Movie trivia — the questions that separate casual fans from true buffs
Cinema trivia is the gateway drug of trivia. Everyone has watched a movie this year. Not everyone remembers what Ross's monkey was called or who played the chancellor before Palpatine. Below are 5 movie questions our players got wrong the most — and the explanations that made them remember.
Q1.In which 1994 Disney animated film does a lion cub named Simba flee his homeland after his father's death?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Lion King
Hans Zimmer's score for the film won the Academy Award for Best Original Score.
Q2.Which actor played Jack Dawson opposite Kate Winslet in Titanic (1997)?Tap to reveal
Answer: Leonardo DiCaprio
Titanic's 11 Academy Award wins tied the record set by Ben-Hur nearly four decades earlier.
Q3.Which 1975 Steven Spielberg film about a great white shark is often called the first summer blockbuster?Tap to reveal
Answer: Jaws
The mechanical shark broke down so often that Spielberg kept it off screen for most of the film, which many credit with making it scarier.
Q4.Which 1972 film opens with the line "I believe in America" during a wedding at Don Corleone's home?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Godfather
Marlon Brando declined his Best Actor Oscar for the role and sent activist Sacheen Littlefeather to the ceremony in his place.
Q5.What is the name of the fictional African nation ruled by T'Challa in Black Panther (2018)?Tap to reveal
Answer: Wakanda
Black Panther was the first superhero film ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Q6.In The Matrix (1999), what colour pill does Neo swallow to learn the truth about his world?Tap to reveal
Answer: Red
The film popularised the "bullet time" effect, built by firing a ring of still cameras in rapid sequence around the actor.
Q7.Which 2019 South Korean film became the first non-English-language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture?Tap to reveal
Answer: Parasite
Director Bong Joon-ho also collected Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature on the same night.
Q8.What is the name of the volleyball that keeps Tom Hanks' character company in Cast Away (2000)?Tap to reveal
Answer: Wilson
Production paused for about a year so Hanks could lose weight and grow a beard for the later island scenes.
Q9.Which 1927 film won the very first Academy Award for Best Picture, then called Outstanding Picture?Tap to reveal
Answer: Wings
It remained the only silent film to take the top prize until The Artist won at the 2012 ceremony.
Q10.Who directed the 1960 thriller Psycho?Tap to reveal
Answer: Alfred Hitchcock
Hitchcock insisted that cinemas admit no one after the film had started, an unusual policy at the time.
Q11.In which country is Guillermo del Toro's 2006 film Pan's Labyrinth set?Tap to reveal
Answer: Spain
The story takes place in 1944, shortly after the Spanish Civil War, and the film won three Academy Awards.
Q12.Which actress holds the record for the most Academy Awards for acting, with four wins?Tap to reveal
Answer: Katharine Hepburn
All four were for Best Actress, and she never attended a ceremony to accept one of them in person.
Q13.What is the name of the haunted hotel in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980)?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Overlook Hotel
Exterior shots used Oregon's Timberline Lodge, whose management asked Kubrick to change the sinister room number from 217 to 237.
Q14.Which composer wrote the scores for Star Wars, Jaws and the Indiana Jones films?Tap to reveal
Answer: John Williams
Williams has received more Academy Award nominations than any other living person.
Q15.In the 1942 film Casablanca, what is the name of the nightclub run by Humphrey Bogart's character?Tap to reveal
Answer: Rick's Café Américain
The famous line "Play it again, Sam" is never actually spoken anywhere in the film.
Q16.Which 2001 Studio Ghibli film about a girl named Chihiro won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature?Tap to reveal
Answer: Spirited Away
It was the first hand-drawn and first non-English-language winner of a category that had been introduced only a year earlier.
Q17.What is the name of the DeLorean-driving inventor in Back to the Future (1985)?Tap to reveal
Answer: Doc Brown
Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly and filmed for several weeks before being replaced by Michael J. Fox.
Q18.Which 1957 Ingmar Bergman film features a medieval knight playing chess with Death?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Seventh Seal
Max von Sydow played the knight, and the chess scene has been parodied in films from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey to The Last Action Hero.
Q19.Who played the title role in David Lean's 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia?Tap to reveal
Answer: Peter O'Toole
O'Toole received eight Best Actor nominations without a competitive win, still a record, before accepting an honorary Oscar in 2003.
