Road Trip Movie Trivia
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This road trip movie trivia quiz has 89 free questions with answers about films where the story happens between the departure and the destination. It covers the crowd-pleasers first: the Griswolds and Walley World, Lloyd and Harry driving to Aspen, the yellow VW bus in Little Miss Sunshine, the Bandit's Trans Am, Jake and Elwood's Bluesmobile, Rain Man's Buick and the convertible Thelma and Louise refuse to stop. Then it heads down the back roads: Easy Rider and the New Hollywood it kicked off, Two-Lane Blacktop and Vanishing Point, Paper Moon, Badlands, Kalifornia, David Lynch's lawn-mower odyssey, Fellini's La Strada, Bergman's Wild Strawberries, Wim Wenders's Kings of the Road, The Motorcycle Diaries and Y tu mamá también, plus recent trips like Nomadland, Green Book, Queen & Slim and Logan. Questions ask about cars, destinations, directors, casting and the true stories underneath, and range from easy to properly obscure. Every answer was checked against each film's Wikipedia article before publishing, and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 89 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which 1969 film has Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper crossing the Southwest on choppers?
Easy Rider
Easy Rider earned Jack Nicholson an Oscar nomination as the boozy lawyer, a part he took over only after Rip Torn left the film.
Q 02Which 1934 Frank Capra screwball comedy puts a runaway heiress and a reporter on a long-distance bus?
It Happened One Night
It Happened One Night was meant for Robert Montgomery and Myrna Loy, two of Capra's early picks for the leads; the film made without them swept all five major Oscars.
Q 03Louise's convertible in Thelma & Louise is a 1966 model of what car?
Ford Thunderbird
Ford Thunderbird: the convertible carries the pair to the film's last image, when they drive it over the canyon's edge rather than give themselves up to the police.
Q 04Which future star played the charming drifter J.D. in Thelma & Louise?
Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt's J.D. charms Thelma and then steals Louise's savings from their motel room, which pushes Thelma into robbing a convenience store.
Q 05In National Lampoon's Vacation, the Griswolds drive from Chicago to which amusement park?
Walley World
Walley World turns out to be closed for repairs when the Griswolds finally arrive, so Clark pulls a gun on a security guard and makes him take the family through the park.
Q 06What is the name of the ugly, oversized car Clark Griswold is stuck with in National Lampoon's Vacation?
Wagon Queen Family Truckster
Wagon Queen Family Truckster is the metallic-pea station wagon the dealer palms off on Clark, who had ordered a sporty new car that hasn't arrived in time for the trip.
Q 07Who directed National Lampoon's Vacation from John Hughes's screenplay?
Harold Ramis
Harold Ramis and star Chevy Chase rewrote Hughes's first draft, moving the story from the son's point of view to the father's.
Q 08In Planes, Trains and Automobiles, what does John Candy's Del Griffith sell for a living?
Shower curtain rings
Shower curtain rings keep Del on the road, and at the end he admits why: he has had no home since his wife died eight years earlier, so Neal brings him back to meet the family.
Q 09Neal Page is trying to get home to Chicago in time for which holiday in Planes, Trains and Automobiles?
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving looks well within reach until a snowstorm shuts Chicago's airport and diverts Neal's flight to Wichita, forcing him home by train, bus and car.
Q 10The car Charlie and Raymond drive across the country in Rain Man is a 1949 model of what?
Buick Roadmaster
Buick Roadmaster and some rose bushes are all Charlie inherits; the rest of the $3 million estate goes into a trust for Raymond, the brother he never knew he had.
Q 11Rain Man won four Oscars, including Best Actor for which star?
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Hoffman's Raymond was inspired by Kim Peek, a real savant whom screenwriter Barry Morrow had met four years before the film came out.
Q 12In Dumb and Dumber, Lloyd and Harry drive from Providence, Rhode Island, to which ski town?
Aspen
Aspen is where Mary Swanson has flown, so the pair chase her there to hand back the briefcase she dropped, never realising she left it on purpose as a ransom payment.
Q 13Which 2006 film's dysfunctional family drives a broken-down yellow VW bus to California for the daughter's big contest?
