A Few Good Men Trivia
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49 free A Few Good Men trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free A Few Good Men trivia questions with answers. A Few Good Men is the courtroom drama everyone can quote, and this quiz digs well past the famous line. The questions cover Rob Reiner's 1992 film and Aaron Sorkin's 1989 play: the cast from Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson and Demi Moore down to the bit parts that launched Noah Wyle and Joshua Malina, the plot from Santiago's death to the verdict, the real 1986 Guantanamo hazing that inspired it, Sorkin's cocktail-napkin drafts, the Broadway and West End productions, the Oscar nominations and the box office. Easy questions ask who directed it and where the story is set; the hard ones want the musical Sorkin was bartending during, the university whose cadets performed the opening drill, and the real Marine found murdered in 1994. Good for movie-night arguments and anyone who has watched the cross-examination scene more times than they will admit. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the film, the play and the people involved, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed the 1992 film A Few Good Men?
Rob Reiner
Rob Reiner spent eight months reworking the play into a screenplay with Aaron Sorkin before shooting began, and produced the film as well as directing it.
Q 02In A Few Good Men, what happens to Colonel Jessep moments after his outburst on the witness stand?
He is arrested
He is arrested in the courtroom: goaded by Kaffee, Jessep admits giving the order himself, and military police take him into custody as he lunges at the young lawyer.
Q 03Who plays defense lawyer Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee in A Few Good Men?
Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise was paid a reported $12.5 million, the biggest of the star fees that turned a courtroom drama with few sets into a film costing about $40 million.
Q 04Who plays Colonel Nathan Jessep, the base commander at the center of A Few Good Men?
Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson worked only about ten days on the film for a $5 million fee, roughly $500,000 a day, and still earned an Oscar nomination for it.
Q 05Which actress plays Lieutenant Commander Joanne Galloway in A Few Good Men?
Demi Moore
Demi Moore's Galloway is the first to suspect the two Marines were following orders, and the one who pushes a reluctant Kaffee to call Jessep as a witness.
Q 06Who plays the prosecutor, Marine Captain Jack Ross, in A Few Good Men?
Kevin Bacon
Kevin Bacon's prosecutor agrees a plea deal with Kaffee early on, and the trial happens only because the two defendants refuse to take it.
Q 07Who plays Lieutenant Kendrick, Santiago's hard-line platoon commander in A Few Good Men?
Kiefer Sutherland
Kiefer Sutherland's Kendrick tells the platoon in public not to touch Santiago; the defendants say he then privately ordered them to punish him.
Q 08Which actor and impressionist plays Kaffee's co-counsel Sam Weinberg in A Few Good Men?
Kevin Pollak
Kevin Pollak landed the part only because the director's first choice became unavailable when his TV series was unexpectedly renewed.
Q 09Which Seinfeld actor was first offered the part of Weinberg in A Few Good Men but proved unavailable?
Jason Alexander
Jason Alexander had the offer, but Seinfeld won a second-season renewal that few expected, and a San Francisco stand-up took over the role.
Q 10Who plays Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Markinson, the officer who secretly meets Kaffee, in A Few Good Men?
J. T. Walsh
J. T. Walsh's Markinson is the base's second-in-command and the one officer who argued that Santiago should simply be transferred.
Q 11At which military base does Private Santiago die in A Few Good Men?
Guantanamo Bay
Guantanamo Bay is where, in the story, a Marine fires an illegal shot across the fence line into Cuba; Santiago's offer to name him gives the prosecution its motive.
Q 12In A Few Good Men, what term do the defendants use for the unofficial punishment they were ordered to inflict?
Code red
Code red, as the defendants explain it, is discipline handed out by a Marine's own platoon mates; the term came from the real 1986 hazing case that inspired the story.
Q 13What does Kaffee realize about Santiago's wall locker that exposes the transfer story as a lie?
His clothes were never packed
Q 21Which veteran screenwriter's uncredited rewrite of A Few Good Men did Sorkin like so much he added it to the stage play?
William Goldman
William Goldman, the Oscar-winning writer of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, was paid a reported $300,000 to advise the first-time screenwriter, and went on to become his mentor.