Q20.In Pixar's Finding Nemo (2003), what species of fish is Nemo?Tap to reveal
Answer: Clownfish
Finding Nemo was the first Pixar film to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Q21.Which 1927 film is credited as the first feature-length movie with synchronised spoken dialogue?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Jazz Singer
Al Jolson's ad-libbed "You ain't heard nothin' yet!" is among the first lines ever spoken in a feature film.
Q22.Which director has won the most Academy Awards for Best Director, with four?Tap to reveal
Answer: John Ford
None of his four wins came for a Western, the genre he is best remembered for.
Q23.What is the name of the commercial towing spaceship in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979)?Tap to reveal
Answer: Nostromo
The ship is named after a Joseph Conrad novel, a literary nod the sequel continued with the Sulaco.
Q24.Which 1993 Steven Spielberg film brought dinosaurs back to life on the island of Isla Nublar?Tap to reveal
Answer: Jurassic Park
The T. rex roar was built from a mix of animal recordings, including a baby elephant, a tiger and an alligator.
Q25.Which Italian director made La Dolce Vita and 8½?Tap to reveal
Answer: Federico Fellini
Fellini won four Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, more than any other director.
Q26.In which 1982 film does Harrison Ford play Rick Deckard, a hunter of rogue replicants?Tap to reveal
Answer: Blade Runner
The film is set in Los Angeles in November 2019, a future that has now quietly become the past.
Music trivia — from Motown to one-hit wonders
Music questions hit two ways: nostalgia (remember when this was on the radio?) and obscurity (who recorded what when?). Here are 5 we tested across age groups — the misses were funnier than the hits.
Q1.Which British band released the albums Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Beatles
The zebra crossing on the Abbey Road cover was given protected heritage status in England in 2010.
Q2.Which singer is known as the "King of Pop"?Tap to reveal
Answer: Michael Jackson
His 1982 album Thriller is widely cited as the best-selling album of all time.
Q3.How many strings does a standard violin have?Tap to reveal
Answer: Four
They are tuned in perfect fifths, G, D, A and E, from lowest to highest.
Q4.Which record label, founded in Detroit in 1959, launched the careers of The Supremes and Stevie Wonder?Tap to reveal
Answer: Motown
Founder Berry Gordy started the company with an 800-dollar loan from his family.
Q5.Which Swedish group won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with "Waterloo"?Tap to reveal
Answer: ABBA
The group's name is an acronym of the members' first names: Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid.
Q6.What Italian musical term, meaning "loud", tells a musician to play forcefully?Tap to reveal
Answer: Forte
Its opposite, piano, gave the pianoforte its name because the new instrument could play both softly and loudly.
Q7.Who was the lead singer of Queen?Tap to reveal
Answer: Freddie Mercury
He was born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar and spent much of his childhood at boarding school in India.
Q8.Which 1991 Nirvana album, featuring "Smells Like Teen Spirit", pushed grunge into the mainstream?Tap to reveal
Answer: Nevermind
The single's title came from a deodorant brand that Kathleen Hanna had spray-painted on Kurt Cobain's wall as a joke.
Q9.Which composer wrote the piano piece popularly known as the "Moonlight Sonata"?Tap to reveal
Answer: Ludwig van Beethoven
The nickname was coined by a critic five years after the composer's death and was never used by Beethoven himself.
Q10.What is the title of Taylor Swift's 2014 album that marked her full move from country into pop?Tap to reveal
Answer: 1989
The album is named after the year of her birth.
Q11.Which jazz trumpeter recorded the landmark 1959 album Kind of Blue?Tap to reveal
Answer: Miles Davis
The album is often described as the best-selling jazz record ever made, and it was recorded in just two studio sessions.
Q12.Which band released The Dark Side of the Moon in 1973?Tap to reveal
Answer: Pink Floyd
The album has spent more than 900 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart, far longer than any other record.
Q13.What is the term for singing with no instrumental accompaniment?Tap to reveal
Answer: A cappella
The phrase is Italian for "in the manner of the chapel", a reference to unaccompanied church singing.
Q14.Which singer released the 2011 album 21, featuring "Rolling in the Deep" and "Someone Like You"?Tap to reveal
Answer: Adele
Each of her studio albums is named after her age at the time she wrote it.
