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42 free Rain Man trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Rain Man trivia quiz covers the 1988 Best Picture winner from the top: the plot (Charlie's Lamborghinis, the $3 million estate, the rosebushes and the Buick, why Raymond refuses to fly, blackjack at Caesars Palace), the cast (who was first pictured as Raymond, which actors turned it down, which director walked away to make an Indiana Jones film), and the making of it (nine weeks in Cincinnati, a shoot during the writers' strike, Hans Zimmer's score). It then looks at the man who inspired Raymond, Kim Peek, and how Barry Morrow's Oscar became 'the most loved statuette', at the four Academy Awards and Golden Bear the film won, at its box-office record for 1988, and at the legacy: airline edits, the card-counting myth, the West End stage version, and the sale of Hoffman's Buick. Questions run from easy (who plays Charlie) to expert (the auction price of the Buick). Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 42 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who plays Charlie Babbitt?
Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise plays Charlie Babbitt, the hustling younger brother; Cruise took the part after Top Gun and The Color of Money, both released in 1986.
Q 02Who plays Raymond Babbitt?
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Hoffman plays Raymond Babbitt, the autistic savant; the role won him his second Academy Award for Best Actor, after Kramer vs. Kramer (1979).
Q 03Who directed Rain Man?
Barry Levinson
Barry Levinson directed Rain Man and won the Academy Award for Best Director for it; he also appears uncredited as the psychiatrist at the closing custody hearing.
Q 04Which real-life savant inspired the character of Raymond?
Kim Peek
Writer Barry Morrow met him in Arlington, Texas, in 1984.
Q 05What is Charlie's business at the start of the film?
Importing grey-market Lamborghinis
Charlie runs a business importing grey-market Lamborghinis into Los Angeles; the film opens with his cars held by the EPA over emissions while his buyers demand their deposits back.
Q 06To which city does Charlie travel to settle his father's estate?
Cincinnati
Cincinnati is Charlie's hometown, where his estranged father Sanford Babbitt lived; Charlie and Susanna fly in from Los Angeles for the funeral and the reading of the will.
Q 07What does Charlie inherit from his father, apart from some rosebushes?
A 1949 Buick Roadmaster convertible
Charlie inherits only the 1949 Buick Roadmaster convertible and his father's prize rosebushes; the car is the one he was forbidden to drive as a teenager, and the rest of the estate goes into a trust.
Q 08Roughly how large is Sanford Babbitt's estate?
$3 million
Sanford Babbitt's estate is roughly $3 million; the will leaves nearly all of it in trust to an unnamed beneficiary, who turns out to be Raymond.
Q 09Who plays Charlie's girlfriend Susanna?
Valeria Golino
Valeria Golino, an Italian actress, plays Susanna, Charlie's girlfriend who works alongside him; she had won the Volpi Cup at Venice for Storia d'amore (1986) before taking the part.
Q 10What is the name of Raymond's doctor at the institution?
Dr. Gerald Bruner
Dr. Gerald Bruner runs Wallbrook, the institution where Raymond lives, and is trustee of the Babbitt estate; he is played by Gerald R. Molen, later a producer of Schindler's List.
Q 11Why do the brothers drive to Los Angeles instead of flying?
Raymond refuses to fly
Raymond refuses to fly: at the airport he recites the dates and death tolls of past airline crashes and screams when Charlie tries to board, so the brothers set off west by car.
Q 12Which TV show must Raymond watch every day?
The People's Court
Raymond must watch The People's Court every afternoon, counting down 'ten minutes to Wapner'; on the road Charlie talks a farm family into letting Raymond watch it in their living room.
Q 13Where does the name 'Rain Man' come from?
Q 21Which earlier Barry Morrow TV movie about his disabled friend fed into Raymond's character?
Bill
Morrow drew on his own friendship with Sackter for the Charlie-Raymond bond.
Q 22Where did Hoffman work when younger, giving him experience with disabled people before the role?
The New York Psychiatric Institute
Hoffman had worked as an attendant at the New York Psychiatric Institute as a young man, an experience he drew on while building Raymond's mannerisms.
Q 23Which industry walkout was under way during almost all of the filming?
The 1988 Writers Guild strike
Charlie's childhood way of saying 'Raymond'
Charlie had remembered the Rain Man as an imaginary friend.
Q 14Why was Raymond sent to the institution as a child?
His father blamed him for nearly scalding baby Charlie
Raymond went to Wallbrook in January 1965 because his father blamed him for nearly scalding baby Charlie in a too-hot bath; decades later Raymond panics with 'hot water burn baby' when Charlie draws a bath in a motel.
Q 15Which Las Vegas casino do the brothers hit for blackjack?
Caesars Palace
The brothers play blackjack at Caesars Palace, where Raymond counts cards through a six-deck shoe until security invites them to leave; the scenes were shot inside the real Caesars Palace.
Q 16How much does Charlie win in Las Vegas?
$86,000
Charlie wins about $86,000 at blackjack thanks to Raymond's card counting, enough to clear the debts from his stalled car business and pay back his buyers' deposits.
Q 17How much is Charlie offered to walk away from Raymond?
$250,000
Raymond's doctor offers Charlie $250,000 to drop his custody claim; Charlie turns it down, saying the money no longer matters to him, only his brother does.
Q 18How does the film end?
Raymond boards a train back to the institution
Charlie promises to visit in two weeks; an alternative ending was dropped by writer Barry Morrow.
Q 19Which comic actor did agents originally envision as Raymond, with Hoffman as Charlie?
Bill Murray
Bill Murray was the agents' first idea for Raymond, with Hoffman as Charlie; Hoffman instead asked to play Raymond himself, and Murray never came aboard.
Q 20Which film did Steven Spielberg leave Rain Man to direct?
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Steven Spielberg left Rain Man to honour his commitment to George Lucas on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, released in May 1989, months after Rain Man's own December 1988 opening.
The 1988 Writers Guild strike ran from March to August 1988, covering nearly the whole shoot; with no writer allowed on set, the director and cast worked out script changes themselves.
Q 24Who composed the film's score?
Hans Zimmer
Hans Zimmer composed the synthesizer-based score, his first Hollywood assignment, after his work on the 1988 British film A World Apart caught the director's attention.
Q 25Which band's version of 'Iko Iko' plays on the Rain Man soundtrack?
The Belle Stars
The Belle Stars, a British all-female group, recorded the 'Iko Iko' cover heard in Rain Man; first released in 1982, it climbed to number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1989.
Q 26Which top prize did Rain Man win at the 1989 Berlin International Film Festival?
The Golden Bear
Rain Man took the Golden Bear, the top prize of the Berlin International Film Festival, in February 1989, weeks before its Academy Award wins.
Q 27How many Academy Awards did Rain Man win?
Four
Rain Man won four Academy Awards from eight nominations at the March 1989 ceremony, including Best Picture, the most of any film that night.
Q 28Which of these Oscars did Rain Man NOT win?
Best Original Score
Best Original Score was a nomination Rain Man lost, to Dave Grusin's The Milagro Beanfield War; its other unconverted nominations were art direction, cinematography and film editing.
Q 29What was Rain Man's box-office distinction for 1988?
Highest-grossing film of the year
It made more than $172 million domestically on a $25 million budget.
Q 30Which film beat Rain Man to number one on its opening weekend?
Twins
Twins, the Schwarzenegger-DeVito comedy in its second weekend, held number one when Rain Man opened on December 16, 1988; Rain Man took the top spot over the New Year weekend.