Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Reservoir Dogs trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Why don't they tip? Who was supposed to play Mr. Pink? And why was the warehouse full of embalming fluid? This Reservoir Dogs trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers about Quentin Tarantino's 1992 debut: the six color-coded thieves and the Cabots, the heist you never see, the ear scene set to Stealers Wheel, the Sundance premiere, the casting near-misses and the film's long afterlife in remakes, video games and Empire's greatest-independent-film list. It starts with the questions any fan can field, who played whom and what the aliases were, then moves into production history, influences from City on Fire to The Killing, and the stories behind Lawrence Tierney's firing and Kirk Baltz's ad-lib. It suits a movie night warm-up, a pub quiz round or a settle-the-argument session about the ending. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the film, its song and its cast, and each question links to the page and sentence that supports it.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What kind of business do the crew rob in Reservoir Dogs?
A jewelry store
The target was a diamond shipment. Tarantino never shows the robbery itself, partly for budget reasons and partly to keep the details ambiguous.
Q 02Which color alias belongs to the undercover police officer?
Mr. Orange
He is shot in the stomach hijacking a getaway car and spends most of the film bleeding out on the warehouse floor.
Q 03Who played Mr. White?
Harvey Keitel
He also signed on as co-producer, which made funding easier, and paid for casting sessions in New York.
Q 04Which actor played the razor-wielding Mr. Blonde?
Michael Madsen
He had auditioned for Mr. Pink, but Tarantino insisted on Blonde. Madsen later played Budd in Kill Bill: Volume 2.
Q 05Steve Buscemi's role as Mr. Pink was originally written by Tarantino for whom?
The director
In the original $30,000 plan, Tarantino would play Pink and producer Lawrence Bender would play Joe's son. Buscemi won an Independent Spirit Award for the part.
Q 06Tim Roth's agents wanted him to play Pink or Blonde. Why did he prefer the role he ended up with?
An Englishman playing an American cop playing a robber
Roth was born in Dulwich, London, and had wanted to be a sculptor before acting.
Q 07Which character does Tarantino himself play?
Mr. Brown
Jeffrey Dean Morgan had read successfully for the part before Tarantino decided to keep it. Brown is the crew's 'pseudo philosopher'.
Q 08Who plays crime boss Joe Cabot?
Lawrence Tierney
The 1940s Dillinger star was so volatile that Tarantino fired him after a shoving match at the end of the first week; the crew applauded.
Q 09Chris Penn plays Joe's son. What is the character's nickname?
Nice Guy Eddie
Penn, younger brother of Sean, died in 2006 at 40. His character is killed in the closing Mexican standoff.
Q 10Mr. Blue is played by which real-life ex-convict turned novelist?
Edward Bunker
Bunker had been San Quentin's youngest-ever inmate at 17. He dropped out of school in seventh grade and read five books a week inside.
Q 11Which song plays on the radio while Mr. Blonde tortures the captive policeman?
Stuck in the Middle with You
The 1973 hit was written by Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan and sold more than a million copies.
Q 12What is the name of the kidnapped police officer whose ear is cut off?
Marvin Nash
Kirk Baltz's ad-libbed plea reportedly made the scene very hard for Madsen to finish.
Q 13Which band recorded the song that plays during the ear scene?
Stealers Wheel
It reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 8 in the UK. Producers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were behind it.
Q 21At which festival did Reservoir Dogs premiere in January 1992?
Sundance
It became the festival's most talked-about film and was picked up by Miramax. In 2024 a survey ranked it second among Sundance's all-time top ten.
Q 22Before the feature, Tarantino directed a short proof-of-concept version of the film in June 1991 where?
The Sundance Institute
The lab version helped him refine the material before shooting the real thing that summer.
Q 23Which 1987 Hong Kong film has Tarantino cited as a major influence, prompting plagiarism accusations?
City on Fire
Ringo Lam said he was not bothered by the similarities. Tarantino's answer at Cannes: 'I steal from every movie.'
Q 14Whose style were the lyrics of the ear-scene song written to parody?
Bob Dylan
Rafferty's song lampoons a music-industry cocktail party. The vocal impression was so close that many listeners credited the wrong singer.
Q 15Who provides the deadpan voice of the K-Billy radio DJ?
Steven Wright
The fictional station's 'Super Sounds of the Seventies Weekend' frames the whole soundtrack, which was the first for a Tarantino film.
Q 16Where was Tarantino working when he wrote the film?
A video rental store
Video Archives in Manhattan Beach, California. He planned to shoot the film with friends for $30,000 in 16 mm black and white.
Q 17According to Tarantino, the title came from a video store customer mishearing which film's name?
Au revoir les enfants
Louis Malle's 1987 film became 'reservoir dogs' in a patron's ear. Tarantino also liked that the title sounded like something out of a Melville film.
Q 18How much money did the production raise once its Mr. White signed on as co-producer?
$1.5 million
The script had reached Keitel via producer Lawrence Bender's acting teacher, whose wife passed it along.
Q 19Which actor's agent turned down the role of Mr. Pink without telling him?
James Woods
Woods was among many considered; Viggo Mortensen, George Clooney, Samuel L. Jackson and David Duchovny also read for parts.
Q 20Where was the warehouse hideout actually filmed?
An unused mortuary
The building was still full of caskets, embalming fluid and a hearse. The wounded thief's apartment set was a second-floor room in the same building.
Q 24Tarantino described Reservoir Dogs as his take on which 1956 Stanley Kubrick heist film?
The Killing
He also cited Kansas City Confidential and Ulu Grosbard's 1979 film about an ex-con.
Q 25The device of naming criminals by colors was first seen in which 1974 film?
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
Mr. Blue, Mr. Green and company hijacked a New York subway train in that thriller.
Q 26Which two horror-industry figures famously walked out of a screening at the Sitges festival?
Wes Craven and Rick Baker
Fifteen people left. Baker later told Tarantino to take it as a compliment on the realism of the violence.
Q 27What did Kirk Baltz ad-lib during the torture scene that reportedly made it hard for Madsen to finish?
'I've got a little kid at home'
Tarantino said walkouts happened at every screening and that he wanted the scene to be disturbing.
Q 28How much did Reservoir Dogs gross at the US box office on its original run?
About $2.9 million
It opened in just 19 theaters in October 1992 and was not heavily promoted; its reputation grew after Pulp Fiction.
Q 29Which British film magazine named Reservoir Dogs the greatest independent film of all time?
Empire
The same magazine placed it 97th on its 500 greatest films list in 2008.
Q 30Why was the UK home video release delayed until 1995?
The censors initially refused it a certificate
UK films are certified separately for cinema and home viewing. The film even returned to British cinemas in 1994 while it was unavailable on tape.