Q15.Which reggae artist recorded "No Woman, No Cry" and "Redemption Song"?Tap to reveal
Answer: Bob Marley
Marley credited "No Woman, No Cry" to his friend Vincent Ford so that royalties would support Ford's soup kitchen in Kingston.
Q16.What was the name of Elvis Presley's mansion in Memphis, Tennessee?Tap to reveal
Answer: Graceland
The house was named after Grace Toof, a relative of its original owners, long before Elvis bought it in 1957.
Q17.What type of instruments does a luthier make and repair?Tap to reveal
Answer: Stringed instruments
The word comes from luth, the French word for lute.
Q18.Which 1958 Ritchie Valens hit, later covered by Los Lobos, is sung entirely in Spanish?Tap to reveal
Answer: La Bamba
Valens spoke little Spanish and learned the lyrics phonetically, adapting a traditional folk song from Veracruz, Mexico.
Q19.Which Baroque composer wrote The Four Seasons, a set of four violin concertos?Tap to reveal
Answer: Antonio Vivaldi
Each concerto was published alongside a sonnet describing the scenes the music depicts, an early example of programme music.
Q20.What is the title of Beyoncé's 2016 visual album, released with an accompanying HBO film?Tap to reveal
Answer: Lemonade
Its number-one debut made Beyoncé the first artist whose first six studio albums all opened at the top of the US chart.
Q21.Which Canadian singer-songwriter released the 1971 album Blue, featuring "A Case of You" and "River"?Tap to reveal
Answer: Joni Mitchell
Mitchell is also a painter and created the cover art for many of her own albums.
Q22.Which American rock musician is nicknamed "The Boss"?Tap to reveal
Answer: Bruce Springsteen
The nickname reportedly dates from his early bar-band days, when he collected the gig money and paid out the other members.
Q23.Which famous music festival takes place on a dairy farm in Somerset, England?Tap to reveal
Answer: Glastonbury
The festival skips a "fallow year" roughly every five years so the farmland and the local village can recover.
Q24.Which South Korean group's 2020 single "Dynamite" was the first song by a Korean act to top the Billboard Hot 100?Tap to reveal
Answer: BTS
"Dynamite" was also the group's first song recorded entirely in English.
Q25.The sousaphone, a staple of marching bands, is a variant of which brass instrument?Tap to reveal
Answer: Tuba
It was designed at bandleader John Philip Sousa's request so the instrument could wrap around a marching player's body.
Geography trivia — flags, capitals and the "I knew that"
Geography trivia exposes the gaps in everyone's mental map. We picked questions where the answer is more interesting than the question — the kind that change how you think about a place.
Q1.What is the capital city of Australia?Tap to reveal
Answer: Canberra
The city was purpose-built as a compromise after Sydney and Melbourne both wanted the title.
Q2.Which is the largest ocean on Earth?Tap to reveal
Answer: Pacific Ocean
It covers a greater area than all of the planet's land put together.
Q3.Which country has the largest population in South America?Tap to reveal
Answer: Brazil
It is also the only Portuguese-speaking country on the continent.
Q4.How many stars appear on the flag of the United States?Tap to reveal
Answer: Fifty
The current design was created by high-school student Robert Heft for a class project and has flown since 1960.
Q5.Which country has the world's only non-rectangular national flag?Tap to reveal
Answer: Nepal
The flag's exact geometry is spelled out step by step in a schedule of Nepal's constitution.
Q6.Which river flows through the Egyptian capital, Cairo?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Nile
The Nile and the Amazon are rival claimants to the title of the world's longest river, depending on where each is measured from.
Q7.What is the smallest country in the world by area?Tap to reveal
Answer: Vatican City
It is entirely surrounded by the city of Rome and has only a few hundred citizens.
Q8.Which mountain range marks the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia in Russia?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Ural Mountains
The Urals are among the oldest mountain ranges on Earth, formed roughly 250 to 300 million years ago.
Q9.In which country is the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu?Tap to reveal
Answer: Peru
The site sits about 2,430 metres above sea level and was apparently never found by the Spanish conquistadors.
Q10.What is the capital city of Canada?Tap to reveal
Answer: Ottawa
Queen Victoria chose it in 1857, partly because it lay a safe distance from the border with the United States.
