1998 Movies
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free 1998 Movies trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
1998 was the year Hollywood tried to end the world twice, with rival films about rocks hurtling toward Earth opening within two months of each other. A harrowing World War II epic led the box office in American cinemas, a giant lizard stomped ashore on a wave of marketing, and a modestly budgeted comedy about a prom date gone wrong became one of the biggest earners of the year. This quiz covers the top-grossing movies of 1998 and the films people still talk about from that year: the worldwide box-office champion, the summer blockbusters, the animated insect rivals, the cult comedies, the horror sequels and the contenders at the Oscars. Expect questions on casts, plots, directors, soundtracks and the numbers behind the hits, most of them pitched for casual film fans, with a few tougher ones for the buffs. It is written for movie-night hosts, pub quiz setters and anyone who spent 1998 in a cinema seat. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play straight through or print the questions for a group.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which disaster movie about a threat from space was the top-grossing film of 1998 at the worldwide box office?
Armageddon
Armageddon took $553.7 million worldwide, more than any other 1998 release. In US cinemas it finished second for the year, about $15 million behind a World War II drama.
Q 02Which country's beach stood in for Normandy in the D-Day landing that opens Saving Private Ryan?
Ireland
Ireland supplied the sands of Curracloe in County Wexford, picked because they resemble Omaha Beach. About 1,000 Irish army and reserve soldiers took part in the landing scene.
Q 03Which film's 15-week run at number one in US cinemas was ended by Lost in Space in April 1998?
Titanic
Titanic had led the chart every week since its release in December 1997. On March 1, 1998 it also became the first film to gross over $1 billion worldwide.
Q 04Which romantic comedy controversially beat Saving Private Ryan to the Best Picture Oscar for 1998?
Shakespeare in Love
Shakespeare in Love was the first comedy to win Best Picture since Annie Hall in 1977. It took seven Oscars from thirteen nominations, the most of any film that night.
Q 05Which cocktail is the drink of choice for The Dude, the slacker hero of The Big Lebowski?
White Russian
White Russian orders surged after the 1998 release, as fans copied the hero's mix of vodka, coffee liqueur and cream. He drinks them throughout the Coen brothers' comedy.
Q 06Which comedian voiced the dragon Mushu in Mulan and talked to animals in Dr. Dolittle in summer 1998?
Eddie Murphy
Eddie Murphy had two of the year's ten biggest worldwide hits a week apart. The Disney animation reached US cinemas on June 19, 1998 and his talking-animal comedy on June 26.
Q 07Which actress debuted in cinemas playing both separated twins in Disney's 1998 remake of The Parent Trap?
Lindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan played both sisters with the help of motion-control photography and a double for shared scenes. Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson played the divorced parents.
Q 08Which online service's new-email greeting gave the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan comedy You've Got Mail its title?
AOL
AOL users heard the greeting whenever a message arrived. The plot itself reworks a 1937 Hungarian play that Hollywood had already filmed as The Shop Around the Corner.
Q 09Which city does the giant lizard come ashore to nest in during Hollywood's 1998 remake of Godzilla?
New York
New York takes the damage, and the creature's nest turns up inside Madison Square Garden. Poor reviews did not stop the remake earning $379 million, third among 1998 releases.
Q 10Which comic actor played a man unaware that his whole life is a television broadcast in The Truman Show?
Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey's character, Truman Burbank, was adopted at birth by a television studio. He lives on a colossal soundstage, filmed around the clock by hidden cameras.
Q 11Which director's Saving Private Ryan was the top-grossing 1998 release in US cinemas, earning $216.5 million?
Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg won the Best Director Oscar for it. The film led the US chart among 1998 releases, yet finished second at the worldwide box office.
Q 12Which rock band scored its only US number one with I Don't Want to Miss a Thing, from a 1998 blockbuster?
Aerosmith
Aerosmith debuted at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with the Diane Warren ballad and stayed there for four weeks. Frontman Tyler's daughter Liv starred in the film.
Q 13Which actress won an Oscar for a brief appearance as Queen Elizabeth I in a 1998 romantic comedy?
Judi Dench
Q 21In the 1998 Japanese horror film Ring, which cursed object brings death seven days after a person looks at it?
A videotape
A videotape carries the curse, and its viewers get a phone call before their week runs out. Ring became the highest-grossing horror film in Japan on its release.
