50 Fun Facts About 2020s Movies

Which animated musical gave the world We Don't Talk About Bruno, a number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100?

Encanto sent the song to number one, something no tune from a Disney animated film had managed since A Whole New World from Aladdin in 1993.

Which director made Barbie, the first film by a solo female director to gross over a billion dollars?

Greta Gerwig wrote the script with Noah Baumbach, and the comedy about a doll went on to take about $1.4 billion worldwide.

In Inside Out 2, which new emotion voiced by Maya Hawke takes control of Riley's mind at hockey camp?

Anxiety bottles up Joy and the other original emotions and has them thrown into a vault, convinced that Riley must change to fit in with the older players.

Which game became a 2025 film starring Jack Black as Steve and Jason Momoa as a former gaming champion?

Minecraft reached cinemas as A Minecraft Movie, in which four misfits from Idaho are pulled through a portal into a world made of cubes.

What did groups of teenagers wear to screenings of Minions: The Rise of Gru in a viral TikTok trend?

Suits were the uniform of the Gentleminions, who copied Gru's formal look. Some British cinemas banned groups in formal dress after rowdy screenings.

Which actor earned an Oscar nomination as Ken in Barbie and led I'm Just Ken live at the 2024 ceremony?

Ryan Gosling turned the comic power ballad into an awards-season hit: it was nominated for the Best Original Song Oscar and won Best Song at the Critics' Choice Awards.

In Pixar's Luca, the two boys exploring a town on the Italian Riviera are secretly what?

Sea monsters like Luca and Alberto take human form whenever they are on dry land. Director Enrico Casarosa drew the story from his own childhood in Genoa.

In Spider-Man: No Way Home, whose botched memory spell pulls in villains from other universes?

Doctor Strange loses control of the spell because Peter Parker keeps asking for changes mid-cast, so that his loved ones can keep their memories.

Which British actor plays Lofty, the Oompa-Loompa who keeps stealing Willy's chocolate in the 2023 film Wonka?

Hugh Grant played the tiny thief through motion capture. Lofty is out for payback because the young chocolatier once took cocoa beans from Loompaland on his watch.

Which actor voiced both the plumber hero of The Super Mario Bros. Movie and the cat in The Garfield Movie?

Chris Pratt plays Mario as a struggling plumber from Brooklyn who is swept into a war between the Mushroom Kingdom and Bowser's Dark Lands.

Which Canadian city is the setting of Pixar's Turning Red, where director Domee Shi grew up?

Toronto in 2002 is home to 13-year-old Mei Lee, who turns into a giant red panda whenever her feelings run high.

In Pixar's Soul, New York music teacher Joe Gardner dreams of a career playing which style of music?

Jazz scenes in the film were animated from real recording sessions by musician Jon Batiste, who also composed its original jazz pieces.

In Pixar's Elemental, what is the name of the tearful water-element city inspector who falls for Ember?

Wade first meets Ember when her temper bursts a pipe and floods the basement of her father's shop, and he writes the place up for code violations.

In Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, the wolf hunting the hero turns out to be which figure?

Death comes for Puss in person, insulted that the cat never valued his earlier lives. He only spares him once Puss learns to treasure the one he has left.

Which comedy star plays the villainous Doctor Robotnik in the 2020 film Sonic the Hedgehog?

Jim Carrey's film nearly looked very different: after fans mocked the first trailer, the studio delayed it by three months to redesign Sonic.

In The Wild Robot, the shipwrecked robot Roz becomes adoptive mother to an orphan of which bird?

Goose chick Brightbill imprints on Roz after she accidentally crushes his family's nest. She has to teach him to eat, swim and fly before the winter migration.

Which Disney sequel began as a streaming miniseries before it was reworked into a 2024 cinema release?

Moana 2 began life as a five-episode Disney+ show announced in 2020, and the studio only turned it into a feature film in early 2024.

Which pop star plays Glinda opposite Cynthia Erivo's Elphaba in the 2024 film Wicked?

Ariana Grande's film covers only the first act of the stage show, because the adaptation was split into two parts to avoid cutting the plot.

Flow, the wordless animated film about a cat in a rising flood, gave which country its first Oscar win?

Latvia's winner was made by director Gints Zilbalodis using Blender, a free and open-source animation program. It took Best Animated Feature in 2025.

Which Japanese animation director came out of retirement to make the Oscar-winning The Boy and the Heron?

Hayao Miyazaki had announced his retirement in 2013 after The Wind Rises, and Studio Ghibli reopened once he changed his mind.

Which director's stop-motion Pinocchio, set in Fascist Italy, won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature?

Guillermo del Toro co-directed with stop-motion veteran Mark Gustafson, and in their version the puppet sings a song mocking Mussolini to his face.

Which rock frontman voices Clay Calloway, the reclusive lion rock star in the animated sequel Sing 2?

Bono's lion has hidden away since his wife Ruby died 15 years earlier, and the plot turns on the troupe's attempt to enlist him for their new show.

Which Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse villain is an Alchemax scientist with a body covered in portals?

The Spot blames the young Spider-Man for his condition, because the portals were fused into his body when the collider was destroyed in the first film.

Ne Zha 2, the first animated film to gross over two billion dollars, was made in which country?

China turned out in force for the film, which opened on the first day of Chinese New Year in 2025. Its story is adapted from the 16th-century novel Investiture of the Gods.

