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58 free Paramount Pictures trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Paramount Pictures trivia quiz covers more than a century of the studio with the mountain logo. It starts with the basics any movie fan should know: the year it was founded, the franchises it owns, the famous Melrose Avenue lot and the Best Picture winners in its library. From there it digs into the founding story, from Adolph Zukor's Famous Players and Jesse Lasky's rented horse barn to W. W. Hodkinson sketching a Utah peak on a napkin. The harder questions are for film-history buffs: block booking and the 1948 Supreme Court case that ended the studio system, the Fleischer cartoons, the Gulf+Western years under Charles Bluhdorn and Robert Evans, Barry Diller's team of future moguls, the Desilu purchase that brought Star Trek in the door, the Viacom bidding war, DreamWorks, and the 2025 Skydance merger. There is also a run of questions on the logo itself, whose star count and mountain have changed more than most people realise. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the studio, its founders and its landmark films, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Hollywood, Star Trek and Best Picture quizzes next.
30 of 58 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which year does Paramount Pictures date its founding?
1912
Paramount dates its founding to 1912, the year the Famous Players Film Company, its earliest forerunner, was organised in New York.
Q 02Which studio is the only American film studio older than Paramount?
Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures, founded by Carl Laemmle days before Famous Players was organised, is the only surviving American studio older than Paramount; Warner Bros. and Columbia both came later.
Q 03Which Hungarian-born producer founded the Famous Players Film Company that grew into Paramount?
Adolph Zukor
Adolph Zukor, born in Hungary, founded the Famous Players Film Company, the first link in the Paramount chain, after making his money in penny arcades and nickelodeons.
Q 04What slogan did Zukor adopt for his first film company, which put stage stars on screen?
Famous Players in Famous Plays
The slogan 'Famous Players in Famous Plays' captured the plan to film leading stage actors in established plays, drawing middle-class theatre audiences to the movies.
Q 05Which legendary French actress starred in Famous Players' first film?
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt starred in the French-made Les Amours de la reine Elisabeth, which Famous Players released in the United States as its first film; the feature's American success bankrolled the new company.
Q 06Which brother-in-law lent Jesse L. Lasky the money to start his Feature Play Company?
Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn, then named Samuel Goldfish and married to Lasky's sister Blanche, put up money for the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company in 1913.
Q 07Which director, the Lasky company's first employee, set up in a rented Hollywood horse barn?
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil B. DeMille, a stage director with almost no film experience, made the Lasky company's first feature in a rented barn at Selma and Vine, later known as the Lasky-DeMille Barn.
Q 08What was the title of the Lasky company's first feature film, released in 1914?
The Squaw Man
The Squaw Man, released in February 1914, was the Lasky company's first feature and one of the first feature films made in Hollywood, shot at the rented barn near Selma and Vine.
Q 09Which Utah theatre owner founded the original Paramount Pictures Corporation as a distributor in 1914?
W. W. Hodkinson
W. W. Hodkinson, who had run theatres in Ogden, Utah, founded Paramount Pictures Corporation in 1914 to distribute films nationally; he also sketched the studio's mountain logo.
Q 10What was Paramount's original distribution company called before taking the Paramount name in 1914?
Progressive Pictures
Progressive Pictures was the distribution firm that took the Paramount Pictures name in 1914, becoming the first successful nationwide distributor of feature films.
Q 11What was the name of the corporation Zukor formed through a three-way merger in 1916?
Famous Players-Lasky
Famous Players-Lasky, the corporation created in 1916 by merging Famous Players, the Lasky company and the Paramount distributor, was valued at $12.5 million, the largest film company of its day.
Q 12What was the practice that forced exhibitors to buy a year of Paramount films to get one star's pictures?
Block booking
Block booking forced exhibitors to take a whole year of Paramount releases to get a star's films; the practice gave Paramount a leading position but drew antitrust pursuit for more than twenty years.
Q 13Which studio facility did Lasky buy in 1926 that remains part of Paramount's headquarters?
Q 21The 1948 Supreme Court case United States v. Paramount Pictures ruled that studios could not do what?
Own movie theater chains
The decision split off United Paramount Theaters and effectively ended the classic studio system.
Q 22Which television network did the spun-off United Paramount Theaters acquire in 1953?