Q 22Which actress played a waitress in The Wedding Singer and a Cinderella figure in Ever After in 1998?
Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore's Ever After drops the pantomime and magic of most retellings and plays the fairy tale as historical fiction in Renaissance France.
Q 23Which comedian starred in The Waterboy as Bobby Boucher, a water boy who becomes a feared linebacker?
Adam Sandler
Judi Dench took Best Supporting Actress and joked in her speech that she had been on screen for only eight minutes. Cate Blanchett was nominated that night for playing the same queen.
Q 14Which actor played the US president who warns the world of an approaching comet in Deep Impact?
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman's President Tom Beck gives the world a year's notice of the collision. The film opened in May 1998, two months before a rival about an asteroid, and made $349 million.
Q 15Which actress played the title role in the Farrelly brothers' 1998 comedy There's Something About Mary?
Cameron Diaz
Cameron Diaz's comedy cost $23 million and took over $369 million worldwide, the fourth-highest total among 1998 releases. Several men compete for her character's affection.
Q 16Which filmmaker voiced Z, the anxious worker ant at the centre of DreamWorks' first animated feature, Antz?
Woody Allen
Woody Allen led a voice cast that included Sharon Stone, Sylvester Stallone and Gene Hackman. The film reached US cinemas about seven weeks before a rival studio's insect comedy.
Q 17Which future pop star, then 17, recorded the single version of Reflection for Disney's Mulan?
Christina Aguilera
Christina Aguilera's rendition became her debut solo single and led to a recording contract with RCA. Her self-titled debut album followed in 1999.
Q 18Which Chinese martial arts star made his Hollywood debut as the villain of Lethal Weapon 4?
Jet Li
Jet Li had never played a villain on film before taking the part of a high-ranking Triad member. The producer promised him the lead in Romeo Must Die in return.
Q 19Which comedian played LAPD detective James Carter opposite Jackie Chan's Hong Kong inspector in Rush Hour?
Chris Tucker
Chris Tucker won the part after Martin Lawrence and Dave Chappelle were among those considered. The buddy comedy took $245.3 million worldwide and led to two sequels.
Q 20Which Alfred Hitchcock thriller did Gus Van Sant remake almost shot for shot in 1998?
Psycho
Psycho was refilmed in colour with the 1960 script and camera moves largely intact, and Vince Vaughn in the lead. It won Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Remake and Worst Director.
Adam Sandler co-wrote the college football comedy, which made $39.4 million in its opening weekend in the US alone. The whole film had cost $23 million.
Q 24Which actor played the vampire hunter Blade in the 1998 hit based on a Marvel Comics character?
Wesley Snipes
Wesley Snipes's dark superhero film took $131.2 million worldwide, a record at the time for a film drawn from that publisher's pages. His hero has a vampire's strengths without the weaknesses.
Q 25Which actor inherited the mask from Anthony Hopkins's ageing hero in the 1998 swashbuckler The Mask of Zorro?
Antonio Banderas
Antonio Banderas plays the successor trained in a secret lair by the original Zorro, Don Diego de la Vega. He also falls for the old swordsman's long-lost daughter.
Q 26Which actress returned as Laurie Strode, two decades after first playing her, in Halloween H20?
Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis's heroine has faked her own death and is hiding as the head of a California boarding school. Josh Hartnett made his film debut in the cast.
Q 27Which actor played the title role in Patch Adams, about a medical student who treats patients with humour?
Robin Williams
Robin Williams was playing a real doctor, Hunter Adams, whose life story the film loosely follows. The action is set in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Q 28Which biblical figure's rise from royal court to prophet is told in DreamWorks' The Prince of Egypt?
Moses
Moses leads the Hebrews out of slavery in this adaptation of the Book of Exodus. It was the first traditionally animated film from the studio.
Q 29Which singer joined Mariah Carey on When You Believe, the Oscar-winning duet from The Prince of Egypt?
Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston and Carey recorded the pop version for the end credits, with extra music and words by Babyface. It won Best Original Song at the Oscars in March 1999.
Q 30Which Nickelodeon cartoon's 1998 film was the first non-Disney animation to pass $100 million in US cinemas?
Rugrats
Rugrats sent Tommy Pickles and his new baby brother into the wilderness for the first feature based on a Nicktoon. It closed with just over $100 million in the US and $141 million worldwide.