Q11.Which country has the most time zones when its overseas territories are counted?Tap to reveal
Answer: France
Its 12 zones stretch from French Polynesia in the Pacific to Wallis and Futuna, with mainland Europe accounting for just one.
Q12.What is the name of the strait that separates Spain from Morocco?Tap to reveal
Answer: Strait of Gibraltar
At its narrowest point it is only about 14 kilometres wide, yet it carries all shipping between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.
Q13.Which country's flag features a green cedar tree?Tap to reveal
Answer: Lebanon
The cedar of Lebanon is mentioned dozens of times in the Bible and was prized by ancient shipbuilders.
Q14.What is the longest mountain range on land?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Andes
The range runs about 7,000 kilometres down the west coast of South America through seven countries.
Q15.Which European capital was formed in 1873 by merging the towns of Buda, Pest and Óbuda?Tap to reveal
Answer: Budapest
The Danube passes through four capital cities, more than any other river: Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade.
Q16.Which continent has no permanent human population?Tap to reveal
Answer: Antarctica
It is technically the world's largest desert, because it receives so little precipitation.
Q17.Which South American country has Sucre as its constitutional capital and La Paz as its seat of government?Tap to reveal
Answer: Bolivia
At around 3,600 metres above sea level, La Paz is the highest seat of national government in the world.
Q18.What is the largest island in the world, not counting Australia?Tap to reveal
Answer: Greenland
It is an autonomous territory of Denmark but sits geologically on the North American plate.
Q19.Which national capital lies closest to the equator?Tap to reveal
Answer: Quito
Despite its location, Quito enjoys a mild climate because it sits roughly 2,850 metres above sea level.
Q20.In which country would you find the ancient rock-cut city of Petra?Tap to reveal
Answer: Jordan
Petra's famous Treasury facade was carved straight into rose-coloured sandstone by the Nabataeans around two thousand years ago.
Q21.Which river forms a large part of the border between the United States and Mexico?Tap to reveal
Answer: Rio Grande
On the Mexican side the same river is known as the Río Bravo.
Q22.What is the largest lake in the world by surface area?Tap to reveal
Answer: Caspian Sea
Despite its name it is usually classed as a lake because it is landlocked, though its salty water keeps the debate alive.
Q23.What is the name of the world's highest uninterrupted waterfall, located in Venezuela?Tap to reveal
Answer: Angel Falls
It drops about 979 metres and is named after Jimmie Angel, an American pilot who flew over it in 1933.
Q24.Which European country has four national languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh?Tap to reveal
Answer: Switzerland
Romansh is spoken by well under one percent of the population but is protected in the canton of Graubünden.
Q25.What is the capital city of Turkey?Tap to reveal
Answer: Ankara
Istanbul remains the largest city, but Ankara has been the capital since the republic was founded in 1923.
Science trivia — the answers that make you say "wait, really?"
Science questions are best when the answer feels counterintuitive. Below are 5 that surprise even people who studied biology in high school.
Q1.What is the chemical symbol for gold?Tap to reveal
Answer: Au
It comes from aurum, the Latin word for gold, which is why several chemical symbols look nothing like their English names.
Q2.How many planets are there in our solar system?Tap to reveal
Answer: Eight
Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006 after astronomers agreed a formal definition of the word planet.
Q3.Which gas do plants absorb from the air for photosynthesis?Tap to reveal
Answer: Carbon dioxide
The oxygen that plants release actually comes from splitting water molecules, not from the carbon dioxide.
Q4.What is the hardest naturally occurring substance on Earth?Tap to reveal
Answer: Diamond
Diamond and pencil graphite are both pure carbon; the difference lies entirely in how the atoms are bonded.
Q5.What is the largest organ of the human body?Tap to reveal
Answer: The skin
An adult's skin weighs several kilograms and its outer layer is replaced roughly once a month as dead cells flake away.
Q6.At what temperature in degrees Celsius does water boil at sea level?Tap to reveal
Answer: 100
On the summit of Mount Everest the thinner air lets water boil at only around 70 degrees Celsius.
Q7.Which planet in our solar system is known as the Red Planet?Tap to reveal
Answer: Mars
Its colour comes from iron oxide, essentially rust, in the dust that covers its surface.