Which original Top Gun star returned for a last screen role as Admiral Iceman in Top Gun: Maverick?

Val Kilmer had campaigned on his Facebook page to come back, and in the sequel his old rival character has risen to command the US Pacific Fleet.

Which actress from the original Avatar returned in Avatar: The Way of Water as Kiri, the Sullys' adopted daughter?

Sigourney Weaver played scientist Grace Augustine in the first film, and Kiri was born from Grace's dormant Na'vi body, so the actress came back as a child.

Which actor played both Paul Atreides in Dune and the young chocolatier in the 2023 film Wonka?

Timothée Chalamet plays Paul as the heir of a noble house that is thrust into a war for the desert planet Arrakis.

Which actress plays tennis prodigy Tashi Duncan in Challengers and MJ in Spider-Man: No Way Home?

Zendaya also produced Challengers, in which two best friends both fall for Tashi after watching her win a junior final.

Which masked serial killer, played by Paul Dano, targets Gotham City's elite in the 2022 film The Batman?

The Riddler in this version is a forensic accountant inspired by Batman himself, and he leaves messages for Robert Pattinson's hero at his crime scenes.

Which singer ended a six-year break from solo music with Lift Me Up for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever?

Rihanna's ballad is a tribute to Chadwick Boseman, the star of the first film, who died in 2020.

Which singer wrote the James Bond theme No Time to Die with her brother Finneas and won an Oscar for it?

Billie Eilish was 17 when she recorded the song, and its Oscar made her the first person born in the 21st century to win an Academy Award.

Killers of the Flower Moon tells of murders in which Native American nation after oil was found on its land?

Osage Nation land in 1920s Oklahoma is the setting, and Martin Scorsese's crew shot the film on location there in Osage County.

Which actor became the first Canadian to win the Best Actor Oscar, playing a reclusive English teacher in The Whale?

Brendan Fraser had been best known as adventurer Rick O'Connell in The Mummy two decades earlier. The film also won the Oscar for its makeup.

Which former child star of Indiana Jones and The Goonies won an Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once?

Ke Huy Quan had only recently returned to acting after years away, and he became the first Vietnam-born actor to win an Academy Award.

In Everything Everywhere All at Once, Evelyn first learns of the multiverse inside the offices of which agency?

The IRS is auditing the family laundromat when a version of Evelyn's husband from another universe takes over his body. The auditor is played by Jamie Lee Curtis.

Godzilla Minus One, the first Godzilla film nominated for an Academy Award, won in which category?

Best Visual Effects went to director Takashi Yamazaki, who supervised the effects himself. No film in a language other than English had won the category before.

Which director became only the second woman to win the Best Director Oscar, for the road drama Nomadland?

Chloé Zhao wrote, directed and edited the film, which follows Frances McDormand as a widow drifting around the United States in her van.

Which Best Picture winner follows the only hearing member of a deaf fishing family in Gloucester, Massachusetts?

CODA, short for child of deaf adults, came out on Apple TV+ and became the first film from a streaming service to win Best Picture.

Which Best Picture winner follows a Brooklyn dancer who impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch?

Anora had already won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and Sean Baker wrote, directed, produced and edited the film himself.

Which director made Tenet, the 2020 thriller about a secret agent and objects that move backward through time?

Christopher Nolan mulled over the idea for about twenty years, and the title is a palindrome, reading the same in both directions.

In the 2025 film Sinners, twin brothers open a Mississippi juke joint that comes under attack from what?

Vampires led by an Irish immigrant named Remmick are drawn in by the music. One actor plays both brothers, who are known as Smoke and Stack.

Which actor won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing bureaucrat Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer?

Robert Downey Jr.'s first nomination had come more than 30 years earlier, for playing Charlie Chaplin in the 1992 biopic Chaplin.

Which director based The Fabelmans on his own childhood, right down to recreating his boyhood 8mm films?

Steven Spielberg had talked about filming his childhood since 1999, and he had the young hero remake the exact home movies he once shot.

In the 2021 comedy Free Guy, the hero Guy has which job inside the video game Free City?

Bank teller Guy is a background character who lives the same scripted day over and over, unaware at first that his whole world is a game.

Which composer turned down the chance to score Tenet so he could write the music for Dune instead?

Hans Zimmer said no out of love for Frank Herbert's novel, then built the desert score from instruments rarely heard in a Western orchestra.

In Don't Look Up, two astronomers struggle to warn the world about what approaching the Earth?

A comet big enough to destroy civilization is the threat, and director Adam McKay meant it as an allegory for climate change.

Which director made Nope, a 2022 horror story about ranch siblings trying to film a UFO?

Jordan Peele wrote, directed and produced the film, his third as director, with Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer as the horse-wrangling siblings.

Which Telugu-language epic featured Naatu Naatu, the first song from an Indian film to win an Oscar?

RRR also made history at the Golden Globes, where its dance number was the first Indian song to win Best Original Song.

Which actor agreed in 2022 to reprise Wolverine from the X-Men films for Deadpool & Wolverine?

Hugh Jackman's decision unblocked the project: the creative team had struggled to settle on a story until he agreed to come back.

Which real Formula One champion served as a producer on the 2025 Brad Pitt racing film F1?

Lewis Hamilton also appears on screen, fighting the fictional team's young driver for the lead at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in the finale.