1990 Movie Trivia
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70 free 1990 Movie trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
1990 was a strange, brilliant year at the movies. A pottery-wheel romance became the biggest film in the world, an eight-year-old defending his house became a Christmas institution, and a submarine thriller, a Coen brothers gangster picture and a Kevin Costner Western all landed within months of each other. This 1990 movie trivia quiz has 70 free questions with answers on the films released that year, and only that year, so it goes deeper than any 90s round. The easy questions cover the hits everyone has seen: Home Alone, Pretty Woman, Die Hard 2, Kindergarten Cop, Predator 2, Back to the Future Part III. The harder ones ask which studio walked away from Home Alone, what Pretty Woman was originally called, where Total Recall was filmed, which pulp hero Sam Raimi wanted before he invented Darkman, and which effects house built the Ninja Turtles. There are questions on the year's Oscar winners, on cult favourites like Tremors, Troll 2 and Jacob's Ladder, and on the foreign films that broke through, from Nikita to Cyrano. Every answer has been checked against a reference page and each question shows its source once you answer, so you can settle arguments as well as start them.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which film was the highest-grossing movie of 1990 worldwide?
Ghost
Ghost took about $505 million worldwide on a budget near $22 million, and Whoopi Goldberg won Best Supporting Actress for it.
Q 02In Home Alone, Kevin McCallister's family accidentally leaves him behind while flying to which city?
Paris
The McCallisters fly to Paris for Christmas; eight-year-old Kevin, asleep in the attic, is left to defend the suburban Chicago house against two burglars.
Q 03Which studio originally planned to finance Home Alone but shut it down over budget before Fox picked it up?
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. balked when the budget rose toward $15 million; 20th Century Fox picked it up and the film grossed more than $470 million worldwide.
Q 04What was the title of the original, much darker screenplay that became Pretty Woman?
3000
The script was called 3000, after the $3,000 Vivian is paid for the week; Disney's Touchstone softened J.F. Lawton's dark drama into a romantic comedy.
Q 05Pretty Woman takes its title from a 1964 song by which singer?
Roy Orbison
Roy Orbison's 'Oh, Pretty Woman', a 1964 number-one hit, gave the film its title; Julia Roberts won a Golden Globe and her first Best Actress Oscar nomination.
Q 06Goodfellas is adapted from which 1985 nonfiction book by Nicholas Pileggi?
Wiseguy
Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family (1985) follows Henry Hill from 1955 to 1980; the film dropped the title to avoid confusion with the TV series Wiseguy.
Q 07Which Goodfellas actor won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film?
Joe Pesci
Joe Pesci won Best Supporting Actor as Tommy DeVito, the film's only win from six nominations; his 'funny how?' scene grew out of improvised rehearsals.
Q 08Much of the dialogue in Dances With Wolves is spoken in which language, with English subtitles?
Lakota
Lakota: Doris Leader Charge of Sinte Gleska University translated the script and coached the cast, and much of the film was shot in South Dakota.
Q 09From twelve nominations, how many Academy Awards did Dances With Wolves win, including Best Picture?
7
Dances With Wolves won 7 of its 12 nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director for Kevin Costner, the first Western to take Best Picture since Cimarron in 1931.
Q 10Total Recall was shot over six months on huge sets at Estudios Churubusco in which country?
Mexico
Mexico: the film was shot at Estudios Churubusco in Mexico City over six months, with a budget estimated at $48-80 million, among the highest of its time.
Q 11Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, is based on a short story by which science fiction author?
Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick's 1966 story 'We Can Remember It for You Wholesale' was optioned by Ronald Shusett in 1974; a planned sequel later became Minority Report.
Q 12Which horror legend plays the Inventor in Edward Scissorhands?
Vincent Price
Vincent Price plays the Inventor, Edward's creator, who dies before finishing him; Price had narrated Burton's 1982 animated short Vincent.
Q 13Tim Burton drew Edward Scissorhands from his childhood in which suburban California city?
Burbank
Burbank: Burton based the pastel suburb on his own neighbourhood there, though the film was shot in Lutz, Florida, with Caroline Thompson writing the script.
