Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free TV & Movies trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
A good TV and film round is the one everybody at the table thinks they can win. Someone has seen every Bond, someone else can quote every sitcom, and the person who claims never to watch anything still knows who shot J.R. These fifty questions span nine decades of screens on both sides of the Atlantic: the first silent Best Picture winner and the latest seven-Oscar biopic, British sitcoms that made a dozen episodes and American soaps that ran a dozen years, theme tunes that topped the charts, lines the actors made up on the spot, and the remakes, spin-offs and record-breaking finales in between. It suits a pub quiz, a film-night warm-up or a rainy Sunday on the sofa. Every answer is sourced and explained, so the arguments end quickly.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which 1975 thriller's faulty mechanical shark, nicknamed Bruce, had to stay mostly offscreen?
Jaws
Jaws became the prototype summer blockbuster partly because the unreliable shark pushed Steven Spielberg to hint at it rather than reveal it, leaving John Williams's two-note theme to do the frightening.
Q 02Which Star Wars film fed David Prowse the decoy line 'Obi-Wan Kenobi is your father'?
The Empire Strikes Back
The Empire Strikes Back guarded Darth Vader's paternity reveal so tightly that only director Irvin Kershner, the producers and Mark Hamill knew the real line before the 1980 premiere.
Q 03Which 1942 Humphrey Bogart film began as an unproduced play called Everybody Comes to Rick's?
Casablanca
Casablanca's 'Here's looking at you, kid', said four times, was in none of the draft screenplays and is traced to a remark Bogart made to Ingrid Bergman between takes.
Q 04Which 1972 film won Marlon Brando a Best Actor Oscar that Sacheen Littlefeather declined for him?
The Godfather
The Godfather's Brando boycotted the 1973 ceremony in protest at Hollywood's portrayal of Native Americans and the siege at Wounded Knee, so Littlefeather raised a hand to refuse the statuette.
Q 05Which Malcolm in the Middle dad went on to play chemistry teacher Walter White in Breaking Bad?
Bryan Cranston
Bryan Cranston won four Emmys for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series as Walter White, a run that began in 2008, eight years after he landed the role of Hal.
Q 06Which Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet romance was the first ever to gross $1 billion worldwide?
Titanic
Titanic reached the billion-dollar mark in 1998 on its way to an initial $1.84 billion, and its 11 Academy Awards tied the record set by Ben-Hur.
Q 07Which Ricky Gervais mockumentary about a Slough paper firm was remade in America with Steve Carell?
The Office
The Office ran for just 14 episodes, two series plus a two-part Christmas special, before Gervais and Stephen Merchant became executive producers on the American version.
Q 08Which Springfield clan started out as shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show in 1987?
The Simpsons
The Simpsons has become the longest-running American animated series, sitcom and scripted primetime programme, passing 800 episodes since its December 1989 debut.
Q 09Which 1939 MGM musical recoloured Dorothy's silver shoes red to flaunt three-strip Technicolor?
The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz's ruby slippers were Silver Shoes in L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel; screenwriter Noel Langley is credited with the switch to red for the three-strip Technicolor process.
Q 10In Doctor Who, a broken chameleon circuit leaves the TARDIS shaped like what 1960s London object?
Police box
A police box was an everyday sight in Britain when the series began in 1963, and the Doctor later admits he stopped repairing the circuit because he grew attached to the shape.
Q 11Which 1960 horror film set at the Bates Motel broke a taboo by showing a toilet flush on screen?
Psycho
Psycho broke the rule that no flushing toilet had appeared in mainstream American film or television, and its shower scene is scored by Bernard Herrmann's shrieking strings.
Q 12Which BBC sitcom about Peckham trader Del Boy Trotter featured a three-wheeled Reliant Regal van?
Only Fools and Horses
Only Fools and Horses' 1996 episode 'Time on Our Hands' drew 24.3 million viewers, still the biggest UK audience ever recorded for a sitcom episode.
Q 13Which John Cleese hotel sitcom made just 12 episodes yet topped the BFI's 2000 list of British TV?
Fawlty Towers
Q 21Which Korean War sitcom's 1983 finale drew 106 million US viewers, a record for scripted TV?
M*A*S*H
M*A*S*H's 'Goodbye, Farewell and Amen' reached a total audience of 121.6 million, beating Super Bowl XVII, and stayed America's most-watched broadcast of any kind until 2010.
