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60 free Satyajit Ray trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Satyajit Ray made 36 films, wrote detective stories and science fiction for children, designed typefaces, illustrated books, edited a magazine and composed his own film scores. This quiz covers all of it: his grandfather's printing press and his father's nonsense verse, the advertising job and the London trip that turned him into a filmmaker, the two-and-a-half-year struggle to finish Pather Panchali, the Golden Lion for Aparajito, Jalsaghar, Charulata, the Goopy–Bagha films, the Calcutta trilogy, The Chess Players, and the Honorary Oscar he accepted from his hospital bed weeks before he died. Easy questions ask which city he was born in and what the Apu Trilogy is; harder ones cover the amateur cast of his first film, the cinematographer who invented bounce lighting, the address of Feluda, the name of Professor Shonku's cat, and the story of The Alien script that Ray believed found its way into E.T. It is written for film students, fans of Indian cinema, Bengali readers who grew up on Sandesh, and quiz setters who want a world-cinema round that goes deeper than one director's name. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on Ray, his films and his fictional characters, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
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Q 01In which city was Satyajit Ray born in 1921?
Calcutta (Kolkata)
He grew up in the house of his grandfather Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury, which also housed the family printing press.
Q 02Ray's father Sukumar Ray was famous in Bengal as a pioneering writer of what?
Nonsense rhyme for children
His collection Abol Tabol is a classic; he died when Satyajit was two years old.
Q 03What was the name of the children's magazine founded by Ray's grandfather, which Ray revived in 1961?
Sandesh
The word means both 'news' and a popular Bengali sweet, and Ray drew, wrote and designed for it for the rest of his life.
Q 04In which town did Satyajit Ray study fine art from 1940, at the university founded by the poet of Gitanjali?
Santiniketan
His mother insisted he go; Ray was reluctant but later credited painters Nandalal Bose and Benode Behari Mukherjee as major influences.
Q 05What subject did Ray complete his bachelor's degree in at Presidency College, Calcutta?
Economics
It was during his school days that Hollywood films by Chaplin, Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Lubitsch made a lasting impression on him.
Q 06In 1943 Ray started as a junior visualiser at D.J. Keymer, which was what kind of business?
A British advertising agency
He also designed book covers for the Signet Press and became one of India's leading typographers and jacket designers.
Q 07Who wrote the 1928 novel Pather Panchali, which Satyajit Ray adapted as his first film?
Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay
The children's version was renamed Aam Antir Bhepu (The Mango-Seed Whistle) and Ray featured his illustrations as shots in the film.
Q 08Which French director, in Calcutta in 1949 to shoot The River, encouraged Ray to film Pather Panchali?
Jean Renoir
Ray helped him scout locations in the countryside; he called Renoir a lifelong influence.
Q 09Which Italian neorealist film, seen in London in 1950, made Ray determined to become a filmmaker?
Bicycle Thieves
During six months in London he watched 99 films, but Vittorio De Sica's film had the most profound effect.
Q 10Which organisation did Ray found in 1947 with Chidananda Dasgupta to study foreign films?
The Calcutta Film Society
They watched many American and Russian films; Ray was also a regular at the intellectual gatherings, or addas, at Coffee House.
Q 11Besides being sweethearts, what was Ray's relationship to Bijoya Das before their marriage?
They were first cousins
Their son Sandip Ray also became a film director and served as his father's camera operator from 1984.
Q 12Roughly how long did Ray take to shoot Pather Panchali, starting in late 1952?
Two and a half years
Funding kept running out; he refused money from backers who wanted to change the script and ignored government advice to add a happy ending.
Q 13Which American director saw unfinished Pather Panchali footage in India and hailed 'a great film-maker'?
John Huston
Q 21Which two actors, later Ray regulars, made their debuts in Apur Sansar?
Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore
Chatterjee played the adult Apu and Tagore his wife Aparna, who dies giving birth to their son Kajal.
Q 22Ray only decided to make the Apu films a trilogy after being asked about the idea where?
At the Venice Film Festival
He had not planned a trilogy while making Aparajito, but the suggestion appealed to him.
Q 23Jalsaghar (The Music Room, 1958) is about the decline of which class of Bengali society?
The zamindars (landlords)
MoMA's Monroe Wheeler had already encouraged Ray to finish it for a New York exhibition.
Q 14Who finally provided the loan that allowed Ray to complete Pather Panchali?
The West Bengal government
The government bought the film for the equivalent of about $60,000 and had turned it into a $700,000 profit by 1980.
Q 15Who composed the score for Pather Panchali and the rest of the Apu Trilogy?
Ravi Shankar
The sitar master used classical Indian ragas; from Teen Kanya (1961) onwards Ray composed his own scores.
Q 16What is the name of Apu's elder sister in Pather Panchali?
Durga
Sarbajaya is their mother and Indir Thakrun is the elderly cousin who lives with the family.
Q 17Which award did Pather Panchali win at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival?
Best Human Document
It was the inaugural award of that name, and one of eleven international prizes the film collected.
Q 18Which French New Wave director reportedly refused to see Pather Panchali as 'peasants eating with their hands'?
François Truffaut
New York Times critic Bosley Crowther also complained about its loose structure, yet the film ran for eight months in the United States.
Q 19Aparajito (1956), the second Apu film, won the top prize at which festival?
Venice
The Golden Lion launched Ray's international career; critics Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak ranked it above Pather Panchali.
Q 20What is the English title of Apur Sansar (1959), the final film of the Apu Trilogy?
The World of Apu
The Unvanquished is Aparajito and Song of the Little Road is Pather Panchali; The Big City is Mahanagar.
Chhabi Biswas plays Biswambhar Roy; the film was shot at the Nimtita Rajbari in Murshidabad, though the music room itself was a studio set.
Q 24Which musician did Ray persuade to write more sombre pieces for Jalsaghar?
Ustad Vilayat Khan
In 1981 the film sold 173,758 tickets in France, a record for an Indian film until Salaam Bombay! in 1988.
Q 25Devi (1960) stars Sharmila Tagore as a young wife who is treated as what by her father-in-law?
A goddess
Ray feared the censor board would block a film about religious superstition, but Devi was spared.
Q 26At whose insistence was Ray commissioned in 1961 to make a documentary for Tagore's birth centenary?
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru
With so little footage of Tagore available, Ray said the film took as much work as three features.
Q 27Ray's first colour film, Kanchenjungha (1962), is set during one afternoon in which hill town?
Darjeeling
Ray used shifting light and mist to reflect the tension; a commercial crew in town at the same time failed to shoot a single scene because they only wanted sunshine.
Q 28Satyajit Ray's Charulata (1964) is based on the short story Nastanirh by which author?
Rabindranath Tagore
Ray said it was the only film he would make exactly the same way if given a second chance.
Q 29Charulata earned Ray which prize at the 15th Berlin International Film Festival?
Silver Bear for Best Director
Ray is one of only four filmmakers to win the Silver Bear for Best Director more than once and holds the record for Golden Bear nominations, with seven.
Q 30Nayak (1966), starring Uttam Kumar as a matinée idol confiding in a journalist, takes place mostly on what?
A train
It won a Critics Prize at Berlin but had a muted reception; it was also the last film shot for Ray by cinematographer Subrata Mitra.