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50 free The Aviator trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The Aviator is Martin Scorsese's 2004 portrait of Howard Hughes from the making of Hell's Angels in 1927 to the single hop of the Spruce Goose in 1947, with Leonardo DiCaprio charting the descent from golden-boy filmmaker and record-setting pilot to a man sealed in a germ-free screening room. It earned 11 Academy Award nominations and five wins, including Cate Blanchett's first Oscar for playing Katharine Hepburn. This quiz covers the cast (who played Ava Gardner, Jean Harlow, Errol Flynn and the Pan Am boss), the plot beats from the beet-field crash to the Senate hearing, and the craft: why the first 52 minutes look red and cyan, why Scorsese used radio-controlled scale models instead of CGI, and where the real aircraft ended up. There are questions too on the long list of directors and stars who nearly made a Hughes film first. Fifty questions, four options each, with a short explanation after every answer. Play through or print it out.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who plays Howard Hughes in The Aviator?
Leonardo DiCaprio
He won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama, his first, and earned an Oscar nomination.
Q 02Who directed the film?
Martin Scorsese
It was his second film with DiCaprio after Gangs of New York; he later admitted he 'grossly misjudged the budget'.
Q 03Cate Blanchett plays which screen legend?
Katharine Hepburn
Her performance brought her a first Academy Award and made history in the process.
Q 04In which year was The Aviator released?
2004
It opened in 40 cinemas a week before Christmas and went wide on Christmas Day.
Q 05Which disorder drives Hughes's decline in the film?
OCD
DiCaprio had a mild version of it as a child, and it returned while he was making the film.
Q 06What is the nickname of Hughes's giant wooden flying boat?
Spruce Goose
It was actually built mostly of birch, and it flew exactly once, for a short hop in 1947.
Q 07Which Academy Award did Cate Blanchett win for the film?
Best Supporting Actress
She lent the statuette to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.
Q 08Kate Beckinsale plays which actress?
Ava Gardner
The Telegraph called her miscast; in the film it is Gardner who grooms Hughes for his Senate hearing.
Q 09Which aviation film is Hughes directing when the story begins in 1927?
Hell's Angels
Unsatisfied even after a hit premiere, he orders it recut.
Q 10Which airline does Hughes buy a majority stake in?
TWA
He later mortgages its assets to keep building the Hercules, against his business manager's advice.
Q 11Which airline does Hughes's rival Trippe run in the film?
Pan Am
The Community Airline Bill would have handed it a monopoly on international routes.
Q 12In the film, Hepburn leaves Hughes for which actor?
Spencer Tracy
Hughes still bribes a reporter to keep her affair with the married Tracy out of the papers.
Q 13Which phrase does Hughes compulsively repeat in the final scene?
The way of the future
He has just been discussing a new jetliner for TWA when the panic attack hits.
Q 21Who wrote the screenplay?
John Logan
His script was originally developed at Disney in 1999 with Michael Mann set to direct.
Q 22Where does Hughes crash the XF-11 in the film?
Beverly Hills
The real 1946 crash followed a propeller failure he failed to react to correctly; the houses were rebuilt at 1:4 scale for the film.
Q 23The opening scene is set in which city in 1913?
Houston
His mother bathes him and teaches him to spell 'quarantine' during a cholera scare.
Q 24Which film's release prompts Hughes to remake his war epic with sound?
Q 14Which earlier film had Scorsese made with DiCaprio before The Aviator?
Gangs of New York
The Departed, Shutter Island and The Wolf of Wall Street followed.
Q 15On which holiday did the film get its wide US release?
Christmas Day
It opened fourth that weekend and climbed to third the next.
Q 16Alec Baldwin plays which airline chairman?
Juan Trippe
The Pan Am boss who schemes with a senator to force Hughes to sell his airline.
Q 17Gwen Stefani appears as which 1930s star?
Jean Harlow
Rolling Stone singled out her cameo for criticism; Harlow was the star of Hughes's Hell's Angels.
Q 18Jude Law plays which swashbuckling actor?
Errol Flynn
A brief turn in a nightclub scene that sets up Hughes's germ phobia.
Q 19Alan Alda plays which senator who investigates Hughes?
Owen Brewster
The role earned Alda his only Academy Award nomination.
Q 20John C. Reilly plays which member of Hughes's circle?
Noah Dietrich
The business manager who tells Hughes he must choose between the airline and the flying boat.
The Jazz Singer
He converts the silent picture to a talkie, at enormous expense.
Q 25How many Academy Award nominations did The Aviator receive?
11
The most of any film that year; Million Dollar Baby took Best Picture.
Q 26In which city was the film mainly shot?
Montreal
The model aircraft, however, were flown at Long Beach and other California sites.
Q 27In which harbour did Hughes fly the H-4 Hercules in 1947?
Long Beach
Historians note it never escaped ground effect; the film recreated the moment in the same port.
Q 28In the film, where does Hughes crash-land the H-1 Racer after its speed record?
A beet field
A full-scale replica built for the film crashed before shooting, so a model had to stand in.
Q 29In 1938 the film shows Hughes circling the globe in how many days?
Four
It set a new world record and made him a national hero before the airline wars began.
Q 30How long does Hughes hide in his 'germ-free zone' before the Senate hearing?
Three months
The real Hughes hid his compulsions because there was then no psychiatric name for them.