79 free 2023 Movie trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
2023 was the year Barbie and Oppenheimer opened on the same day and both became phenomena, the year a Mario movie made more than a billion dollars, and the year a string of superhero and franchise blockbusters flopped so hard that critics coined a new word for it. It was also a strong year for everything else: Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, Past Lives, Anatomy of a Fall, The Holdovers, Godzilla Minus One and a Miyazaki film released in Japan with no trailer at all. This quiz has 79 questions on all of it: box office records, casting, directors, the Cannes and Venice prizes, what won at the 96th Academy Awards, the writers' and actors' strikes, and the smaller films that found audiences, from Talk to Me and Bottoms to Saltburn and The Iron Claw. Some are easy (who played Ken, what Nolan's film was about); some are properly hard (which studio spent a record sum in Oklahoma, which film had the longest runtime of any American animated feature). Every answer has been checked against a source, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you answer.
30 of 79 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which two films opened on 21 July 2023, creating that summer's double-feature craze?
Barbie and Oppenheimer
The joint opening was the fourth-biggest weekend in US box office history and the first time two films opened above $100m and $80m together.
Q 02Who directed Barbie, from a script co-written with her husband Noah Baumbach?
Greta Gerwig
Amy Schumer and then Anne Hathaway had been attached to play the doll in earlier versions before Margot Robbie was cast in 2019.
Q 03Who played Ken opposite Margot Robbie in Barbie?
Ryan Gosling
The film became the highest-grossing of both leads' careers, beating Suicide Squad and Blade Runner 2049 in a single weekend.
Q 04Barbie became the first film in which genre to gross over $1 billion worldwide?
Comedy
It got there in 17 days, the fastest Warner Bros. film ever, two days quicker than the final Harry Potter.
Q 05Which song from Barbie won the Academy Award for Best Original Song?
What Was I Made For?
The win made Billie Eilish, who had already won for No Time to Die, the youngest person ever to hold two Oscars.
Q 06Oppenheimer was based on which Pulitzer-winning 2005 biography?
American Prometheus
Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin's book covers the physicist's studies, Los Alamos and the 1954 security hearing that the film builds toward.
Q 07Who plays Lewis Strauss, the Atomic Energy Commission member, in Oppenheimer?
Robert Downey Jr.
The role brought him his first Oscar, and the film was the first Best Picture winner to take both male acting awards since Ben-Hur.
Q 08Oppenheimer was Christopher Nolan's first film since Memento not to be distributed by which studio?
Warner Bros.
He walked after the studio put its whole 2021 slate on HBO Max the same day as cinemas, and took the film to Universal instead.
Q 09Oppenheimer's cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema shot selected scenes in what first-of-its-kind format?
IMAX black-and-white film
Kodak had to manufacture the stock specially, and IMAX 70 mm prints alone earned $17 million from just 30 screens.
Q 10How many Academy Awards did Oppenheimer win at the March 2024 ceremony?
Seven
It had led the field with thirteen nominations, and apart from composer Ludwig Göransson every winner from the film was a first-timer.
Q 11Oppenheimer overtook which earlier Nolan film as the highest-grossing World War II movie ever?
Dunkirk
It also passed Bohemian Rhapsody as the top-grossing biopic and sits behind only Joker among R-rated films.
Q 12Which studio produced The Super Mario Bros. Movie together with Nintendo?
Illumination
Miyamoto met the studio's boss Chris Meledandri through the Super Nintendo World theme park deal, decades after the 1993 live-action flop had scared Nintendo off films.
Q 13Who voices Bowser in The Super Mario Bros. Movie?
Jack Black
Chris Pratt is Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy is Peach and Rogen plays Donkey Kong.
Q 21Poor Things won the top prize at which 2023 film festival?
Venice
The Golden Lion made it Yorgos Lanthimos's most decorated film, and it went on to gross $117 million on a $35 million budget.
Q 22Which French courtroom drama won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2023?
Anatomy of a Fall
Justine Triet's film also won the Palm Dog for Snoop the border collie and later took the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Q 23Which German actress starred in both the 2023 Palme d'Or winner and The Zone of Interest?
Sandra Hüller
She earned a Best Actress nomination for the former while the latter won Best International Feature and Best Sound.
Q 14The Super Mario Bros. Movie became the first film of what kind to gross $1 billion worldwide?
A video game adaptation
It was also the 52nd billion-dollar film overall and briefly the top non-Disney animated film ever, until Ne Zha 2 in 2025.
Q 15At 140 minutes, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse set what record on release?
Longest American animated film
Each of its six universes was drawn in a different visual style, and it became Sony Pictures Animation's biggest hit.
Q 16Who voices Miles Morales in Across the Spider-Verse?
Shameik Moore
Hailee Steinfeld's Gwen Stacy shares the lead, and the sequel was originally scheduled for April 2022.
Q 17Killers of the Flower Moon is set among which Native American nation after oil was found on its land?
The Osage
The film's $200 million-plus budget was reportedly the most ever spent on a shoot in Oklahoma, and it was Scorsese's final collaboration with composer Robbie Robertson.
Q 18Which tech company financed Killers of the Flower Moon and released it with Paramount?
Apple
The Cannes premiere led to Oscar nominations for Lily Gladstone, the first US-born Native American Best Actress nominee, and an 81-year-old Scorsese.
Q 19Robert De Niro's Killers of the Flower Moon nomination came how many years after his first, for The Godfather Part II?
49
That gap between first and latest nomination is the longest in Oscar history.
Q 20In Poor Things, Emma Stone plays Bella Baxter, a woman reanimated by a scientist played by whom?
Willem Dafoe
The film, adapted from Alasdair Gray's 1992 novel and shot in Hungary, won Stone Best Actress at the Oscars, Globes and BAFTAs.
Q 24The Zone of Interest depicts the family life of the commandant of which concentration camp?
Auschwitz
Jonathan Glazer chose to portray the real Höss family rather than the fictionalised versions in Martin Amis's novel, and shot mostly around the camp itself.
Q 25Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 centres on the origin of which character?
Rocket
James Gunn says he personally identifies with the raccoon; he was fired from the film in 2018 over old tweets and rehired the same year.
Q 26John Wick: Chapter 4 was the first film in the series not written by which franchise creator?
Derek Kolstad
It became the franchise's highest earner with $447 million, and the spin-off Ballerina followed in 2025.
Q 27In The Holdovers, Paul Giamatti's teacher is stuck at a boarding school over which 1970 holiday?
Christmas
Da'Vine Joy Randolph won Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars, Globes and BAFTAs as the school's grieving cook, and Dominic Sessa made his film debut.
Q 28Godzilla Minus One won an Oscar in which category, the first non-English-language film ever to do so?
Best Visual Effects
Director Takashi Yamazaki also did the effects himself, on a reputed budget of only around $10 million.
Q 29The hero of Godzilla Minus One is a former what, haunted by his failure to complete his mission?
Kamikaze pilot
The film is set in a Japan already flattened by the war, hence the minus in the title, and it was released for the franchise's 70th anniversary.
Q 30Past Lives, Celine Song's debut about two childhood friends from Seoul, had which distributor?
A24
The semi-autobiographical film earned Best Picture and Original Screenplay nominations and follows its pair across 24 years.