Q 22Which Texas oil soap left the world asking 'Who shot J.R.?' through the summer of 1980?
Dallas
Dallas's cliffhanger was a CBS advertising catchphrase, and the answer, Kristin Shepard, J.R.'s scheming sister-in-law and mistress, was watched by an estimated 83 million people.
Q 23Which David Hasselhoff lifeguard drama was axed by NBC after one season and revived in syndication?
Baywatch
Fawlty Towers was inspired by the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, where Cleese stayed in 1970, and the BFI's industry poll in 2000 named it the best British television series of all time.
Q 14Which badge-awarding BBC children's programme has run since 1958, longer than any other worldwide?
Blue Peter
Blue Peter has been broadcast since October 1958, and children and adults who appear on it or achieve something notable can be awarded its coveted badge.
Q 15Which Netflix drama recast Elizabeth II every two seasons, passing from Claire Foy to Olivia Colman?
The Crown
The Crown gave the Queen to Imelda Staunton for its fifth and sixth seasons, a relay of three actresses that let Elizabeth age across six series.
Q 16Which 1995 Pixar film, the first all-computer-animated feature, cast Tom Hanks as a cowboy doll?
Toy Story
Toy Story was also the first feature film produced by Pixar Animation Studios, pairing Hanks's Woody with Tim Allen as the Space Ranger action figure Buzz Lightyear.
Q 17Which Die Hard villain went on to play Severus Snape in all eight Harry Potter films?
Alan Rickman
Alan Rickman made his feature film debut as Hans Gruber in Die Hard in 1988, 13 years before the first Potter film, Philosopher's Stone, in 2001.
Q 18Which former star of The Saint played James Bond in seven Eon films, more than any other actor?
Roger Moore
Roger Moore was the third Bond, playing him from 1973 to 1985, after seven years as Simon Templar in the ITC series The Saint.
Q 19Which HBO mob drama ended by cutting to black mid-scene as Journey's 'Don't Stop Believin'' played?
The Sopranos
The Sopranos left Tony's fate unresolved: the diner bell rings, he looks up and the screen cuts to black, ending the June 10, 2007 finale 'Made in America'.
Q 20Which Lucille Ball sitcom was the first scripted series shot on 35mm film before a studio audience?
I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy ran on CBS from 1951 to 1957, its 180 episodes shot by cinematographer Karl Freund, with Desi Arnaz playing Ball's real-life husband Ricky.
Baywatch went on to be listed as the most-watched television series in the world, with a weekly audience of over 1.1 billion viewers, after its 1991 syndication revival.
Q 24Which 1994 Tom Hanks film opens with a feather and the line 'Life was like a box of chocolates'?
Forrest Gump
Forrest Gump took Best Picture and five other Oscars for Robert Zemeckis's tale of an Alabama innocent who recounts his life from a Savannah bus bench.
Q 25In which 1980 Stanley Kubrick film did Jack Nicholson improvise the line 'Here's Johnny!'?
The Shining
The Shining's line borrows Ed McMahon's introduction on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and Kubrick, long resident in England, missed the reference and nearly used another take.
Q 26Which 1994 Quentin Tarantino crime film, told out of sequence, won the Palme d'Or at Cannes?
Pulp Fiction
Pulp Fiction premiered at Cannes in May 1994 and took the festival's top prize, then earned Tarantino a shared Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Q 27Which 1999 Keanu Reeves sci-fi film popularised the slow-motion 'bullet time' effect?
The Matrix
The Matrix, written and directed by the Wachowskis, lets a shot progress in slow motion while the camera appears to move through the scene at normal speed, as Morpheus's red pill wakes Neo.
Q 28For which 2008 Batman film did Heath Ledger win a posthumous Oscar as the Joker?
The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight became the first comic-book film to receive major acting awards, with Ledger's Joker collecting the Academy, BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for supporting actor.
Q 29Which 1939 Civil War epic remains the highest-grossing film ever when adjusted for inflation?
Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind also made Hattie McDaniel the first African-American to win an Academy Award, as Best Supporting Actress for playing Mammy.
Q 30Which 2019 Bong Joon-ho thriller was the first non-English-language film to win Best Picture?
Parasite
Parasite also won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2019, the first South Korean film to do so, before taking four Oscars including Best Director for Bong.