Little Miss Sunshine
Q 21In which 1988 film does bounty hunter De Niro escort mob accountant Grodin across the country?
Midnight Run
Midnight Run becomes a road movie because the accountant fakes a panic attack on the plane, claiming a fear of flying, so the pair have to cross the country overland.
Q 22Which 1973 film cast Ryan and Tatum O'Neal as Depression-era con artists in Kansas?
Paper Moon
Paper Moon began as Addie Pray, the novel's title, before Bogdanovich renamed it; ten-year-old Tatum's Oscar made her the youngest competitive winner, a record intact in 2025.
Q 23The Motorcycle Diaries recounts the 1952 South American journey of which future revolutionary?
Che Guevara
Little Miss Sunshine's bus loses its clutch early in the trip, so the whole family has to push it up to speed and jump aboard while it rolls.
Q 14Green Book takes its title from what?
A guide for African-American travelers
A guide for African-American travelers was a necessity in 1962: segregation shut Black motorists out of many Southern hotels and diners, so the book listed the places that would serve them.
Q 15Mahershala Ali won an Oscar in Green Book playing which real-life pianist?
Don Shirley
Don Shirley hired Tony Lip, a nightclub bouncer, as his driver because he wanted protection on a 1962 concert tour through the segregated Deep South.
Q 16In which black-and-white 2013 film does Bruce Dern set out to collect a bogus million-dollar sweepstakes prize?
Nebraska
Nebraska's prize letter is a magazine-sales ploy, as his family keeps telling him, but his son David agrees to drive Woody to Lincoln to collect it anyway.
Q 17Jack Nicholson plays a retired Omaha actuary touring the Midwest in a motor home in which 2002 film?
About Schmidt
About Schmidt puts the retiree on the road after his wife dies suddenly, heading for the wedding of a daughter whose fiancé he can't stand.
Q 18In Sideways, which wine does Miles famously refuse to drink?
Merlot
Merlot paid for the insult off-screen: the film is widely credited with denting its sales while Pinot noir, the grape Miles adores, boomed.
Q 19In Zombieland, Woody Harrelson's character spends the zombie apocalypse hunting for what snack?
A Twinkie
A Twinkie is the one comfort his zombie killer craves, and he is in a hurry: even Twinkies, he says, have an expiration date.
Q 20In Zombieland, where the survivors go by city names, what is Woody Harrelson's character called?
Tallahassee
Tallahassee is the fearless, gun-toting half of the pairing; Jesse Eisenberg's Columbus has survived by being scared of just about everything.
Che Guevara was a medical student on a break before his final semester; the poverty and exploitation he saw on the trip changed his values for good.
Q 24Y tu mamá también was directed by which Mexican filmmaker, who co-wrote it with his brother Carlos?
Alfonso Cuarón
Alfonso Cuarón followed this sexually frank road movie with a very different job: directing Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Q 25Which 1994 Australian film follows two drag performers and a trans woman from Sydney to Alice Springs in a tour bus?
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert sends the trio out to perform their cabaret act at a remote casino resort, which is managed by the estranged wife of one of them.
Q 26Who played Max in Mad Max: Fury Road?
Tom Hardy
Tom Hardy's Max starts the film as a captive of the warlord Immortan Joe, then forges an alliance with the warrior who is stealing Joe's wives.
Q 27Who played Imperator Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road?
Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron's Furiosa sets the whole chase in motion by smuggling the warlord's five wives out of his fortress in an armoured truck.
Q 28Which David Lynch film, the only one of his rated G, follows an old man crossing Iowa on a lawn mower?
The Straight Story
The Straight Story is true: Alvin Straight had no driver's licence, so the mower was his only way to reach his estranged brother, who had suffered a stroke.
Q 29In Lynch's 1999 lawn-mower road film, the used 1966 tractor the old man buys is what brand?
John Deere
John Deere even gets a character credit, "Tom the John Deere dealer", who sells the old man a replacement after his first mower breaks down soon after he sets out.
Q 30The teenage journalist in Almost Famous tours with which fictional rock band?
Stillwater
Stillwater stands in for the real bands Cameron Crowe toured with as a teenage writer for Rolling Stone; the film is his own story.