Stanley Kubrick Trivia
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48 free Stanley Kubrick trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Stanley Kubrick trivia quiz begins with a Bronx doctor's son who skipped school to watch films, sold a photo to Look at 17, played chess for quarters in Washington Square, and made his first documentary about a boxer for $3,900. Then the films, one by one: the near-fatal gas on Fear and Desire, meeting his producer over a chessboard, six numbered cameras on Paths of Glory, Kirk Douglas and Spartacus, moving to England for Lolita and never leaving, Peter Sellers's three roles, the five years and the NASA lenses of 2001, the death threats that pulled A Clockwork Orange from British screens, candlelight in Barry Lyndon and the IRA, the Steadicam and 80 takes on The Shining, the jeep crash on Full Metal Jacket, and the preview of Eyes Wide Shut six days before he died. There are also questions on the films that never happened: the Napoleon epic with 40,000 infantry, the Beatles' Lord of the Rings, Aryan Papers and the A.I. that Spielberg finished. And on the man: three wives, Abbots Mead and Childwickbury, the recluse myth, the mountain on Charon and the Simpsons homages. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on every question. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our Jack Nicholson and 2001: A Space Odyssey quizzes next.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which New York borough did the Kubrick family live when Stanley was born in 1928?
The Bronx
The Bronx. Kubrick was a poor student at Taft High School there, happier in the school camera club and at the cinema, and his grades left him with no real chance of a college place.
Q 02Which song does the computer HAL sing as it is shut down in 2001: A Space Odyssey?
'Daisy Bell'
'Daisy Bell'. Arthur C. Clarke had heard an IBM computer at Bell Labs sing it, the first song a computer ever sang, and gave the same tune to the dying HAL.
Q 03For which magazine did Kubrick work as a staff photographer from 1946?
Look
Look. While still at high school Kubrick sold it a picture of a news vendor slumped among the headlines of Roosevelt's death, and the magazine took him on at 17.
Q 04How did the young Kubrick supplement his income in Washington Square Park?
Playing chess for quarters
Playing chess for quarters. His father had taught him the game at 12; Kubrick said it gave him patience and discipline, and chessboards went on to appear in several of his films.
Q 05What was Kubrick's first feature film, a war allegory he later tried to disown?
Fear and Desire
Fear and Desire. To make fog on a tiny budget Kubrick used a crop sprayer, and the insecticide still inside it nearly choked his cast and crew; most of the money had come from his uncle.
Q 06Which producer formed a production company with Kubrick in 1955 and made The Killing and Lolita with him?
James B. Harris
James B. Harris. The partnership ended amicably as Dr. Strangelove took shape: Harris is said to have wanted a straight thriller, and he soon began directing films of his own.
Q 07Kubrick's 1956 crime film The Killing follows a gang robbing what kind of venue?
A racetrack
A racetrack. Kubrick told the heist out of order, through flashbacks, and Quentin Tarantino later called Reservoir Dogs his own take on that kind of heist film.
Q 08How did Kubrick stage the deaths of hundreds of extras in the Paths of Glory battle scene?
By assigned zones
By assigned zones. Kubrick split no-man's-land into sections rigged with explosive charges and told each extra which one to die in, with cameras lined up to cover every section.
Q 09Which star hired Kubrick for Spartacus after firing director Anthony Mann?
Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas, who was also the film's producer. Kubrick clashed with him over a script he had no power to change, and Spartacus remained the only film on which he lacked full artistic control.
Q 10Which Marlon Brando western did Kubrick spend months developing before leaving the project?
One-Eyed Jacks
One-Eyed Jacks. After the two fell out Brando directed it himself, the only film he ever directed; an early draft of the script had come from a then-unknown Sam Peckinpah.
Q 11Dr. Strangelove began as a straight adaptation of which Cold War thriller novel?
Red Alert
Red Alert, a deadly serious thriller by Peter George. When the rival novel Fail-Safe appeared with a near-identical plot, George and Kubrick sued for copyright infringement and settled out of court.
Q 12Which actor plays three roles in Dr. Strangelove?
Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers plays an RAF officer, the US president and Dr. Strangelove himself. He was due to play the bomber pilot too, until a sprained ankle kept him out of the cramped cockpit set.
Q 13Which satirist did Kubrick bring in shortly before filming to sharpen Dr. Strangelove's black comedy?
Terry Southern
Q 21Barry Lyndon is based on an 1844 novel by which Victorian author?
William Thackeray
William Thackeray, better known for Vanity Fair. Kubrick turned to the book after his Napoleon epic lost its backing, and poured the period research he had done for that film into this one.
