie Lee Curtis
Curtis said she related to Linda being reduced to her privilege as the daughter of someone famous.
Q 09Who plays Joni Thrombey, the lifestyle-guru widow of Harlan's late son?
Toni Collette
Collette said her main goal was finding the humour in Joni; the character's daughter Meg is played by Katherine Langford.
Q 10Who plays Walt Thrombey, Harlan's youngest son who runs the family publishing house?
Michael Shannon
Shannon never auditioned; he was hired after an arranged lunch with Johnson.
Q 11Which puppeteer and director, the voice of Yoda, plays Harlan's lawyer Alan Stevens?
Frank Oz
He reads the will that leaves everything to Marta, stunning the assembled Thrombeys.
Q 12How does Harlan actually die?
He slits his own throat
He does it to protect Marta after she believes she gave him a fatal morphine dose; in fact she had grabbed the correct vial by feel.
Q 13When Ransom finally lunges at Marta with a knife from Harlan's collection, what happens?
It's a retractable stage prop
The 'Wheel of Knives' throne behind him was the art department's most daunting prop, and the script never explained why Harlan owned it.
Q 21Who composed the orchestral score for Knives Out, recorded at Abbey Road?
Nathan Johnson
He is Rian Johnson's cousin, and it was his first large-scale orchestral score after years of small ensembles.
Q 22Knives Out received a single Academy Award nomination. In which category?
Best Original Screenplay
It also picked up three Golden Globe nominations and grossed $312 million on a $40 million budget.
Q 23Which studio distributed Knives Out to US cinemas in November 2019?
Lionsgate
MRC financed the $40 million budget and partnered with Lionsgate, which was recovering from a poor year at the box office.
Q 14What is written on Harlan's mug that Marta sips from on the balcony in the final shot?
My House, My Rules, My Coffee!!
The shot signals that under the slayer rule she keeps everything, because she never actually killed anyone.
Q 15Blanc tells Marta he suspected her early on because of what clue?
A drop of blood on her shoe
He lets her innocence prove itself, because every ethical choice she makes wrecks Ransom's frame-up.
Q 16Knives Out is named after a song by which band?
Radiohead
Johnson admitted the film has nothing to do with the song; the phrase had just stuck in his head as a good murder-mystery title.
Q 17Where was Knives Out mostly filmed?
Suburban Boston, Massachusetts
Interiors were shot at Ames Mansion in Borderland State Park, and the production earned a $10 million state tax credit.
Q 18Under what working title was Knives Out shot?
Morning Bell
Another Radiohead song, naturally; filming began on October 30, 2018 in Maynard, Massachusetts.
Q 19Which Southern voices did the actor playing Blanc study, via C-SPAN and The Civil War, for the accent?
Tennessee Williams and Shelby Foote
He worked with a dialect coach for two to three hours a day; Johnson's first idea for Blanc had been 'a Hercule Poirot clone'.
Q 20Johnson named the Knives Out characters after what?
Musicians he likes
Joni Mitchell, Richard Thompson and Steely Dan's Donald Fagen all lent their names.
Q 24How much did Netflix reportedly pay in 2021 for the rights to two Knives Out sequels?
$469 million
It outbid Amazon and Apple; a losing bidder called the deal 'mind-boggling'.
Q 25Who plays the tech billionaire Miles Bron in Glass Onion?
Edward Norton
Ethan Hawke appears briefly as his assistant, credited only as 'Efficient Man'.
Q 26On which Greek island was Glass Onion filmed in the summer of 2021?
Spetses
Johnson wrote it during lockdown, craving travel; the cast lived together at the Amanzoe villa in what he called 'a summer vacation where we also made a movie'.
Q 27Who plays twin sisters Andi and Helen Brand in Glass Onion?
Janelle Monáe
Helen, an Alabama schoolteacher, poses as her dead sister at the party to help Blanc investigate.
Q 28What is the name of Miles Bron's supposedly revolutionary, and actually dangerous, hydrogen fuel?
Klear
Helen finally throws a lump of it on a bonfire, blowing up the mansion and the Mona Lisa with it.
Q 29Which priceless artwork does Miles have on loan in his glass onion, and lose in the finale?
The Mona Lisa
The switch for its safety enclosure is modelled on the Beatles' 'The Fool on the Hill'.
Q 30How does Miles kill Duke Cody in Glass Onion?
Pineapple juice in his drink
Duke was deathly allergic; he'd tried to blackmail Miles after seeing a news report about Andi's death.