ABC
Leonard Goldenson led ABC to first place in the Nielsen ratings by the mid-1970s.
Q 23Paramount's experimental 1939 Los Angeles TV station became which first commercial station on the West Coast?
KTLA
KTLA, which began as Paramount's experimental W6XYZ, took its commercial licence in January 1947 as the West Coast's first commercial station; Paramount sold it to Gene Autry in 1964.
Robert Brunton Studios
Robert Brunton Studios, a 26-acre lot at 5451 Marathon Street, was bought in 1926 for $1 million and became the core of Paramount's present studio lot.
Q 14On which Hollywood street is Paramount's headquarters, at number 5555?
Melrose Avenue
Paramount's headquarters is at 5555 Melrose Avenue; the lot's original arched Bronson Gate, the studio's symbol for decades, faces Marathon Street.
Q 15Which animation studio, home of Betty Boop and Popeye, made cartoons for Paramount from 1927?
Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios, run by brothers Max and Dave Fleischer in New York, supplied Paramount's cartoons including Betty Boop and Popeye; a 1935 poll rated Popeye more popular than Mickey Mouse.
Q 16What did Paramount first rename the Popeye cartoon studio after taking it over in 1942?
Famous Studios
Famous Studios was the name Paramount gave the New York cartoon unit it took over in 1942; it became Paramount Cartoon Studios in 1956 and closed in 1967.
Q 17In which radio network did Paramount buy a half interest in the late 1920s?
CBS
Paramount bought half of CBS for stock in the network's early years but sold the holding back in 1932; decades later Viacom owned both Paramount and CBS.
Q 18Which Chicago theatre chain did Zukor acquire in 1926?
Balaban & Katz
Balaban & Katz, the Chicago chain famous for its movie palaces, was bought in 1926 and merged into the Publix circuit; Barney Balaban later ran Paramount as president from 1936.
Q 19Which taxi and rental-car magnate did Zukor hire in 1931 to fix Paramount's finances?
John D. Hertz
John D. Hertz, founder of Yellow Cab and the Hertz rental business, was brought onto the finance committee in 1931; his cost-cutting failed and Paramount entered receivership in 1933.
Q 20Whose suggestive 1933 films She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel helped trigger Production Code enforcement?
Mae West
Mae West's 1933 Paramount hits She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel outraged the Catholic Legion of Decency, whose boycott threat helped force strict Production Code enforcement in 1934.
Q 24Which 1956 DeMille remake of his own 1923 film gave the struggling studio some relief?
The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments (1956), DeMille's remake of his own 1923 silent epic with Charlton Heston as Moses, was the highest-grossing film of 1956.
Q 25Which industrial conglomerate bought Paramount in 1966?
Gulf and Western
Gulf and Western, Charles Bluhdorn's sprawling industrial conglomerate, bought Paramount in 1966, and Bluhdorn soon installed a little-known producer as the studio's head of production.
Q 26Which production chief restored Paramount's fortunes with Rosemary's Baby, Love Story and The Godfather?
Robert Evans
Robert Evans ran production at Paramount from 1966 to 1974, overseeing Rosemary's Baby, Love Story and The Godfather before leaving to produce Chinatown.
Q 27From whom did Paramount's parent buy the neighboring Desilu studio in 1967?
Lucille Ball
Lucille Ball, sole owner of Desilu after buying out Desi Arnaz in 1962, sold the former RKO lot next door to Paramount's parent in 1967 for about $17 million.
Q 28Which studio joined Paramount's Cinema International Corporation as a third partner in 1973?
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer joined Cinema International Corporation, the overseas distribution venture Paramount had launched with MCA's film studio in 1970, after closing its own foreign distribution offices in 1973.
Q 29Which executive, later founder of Fox Broadcasting, ran Paramount from 1974 to 1984?
Barry Diller
Barry Diller ran Paramount from 1974 to 1984 with a team nicknamed the 'Killer-Dillers'; Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Dawn Steel all went on to run studios of their own.
Q 30Which two late-1970s "high concept" Paramount musicals hit big worldwide?
Saturday Night Fever and Grease
Saturday Night Fever and Grease, released in 1977 and 1978 and both starring John Travolta, were huge worldwide hits for Paramount, and their soundtrack albums topped the charts as well.