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50 free Lawrence of Arabia trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Lawrence of Arabia is nearly four hours long, has no female speaking roles, and is still routinely voted the greatest British film ever made. This quiz covers it from the motorcycle crash that opens the picture to the car ride out of Damascus that closes it: the well, the Nefud crossing, Gasim, the fall of Aqaba, Deraa, Tafas and the collapse of the Arab Council, along with the actors behind Feisal, Auda, Allenby, Dryden and the Turkish Bey. The production questions are where it gets fun. Who was David Lean's first choice for Lawrence before Peter O'Toole? Why did Alain Delon turn down Sherif Ali? Which Spanish city doubled for Cairo, Jerusalem and Damascus, what did the Bedouin extras nickname O'Toole, and how many weeks did Maurice Jarre get to write two hours of music? There are questions on the seven Oscars, the record-setting UK run, the 1989 director's cut and the 8K restoration, plus a handful on the real T. E. Lawrence: where he was born, the alias he used to join the RAF, and the motorcycle he died on. Easy questions suit anyone who has seen the film once; the expert tier is for people who own the Blu-ray steelbook. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the film, its cast and T. E. Lawrence, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed the 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia?
David Lean
Lean had already made The Bridge on the River Kwai with the same producer, Sam Spiegel, and would follow this with Doctor Zhivago.
Q 02Which actor plays Prince Faisal in the film?
Alec Guinness
The make-up was so faithful that people who had known Faisal mistook the actor for him on set.
Q 03The film is based on the life of T. E. Lawrence and which 1926 book?
Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Lawrence vowed never to profit from the book and priced the first edition below cost, leaving himself in debt.
Q 04How many Academy Awards did Lawrence of Arabia win at the 1963 ceremony?
Seven
It was nominated for ten and took Best Picture and Best Director among its wins; neither of its acting nominees won.
Q 05Who composed the film's famous score?
Maurice Jarre
The composer was little known at the time and only got the job after William Walton and Malcolm Arnold were unavailable; the AFI later ranked the score third of all time.
Q 06Who was the film's director of photography, shooting in Super Panavision 70?
Freddie Young
The wide format punished quick cutting, so the crew relied on long, fluid takes and diagonal movement to avoid a projection 'flutter'.
Q 07Michael Wilson wrote the first draft, but who wrote virtually all the finished film's dialogue?
Robert Bolt
The producer brought him in to turn Wilson's political treatment of the Arab Revolt into a character study of Lawrence.
Q 08The film opens in 1935 with Lawrence dying how?
In a motorcycle accident
One of the doctors who treated him, Hugh Cairns, went on to research head injuries and push for crash helmets.
Q 09The memorial service that opens the film takes place at which building?
St Paul's Cathedral
There really is a bronze bust of Lawrence by Eric Kennington in the crypt there, installed in January 1936.
Q 10Sherif Ali shoots Lawrence's guide Tafas for doing what?
Drinking from his well
Sherif Ali is a composite character; the real Lawrence never served with a single Arab leader apart from Auda for most of the war.
Q 11Which desert protects Aqaba from land attack in the film, making the overland march so audacious?
The Nefud
The real expedition left Wejh on 9 May 1917 and took the town on 6 July, hitting the Turkish defences from behind.
Q 12How many men does Feisal give Lawrence for the march on Aqaba?
Fifty
The Howeitat under their tribal leader make up the numbers once Lawrence talks them into switching sides.
Q 13What does Lawrence promise the Howeitat leader to persuade him to join the attack on Aqaba?
A Turkish gold hoard
When the town falls there is none, and Lawrence has to ride to Cairo to ask for money instead.
Q 21Which then-unknown actor was the director's first choice for Lawrence but turned the part down?
Albert Finney
He passed a screen test but did not want to sign a long-term contract with the producer; Marlon Brando was also offered the role.
Q 22Noël Coward quipped that if O'Toole had been any prettier the film would have been called what?
Florence of Arabia
At 6 ft 2 in, O'Toole was also almost nine inches taller than the man he was playing.
Q 23Prince Faisal was originally to be played by which actor, who dropped out?
Laurence Olivier
The producer also pushed him for Allenby, but he was engaged at the Chichester Festival Theatre and declined.
Q 14How does Daud, one of Lawrence's two teenage attendants, die?
Drowned in quicksand
The other boy, Farraj, is later shot by Lawrence himself to spare him Turkish torture.
Q 15The American journalist Jackson Bentley is based on which real reporter?
Lowell Thomas
The real man's films and lectures were seen by over three million people in the early 1920s and turned Lawrence into an international celebrity.
Q 16Late in the film, Dryden tells Lawrence about which Anglo-French agreement to partition the Middle East?
Sykes-Picot
Historians note the real Lawrence probably knew about it much earlier than the film suggests.
Q 17Which actor plays the Howeitat chief Auda Abu Tayi?
Anthony Quinn
He did his own make-up from a photograph of the real man; the director reportedly failed to recognise him on set the first day.
Q 18Who plays General Allenby?
Jack Hawkins
He shaved his head for the role and had played the colonel in The Bridge on the River Kwai for the same director and producer.
Q 19Which actor plays the Turkish Bey who has Lawrence beaten at Deraa?
José Ferrer
He later called his five minutes on screen the best performance of his career.
Q 20Which veteran of Casablanca plays Mr Dryden of the Arab Bureau?
Claude Rains
The character is a composite of Ronald Storrs, David Hogarth, Henry McMahon and Mark Sykes.
Q 24Alain Delon had a successful screen test for Sherif Ali but declined the part because of what?
The brown contact lenses
Horst Buchholz was the first choice but had already signed for One, Two, Three; Omar Sharif was originally cast as the guide Tafas.
Q 25The actor playing the Turkish Bey accepted his small part only for $25,000 plus what?
A Porsche
The fee was more than O'Toole and Sharif were paid combined.
Q 26Which actor was first cast as Bentley and shot scenes before a heart attack led to Arthur Kennedy replacing him?
Edmond O'Brien
Kirk Douglas had been considered earlier but demanded a star salary and second billing, so the producer turned him down.
Q 27Lawrence of Arabia may be the longest theatrical film with no what?
Female speaking roles
Women do appear, but only as extras or in crowd scenes.
Q 28What is screenwriter Robert Bolt doing in his wordless cameo in Lawrence of Arabia?
Smoking a pipe
The gaffer played the motorcyclist at the Suez Canal, and the director himself is rumoured to have shouted 'Who are you?'.
Q 29The director reportedly studied which John Ford western while working out how to shoot the film?
The Searchers
Biographer Kevin Brownlow noted how much the film's desert locations resemble Ford's Monument Valley.
Q 30The film was originally to be shot entirely in which country, whose king visited the set several times?
Jordan
Cost and illness among the crew eventually pushed the production to Spain before the Aqaba and Petra scenes could be shot there.