Q 22What piece of 'smoking gun' evidence in the stage version of A Few Good Men was dropped for the film?
A forged logbook
A forged logbook proved the cover-up on stage; without it, the film's case has to be won by provoking Jessep into confessing on the witness stand.
Q 23Which production company, co-founded by the film's director in 1987, made A Few Good Men?
His clothes were never packed, though Jessep swore Santiago was booked on a dawn flight home; the thought strikes Kaffee as he stares into his own closet.
Q 14Of what are the two defendants in A Few Good Men ultimately convicted?
Conduct unbecoming
Conduct unbecoming a Marine: cleared of murder, the pair are still dishonorably discharged, and only Dawson grasps why, saying they should have fought for Santiago.
Q 15A Few Good Men takes its title from what?
A Marine recruiting slogan
A Marine recruiting slogan, 'looking for a few good men' ran on posters and in TV ads, but the wording is traced to an eighteenth-century notice seeking crew for the ship Providence.
Q 16Aaron Sorkin's sister Deborah inspired A Few Good Men while working as what?
Navy lawyer
A Navy lawyer, she phoned to say she was off to defend Marines accused of nearly killing a comrade on a superior's order, and her brother saw a play in it.
Q 17Aaron Sorkin drafted much of A Few Good Men on napkins while doing what job?
Bartending at a Broadway theatre
Bartending at a Broadway theatre left him idle during the first act, so he wrote scenes on napkins from the bar and typed them up at home each night.
Q 18How does Lance Corporal Dawson part from Kaffee at the end of A Few Good Men?
He salutes him
He salutes him: Dawson has been openly contemptuous of his lawyer throughout, and the salute comes only after Kaffee tells him he needs no patch on his arm to have honor.
Q 19Aaron Sorkin typed his A Few Good Men napkin notes into which early computer?
Macintosh
A Macintosh 512K, to be exact: he and his roommates pooled their money to buy it, and each night he emptied his pockets of napkins and typed up the day's scenes.
Q 20Which producer of Jaws bought the film rights to A Few Good Men before the play had even opened?
David Brown
David Brown read about Sorkin in The New York Times and, because the writer wanted a stage run first, helped raise the money to put the play on Broadway before filming it.
Castle Rock Entertainment
Castle Rock Entertainment also made Seinfeld, so it was the company's own sitcom renewal that cost the film its first choice for one supporting role.
Q 24Which This Is Spinal Tap star plays the base doctor, Commander Stone, in A Few Good Men?
Christopher Guest
Christopher Guest's Dr. Stone at first could not determine the cause of death, then declared it poison two hours later, a change of mind the defense attacks.
Q 25John M. Jackson, who plays Captain West in A Few Good Men, later spent eight years as Admiral Chegwidden on which series?
JAG
JAG: from the captain who passes Galloway over for the case, Jackson rose on television to Judge Advocate General, head of the very corps the film's lawyers serve in.
Q 26In which city is the court-martial in A Few Good Men held?
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.: the two Marines are flown up from their base to stand trial in the capital, and filming itself began there, at the Arlington Memorial Bridge.
Q 27In A Few Good Men, what had Private Santiago done to anger the officers above him?
He broke the chain of command
He broke the chain of command by writing off the base to ask for a transfer; the second-in-command wanted to grant it, but Jessep ordered him 'trained' instead.
Q 28The actor who plays Jessep complained that A Few Good Men was moved to clash with which of his other 1992 films?
Hoffa
Hoffa was due out the same month, and he protested that his contracts normally barred a studio from setting two of his films against each other.
Q 29Which film beat A Few Good Men to the Best Picture Oscar that year?
Unforgiven
Unforgiven took Best Picture and three more Oscars that night, even though A Few Good Men had been much the bigger hit at the box office.
Q 30Wolfgang Bodison, who plays Lance Corporal Dawson in A Few Good Men, held what job on the production before he was cast?
Location scout
Location scout Bodison had never acted in a film; when the director struggled to cast Dawson, he asked his own crew member to screen-test and gave him the part.