2016 Movies
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50 free 2016 Movies trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
2016 was the year superheroes turned on each other. Marvel split its Avengers down the middle, DC sent Batman after Superman and let its villains loose in Suicide Squad, and a foul-mouthed mercenary in a red suit broke the rules of the genre. Away from the capes, talking animals ruled the box office and a musical set in Los Angeles swept through awards season. This quiz covers the films released that year: Captain America: Civil War, Batman v Superman, Deadpool and Doctor Strange, Zootopia, Finding Dory and Moana, Rogue One, La La Land, Arrival and more. Expect questions on casts, characters, plots, directors and the stories behind the camera, 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 2016 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 name, shared by both heroes' mothers, ends the duel in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice?
Martha
Martha is the name of both Clark Kent's adoptive mother and Bruce Wayne's late mother. Batman spares his rival once he realises he has been manipulated, then goes to rescue Mrs Kent.
Q 02Which film was the real Best Picture winner after La La Land was announced by mistake at the Oscars?
Moonlight
Moonlight was named the winner more than two minutes into the other film's acceptance speeches. The presenters had been handed the envelope for a different category.
Q 03Which animals staff the Department of Mammal Vehicles in the animated buddy-cop comedy Zootopia?
Sloths
Sloths run the entire office, a parody of the DMV. Disney built a whole teaser trailer around the scene, released months before the film.
Q 04Which actor first played Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War, 2016's highest-grossing film?
Tom Holland
Tom Holland won the part after a screen test against five other teenage actors. He then chose not to read the whole script, so that he could not give away the plot.
Q 05Which talk-show host voices the forgetful blue tang at the centre of Pixar's Finding Dory?
Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen DeGeneres spent years campaigning for the sequel on her own programme. She had said back in 2003 that she was ready to dive back in.
Q 06Which action star voices Maui, the shape-shifting demigod, in the animated film Moana?
Dwayne Johnson
Dwayne Johnson is of Samoan heritage, and most of the film's voice cast are likewise of Polynesian descent.
Q 07Which superweapon's secret plans do rebel spies steal in the 2016 space adventure Rogue One?
The Death Star
The Death Star heist is set only a week before the events of the original 1977 film, making Rogue One a direct lead-in to the saga's first chapter.
Q 08Which actor plays Wade Wilson, the wisecracking mercenary with a healing factor, in 2016's Deadpool?
Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds later admitted leaking the test footage himself. The enthusiastic response to that leak in 2014 led the studio to approve the film.
Q 09Which actress plays Harley Quinn, the Joker's unhinged partner in crime, in 2016's Suicide Squad?
Margot Robbie
Margot Robbie's look fed straight back into the comics. Later that year the printed character gained pink and blue dyed tips and a jacket modelled on the film's.
Q 10Which actor voiced both Shere Khan in The Jungle Book and Chief Bogo in Zootopia in 2016?
Idris Elba
Idris Elba had a third animal role that year as Fluke the sea lion in Finding Dory. He also appeared in person as the villain Krall in Star Trek Beyond.
Q 11What was Stephen Strange's job before a car crash ruined his hands in Marvel's Doctor Strange?
Neurosurgeon
Neurosurgeon Stephen Strange turns to sorcery only when his injuries leave him unable to operate. Marvel moved the whole production schedule so that Benedict Cumberbatch could play him.
Q 12Which comedy veteran voices Baloo the bear in the 2016 remake of The Jungle Book?
Bill Murray
Bill Murray was director Jon Favreau's choice for Baloo from the very beginning of the project.
Q 13Which animal is Buster Moon, the theatre owner who stages a talent contest in Illumination's Sing?
A koala
A koala voiced by Matthew McConaughey, Buster launches the singing competition to stop the bank from foreclosing on his struggling theatre.
Q 21Which star plays Deadshot, the expert marksman who misses his daughter, in 2016's Suicide Squad?