Q 21Which film was Ivan Reitman's first collaboration with Arnold Schwarzenegger, before Kindergarten Cop?
Twins
Twins (1988) paired Schwarzenegger with Danny DeVito as unlikely siblings; Reitman directed it, Kindergarten Cop and the 1994 comedy Junior.
Q 22In Misery, which actor plays novelist Paul Sheldon, held captive by his obsessive fan Annie Wilkes?
James Caan
James Caan took the role after several leading men passed; Kathy Bates won Best Actress as Annie Wilkes in Rob Reiner's adaptation of Stephen King's novel.
Q 23In Back to the Future Part III, Doc Brown is stranded in which year of the Old West?
1885
Doc's DeLorean is struck by lightning and sends him to 1885, where Marty must rescue him from Buford 'Mad Dog' Tannen before he falls for Clara Clayton.
Q 14The turtle costumes in the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film were built by which effects workshop?
Jim Henson's Creature Shop
Jim Henson's Creature Shop built the animatronic turtle suits; Henson died in May 1990, less than two months after the film opened.
Q 15Which small independent acquired the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film mid-production?
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, then best known for A Nightmare on Elm Street, distributed it; made for about $13.5 million, it grossed over $200 million, a record for an independent film.
Q 16Die Hard 2 traps John McClane at which airport as terrorists seize the air traffic control system?
Washington Dulles
Washington Dulles is snowed in while mercenaries seize its landing systems; McClane must fight past airport police and a military commander as planes circle low on fuel.
Q 17Who directed Die Hard 2, subtitled Die Harder?
Renny Harlin
Renny Harlin, the Finnish director of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, took over because John McTiernan was making The Hunt for Red October.
Q 18The Hunt for Red October is adapted from a 1984 novel by which author?
Tom Clancy
Tom Clancy's debut novel, published by the Naval Institute Press in 1984, introduced CIA analyst Jack Ryan, played by Alec Baldwin in the film.
Q 19In which category did The Hunt for Red October win its only Academy Award?
Best Sound Editing
Best Sound Editing (then called Sound Effects Editing) went to Cecelia Hall and George Watters II; the film's other nominations were for Sound and Film Editing.
Q 20Kindergarten Cop's school scenes were shot on location in which Oregon town?
Astoria
Astoria's John Jacob Astor Elementary School stood in for the fictional school; the town had hosted The Goonies five years earlier.
Q 24What title did Coppola and Puzo want for The Godfather Part III before Paramount rejected it?
The Death of Michael Corleone
Coppola and Puzo proposed The Death of Michael Corleone, seeing the film as an epilogue; the 2020 recut was released as The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone.
Q 25Whose casting as Mary Corleone in The Godfather Part III drew accusations of nepotism?
Sofia Coppola
Sofia Coppola, the director's daughter, replaced Winona Ryder at the last minute; she later won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Lost in Translation in 2004.
Q 26Who produced, directed and starred in the 1990 comic-strip adaptation Dick Tracy?
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty produced, directed and starred as Tracy, with Madonna as Breathless Mahoney and Al Pacino, Oscar-nominated, as Big Boy Caprice.
Q 27Tremors is set in which fictional isolated Nevada desert town?
Perfection
The town is Perfection, Nevada, menaced by subterranean worms nicknamed Graboids; the film was shot in Inyo County, California, on a purpose-built set near Lone Pine.
Q 28Which country singer made her acting debut in Tremors?
Reba McEntire
Reba McEntire plays survivalist Heather Gummer, wife of Michael Gross's Burt Gummer, in her first film role; the singer had released her debut album in 1977.
Q 29Arachnophobia was the first film produced by which Walt Disney Studios label?
Hollywood Pictures
Hollywood Pictures launched with Arachnophobia in July 1990; it was also the directorial debut of Spielberg's longtime producer Frank Marshall.
Q 30The five main characters in Flatliners, who deliberately induce near-death experiences, are what?
Medical students
They are medical students, played by Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin and Oliver Platt; Sutherland returned for the 2017 follow-up.