Q 22Which newly invented camera rig let Kubrick's camera glide through the hotel corridors of The Shining?
The Steadicam
The Steadicam. Its inventor, Garrett Brown, operated it himself, and Kubrick's demand for shots from just above the floor led to a new low-slung mode for the rig.
Q 23Days after The Shining opened, Kubrick ordered which scene removed from the film?
The hospital epilogue
Terry Southern, author of the comic novel The Magic Christian, which one of Kubrick's actors had handed him. Southern's late rewrite earned a screen credit placed above the original novelist's.
Q 14Which Arthur C. Clarke short story was the starting point for 2001: A Space Odyssey?
The Sentinel
The Sentinel, about an alien beacon found on the Moon. Clarke later bristled at the link, saying the story bore about as much relation to the film as an acorn to a full-grown oak.
Q 15Kubrick's only personal Oscar was for which category?
Best Visual Effects
Best Visual Effects, for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick was nominated many times as director, writer and producer, starting with Dr. Strangelove, and never won in any of those categories.
Q 16Which critic dismissed 2001: A Space Odyssey as 'the biggest amateur movie of them all'?
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael. Critics split sharply over the film, but it became a box-office hit and a fixture on lists of the greatest films; Steven Spielberg called it the 'big bang' of his generation.
Q 17What is the invented teenage slang spoken by Alex and his gang in A Clockwork Orange called?
Nadsat
Nadsat, a slang built largely on Russian words. Kubrick set the novel aside when he was first given it, by some accounts because its language seemed too hard to follow, and took it up again in 1969.
Q 18Why did Kubrick personally withdraw A Clockwork Orange from UK release?
He received death threats after copycat crimes
He received death threats after copycat crimes were blamed on the film, and protesters gathered outside his home. At his request it stayed out of British cinemas until 2000, after his death.
Q 19The ultra-fast lenses that let Kubrick shoot Barry Lyndon by candlelight had been made for which organisation?
NASA
NASA, for its Apollo programme. Kubrick bought some of the handful Zeiss ever made and had a camera rebuilt to take them, so that whole scenes could be lit by nothing but candles.
Q 20Fear of which group made Kubrick pull out of Ireland while filming Barry Lyndon?
The IRA
The IRA. A phone call claimed he was on its hit list and gave him 24 hours to leave Ireland; he was gone within 12, and filming resumed in England.
The hospital epilogue, in which the hotel manager visits Wendy and Danny after their escape. Kubrick judged it unnecessary once he had watched audiences react to the climax.
Q 24Years before The Shining, Kubrick was among the directors considered for which horror classic?
The Exorcist
The Exorcist. The job went to William Friedkin, and Kubrick, who had long talked of making the world's scariest film, waited until 1980 to release a horror picture of his own.
Q 25Which cast member's road accident delayed Full Metal Jacket for months?
R. Lee Ermey
R. Lee Ermey, a former Marine drill instructor hired only as a technical adviser. He won the part of Sergeant Hartman with videotaped tirades at a group of extras, and went on to write much of his own dialogue.
Q 26What stood in for the ruined city of Hue in Full Metal Jacket?
A derelict gasworks in London's Docklands
A derelict gasworks in London's Docklands, at Beckton. Working from photographs of Hue, Kubrick had its buildings selectively demolished and then dressed the ruins with imported palm trees.
Q 27The title Full Metal Jacket refers to what piece of military hardware?
A type of bullet
A type of bullet, its soft core cased in harder metal. Kubrick found the phrase in a gun catalogue and preferred it to the novel's title, The Short-Timers, which he feared would suggest part-time workers.
Q 28Eyes Wide Shut is based on which 1926 book?
Traumnovelle by Arthur Schnitzler
Traumnovelle by Arthur Schnitzler, known in English as Dream Story. Kubrick had wanted to film it for some thirty years, and when he finally did he moved the action from early-1900s Vienna to 1990s New York.
Q 29Eyes Wide Shut starred which then-married Hollywood couple?
Cruise and Kidman
Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. The shoot in England ran for 400 days, a record for a continuous film shoot, and Kubrick showed the couple his cut only days before he died.
Q 30Which short story did Kubrick spend years developing before Spielberg filmed it as A.I.?
Supertoys Last All Summer Long
Supertoys Last All Summer Long, by Brian Aldiss. Kubrick thought no child actor could play the robot boy and that computer effects were not yet good enough, so in 1995 he offered the film to Spielberg.