Will Smith
Will Smith was offered this part and Independence Day: Resurgence at the same time. He chose the supervillain team over a return to his 1996 alien-invasion hit.
Q 22Which pop star voices Branch, the survivalist troll, in the 2016 animated musical Trolls?
Justin Timberlake
Justin Timberlake was also executive producer of the film's music. His single for it, Can't Stop the Feeling!, earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song.
Q 23Which astronaut's orbital flight do the mathematicians of Hidden Figures help to launch safely?
John Glenn
Q 14Which action star plays Kevin, the handsome but dim receptionist, in the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot?
Chris Hemsworth
Chris Hemsworth's Kevin Beckman is hired by the all-female team to answer the phones. He ends up possessed by the villain, who uses his body to open a portal for ghosts.
Q 15What is the profession of Louise Banks, the Amy Adams character sent to meet aliens in Arrival?
A linguist
A linguist is who the US Army recruits to work out how to talk to the visitors, whose writing is built from logograms. Amy Adams prepared by consulting a real one, Jessica Coon.
Q 16On which waterway does Tom Hanks's airline captain ditch a stricken jet in Clint Eastwood's Sully?
The Hudson
The Hudson landing really happened in 2009, and all 155 passengers and crew survived. Much of the film follows the investigation that came afterwards.
Q 17Which actress won an Oscar as Mia, a struggling actress who falls for a jazz pianist, in La La Land?
Emma Stone
Emma Stone got the part after Emma Watson dropped out. Watson left to honour her commitment to a live-action Beauty and the Beast.
Q 18Which DC heroine made her first live-action cinema appearance in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice?
Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman reached cinemas played by Gal Gadot. The same film was the first to put its two title heroes together in live action.
Q 19In which city does British wizard Newt Scamander arrive in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them?
New York
New York in 1926 is the setting. The trouble begins when the wizard and an aspiring baker accidentally swap suitcases, one of them full of magical creatures.
Q 20Which actor first played T'Challa, the Black Panther, in Captain America: Civil War?
Chadwick Boseman
Chadwick Boseman developed the Wakandan accent himself. He kept it up for the entire production, whether he was on camera or not.
John Glenn really did ask specifically for the film's heroine to verify the IBM computer's calculations. In reality she had several days before the launch to finish the job.
Q 24Which online tool does Saroo use to trace his lost Indian hometown in the 2016 drama Lion?
Google Earth
Google Earth is what his friends suggest he try. The film tells a true story: Saroo Brierley found his mother again 25 years after they were separated.
Q 25Which Hollywood star directed Hacksaw Ridge, about a wartime medic who refused to carry a firearm?
Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson turned the offer down twice before agreeing. It became his first film as a director since Apocalypto in 2006.
Q 26Which fast-food chain's rise is told in The Founder, starring Michael Keaton as salesman Ray Kroc?
McDonald's
McDonald's was really started by the brothers Richard and Maurice, not by the man of the title. The film shows Kroc forcing them out to take control of the company.
Q 27Which British actor plays wizard Newt Scamander in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them?
Eddie Redmayne
Eddie Redmayne took on the wizard two years after The Theory of Everything, in which his portrayal of physicist Stephen Hawking won him the Best Actor Oscar.
Q 28Which horror menace overruns a high-speed service from Seoul in the South Korean hit Train to Busan?
Zombies
Zombies swarm the carriages as an outbreak spreads across the whole country, so nearly all of the film takes place aboard the moving express.
Q 29Which actor leads the hired guns as bounty hunter Sam Chisolm in 2016's The Magnificent Seven?
Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington headed a remake of the 1960 western, which was itself a remake of Akira Kurosawa's classic Seven Samurai.
Q 30Which Suicide Squad actress, who played Amanda Waller, also won an Oscar for the 2016 drama Fences?
Viola Davis
Viola Davis had already won a Tony for the same part in the 2010 Broadway revival of the play. Her Oscar came in the Best Supporting Actress category.