50 Movie Trivia Questions and Answers Worth Arguing Over

Movie trivia is its own genre of argument. Somebody is always sure they know the answer, somebody else is louder, and the actual fact usually surprises them both. So here are fifty questions with answers, sorted from ones the whole couch will get to the deep cuts that split a room into factions.

Everything here is checkable. No opinion questions, no trick wording, and a few behind-the-scenes facts that tend to win the argument outright.

Warm-ups (the whole couch gets these)

1. Who painted, sorry, who directed Titanic?
Answer: James Cameron, in 1997. It held the box office record for over a decade.

2. What 1939 classic features a girl named Dorothy and her dog Toto?
Answer: The Wizard of Oz.

3. Which movie franchise features a wizard school called Hogwarts?
Answer: Harry Potter.

4. What kind of fish is Nemo in Finding Nemo?
Answer: A clownfish.

5. Who voiced both Mufasa in The Lion King and Darth Vader?
Answer: James Earl Jones.

6. In Back to the Future, how fast does the DeLorean need to go to time travel?
Answer: 88 miles per hour.

7. What is the name of the cowboy doll in Toy Story?
Answer: Woody.

8. Which city's art museum steps did Rocky famously run up?
Answer: Philadelphia's. People still do the run every day.

9. What color pill does Neo take in The Matrix?
Answer: The red one.

10. Which movie made everyone afraid of the ocean in the summer of 1975?
Answer: Jaws.

11. Who played the first James Bond on the big screen, in 1962's Dr. No?
Answer: Sean Connery.

12. What is the highest-grossing movie of all time, not adjusting for inflation?
Answer: Avatar (2009). It even reclaimed the crown after a China re-release.

Getting harder (film buffs start showing off)

13. What was the first feature-length animated movie ever released?
Answer: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in 1937.

14. What was the first fully computer-animated feature film?
Answer: Toy Story, in 1995.

15. Which director is famous for sneaking a cameo into almost all of his own films?
Answer: Alfred Hitchcock.

16. The shark in Jaws had a nickname on set. What was it?
Answer: Bruce, reportedly named after Steven Spielberg's lawyer.

17. Which candy got a massive sales boost from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial?
Answer: Reese's Pieces. M&M's famously passed on the deal first.

18. Which 2019 film became the first non-English-language movie to win Best Picture?
Answer: Parasite, directed by Bong Joon-ho.

19. What subtitle was added to the original Star Wars after its 1977 release?
Answer: Episode IV: A New Hope.

20. Which actor turned down his Best Actor Oscar for The Godfather?
Answer: Marlon Brando, in 1973.

21. Who directed Inception, the one that ends on a spinning top?
Answer: Christopher Nolan.

22. Which animated film won the very first Oscar for Best Animated Feature?
Answer: Shrek, at the 2002 ceremony.

23. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy's slippers are ruby red. What color were they in the book?
Answer: Silver. The filmmakers changed them to show off Technicolor.

24. Which 1942 romance is set in a Moroccan city during World War II?
Answer: Casablanca.

25. What does Forrest Gump sit on while telling his life story?
Answer: A bus stop bench, filmed in Savannah, Georgia.

26. Which musical stars Julie Andrews as a governess to the von Trapp family?
Answer: The Sound of Music.

27. Which 1993 Spielberg movie brought dinosaurs back with groundbreaking effects?
Answer: Jurassic Park.

28. Who has won the most acting Oscars in history?
Answer: Katharine Hepburn, with four Best Actress wins.

Deep cuts (the room splits into factions)

29. Three films are tied for the most Oscar wins ever, with 11 each. Name one.
Answer: Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997), or The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).

30. Which person has won the most Oscars of anyone, ever?
Answer: Walt Disney, with 22 competitive wins.

31. What famous stock sound effect is a man's scream reused in hundreds of movies?
Answer: The Wilhelm scream. Once you hear it, you can't unhear it.

32. What is the name of the hopping desk lamp in the Pixar logo?
Answer: Luxo Jr.

33. What did the Hollywood sign originally say when it went up in 1923?
Answer: Hollywoodland. It was an ad for a housing development.

34. Which 1960 Hitchcock film was among the first mainstream movies to show a toilet flushing?
Answer: Psycho. Audiences at the time genuinely found it shocking.

35. Anthony Hopkins won Best Actor for The Silence of the Lambs with roughly how much screen time?
Answer: Around 16 minutes. One of the shortest winning performances ever.

36. Who won a posthumous Oscar for playing the Joker in The Dark Knight?
Answer: Heath Ledger.

37. What is the only X-rated film to win Best Picture?
Answer: Midnight Cowboy, in 1970.

38. Which country's film industry is nicknamed Bollywood, and what city is it based in?
Answer: India's, based in Mumbai. The B comes from the city's former name, Bombay.

39. What is the Oscar statuette's official name?
Answer: The Academy Award of Merit.

40. Which silent film star created the Tramp, with the bowler hat and cane?
Answer: Charlie Chaplin.

41. Who voiced Elsa in Frozen?
Answer: Idina Menzel.

42. Which 1994 Disney film was partly inspired by Shakespeare's Hamlet?
Answer: The Lion King.

43. Which actress played Mary Poppins and won an Oscar for it?
Answer: Julie Andrews, in her film debut.

44. Who directed The Godfather?
Answer: Francis Ford Coppola.

45. What 1999 sci-fi film had lobby shootouts, bullet time, and a lot of sunglasses?
Answer: The Matrix.

46. In what US state is the fictional town of Hill Valley from Back to the Future?
Answer: California.

47. What was the first movie ever to make over $1 billion at the box office?
Answer: Titanic.

48. Which studio's films open with a boy fishing off a crescent moon?
Answer: DreamWorks.

49. What is the name of Andy's neighbor who destroys toys in Toy Story?
Answer: Sid.

50. Which franchise features a character who says he'll be back, and keeps his word?
Answer: The Terminator.

Keeping score

Scoring guide, roughly: 40 or more and you should be hosting movie night, not attending it. 25 to 39 is a respectable film-buff showing. Under 20 means you watch movies to relax like a normal person, and honestly, good for you.

If this format is your thing, our 40 general knowledge questions run the same easy-to-brutal ladder, and the sports set is where the couch arguments get truly heated. Hosting a full quiz night? Here is the playbook.

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