Q8.What is the name of the process by which a liquid turns into a gas at its surface, below its boiling point?Tap to reveal
Answer: Evaporation
The process cools the liquid left behind, which is exactly why sweating keeps you cool.
Q9.Which structures inside a cell are often called its powerhouses?Tap to reveal
Answer: Mitochondria
They carry their own DNA, which is inherited almost exclusively from the mother.
Q10.To the nearest thousand, how fast does light travel through a vacuum, in kilometres per second?Tap to reveal
Answer: 300,000
The metre is now defined using the speed of light, so the exact value is fixed at 299,792,458 metres per second.
Q11.Which element has the atomic number 1?Tap to reveal
Answer: Hydrogen
It makes up roughly three-quarters of the normal matter in the universe by mass.
Q12.Which scientist published three laws of motion in his 1687 work, the Principia?Tap to reveal
Answer: Isaac Newton
The same book set out his law of universal gravitation, explaining falling apples and orbiting moons with a single rule.
Q13.Which blood type is known as the universal donor?Tap to reveal
Answer: O negative
Its red cells carry no A, B or Rh antigens, so most recipients' immune systems will not attack them.
Q14.What is the most abundant gas in Earth's atmosphere?Tap to reveal
Answer: Nitrogen
It makes up about 78 percent of the air, yet most living things cannot use it until bacteria fix it into other compounds.
Q15.What unit is used to measure electrical resistance?Tap to reveal
Answer: Ohm
It is named after Georg Ohm, whose 1827 law links voltage, current and resistance in a single equation.
Q16.Which physicist developed the theory of general relativity?Tap to reveal
Answer: Albert Einstein
His 1921 Nobel Prize was awarded not for relativity but for explaining the photoelectric effect.
Q17.How many bones are there in the adult human body?Tap to reveal
Answer: 206
Babies are born with around 300 bones, many of which fuse together as they grow.
Q18.What does the abbreviation DNA stand for?Tap to reveal
Answer: Deoxyribonucleic acid
Stretched out end to end, the DNA in a single human cell would measure about two metres.
Q19.After the Sun, what is the closest star to Earth?Tap to reveal
Answer: Proxima Centauri
Its light takes just over four years to reach us, so we always see the star as it was four years ago.
Q20.Which type of electromagnetic radiation has the longest wavelength?Tap to reveal
Answer: Radio waves
A single radio wave can be longer than a football pitch, while gamma rays are smaller than an atom.
Q21.What is the chemical formula for common table salt?Tap to reveal
Answer: NaCl
Sodium is a metal that reacts violently with water and chlorine is a toxic gas, yet together they form a compound we eat every day.
Q22.Which scientist discovered penicillin in 1928?Tap to reveal
Answer: Alexander Fleming
He shared the 1945 Nobel Prize with Howard Florey and Ernst Chain, who turned his mouldy petri dish into a usable medicine.
Q23.What is the most abundant element in the Earth's crust by mass?Tap to reveal
Answer: Oxygen
In the crust it is locked into minerals such as silica rather than floating free as a gas.
Q24.What is absolute zero in degrees Celsius?Tap to reveal
Answer: -273.15
At this temperature particles hold the minimum possible energy, and it can be approached but never quite reached.
Why these trivia questions work
The best trivia questions aren't "what year was the Magna Carta signed". They're questions where the answer reveals something — a connection between two facts, a counterintuitive truth, a curveball. Our archive of 84,000+ questions is curated for exactly this. If you want a daily quiz that picks 10 of these for you, the Trivio.NET app drops a new set every morning, free to play.
If you want to host a quiz night, we have category-specific question packs: movies, music, geography, science, history. Browse the full category index to pull questions by topic.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I make trivia questions harder?
Layer in a time limit (10 seconds per question is standard), require the "why" with each answer, and weight categories players don't usually study.
Where do these trivia questions come from?
Our archive of 84,000+ questions curated by trivia experts over 8 years. All have been verified and tested with players.
Is there a trivia app that quizzes me daily?
Yes — Trivio.NET delivers a fresh daily quiz, plus async duels with friends and real-time 1v1 trivia battles. Free to install.
What's the best trivia category for beginners?
Movies and music — almost everyone has personal recall of pop culture. Geography and science are harder unless you specifically study them.
