Action Movie Trivia
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This action movie trivia quiz has 166 free questions with answers and runs from the 1980s golden age (Die Hard, First Blood, Commando, Predator, RoboCop, Lethal Weapon, Escape from New York, Enter the Dragon and Police Story) through the 1990s blockbusters (T2, Speed, Point Break, The Rock, Face/Off, Con Air, Heat, The Fugitive, Independence Day, Air Force One, Cliffhanger, The Matrix) to the modern era of John Wick, Fury Road, Ghost Protocol, Taken, The Raid, Casino Royale, Skyfall, Gladiator, 300 and Kill Bill. The easy questions ask which pill Neo takes, what speed the bus can't drop below and why John Wick comes out of retirement. The medium ones cover directors, novels and the real stunts behind the scenes. The hard ones want the original casting of the Predator, the price of the costliest aerial stunt ever performed, the number of people Rambo actually kills in First Blood and which Bond film had a Texas hold 'em game in Montenegro. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
30 of 166 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which 1979 Roderick Thorp novel was adapted into Die Hard (1988)?
Nothing Lasts Forever
Nothing Lasts Forever is Thorp's 1979 sequel to The Detective, which had been filmed with Frank Sinatra; Die Hard 2 was adapted from Walter Wager's novel 58 Minutes.
Q 02Which stage actor made his feature-film debut as Die Hard's villain Hans Gruber?
Alan Rickman
Alan Rickman, then 41 and known for the RSC's Les Liaisons Dangereuses, made his first feature film as Hans Gruber; he later played Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series.
Q 03In Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), who plays the shape-shifting, liquid-metal T-1000?
Robert Patrick
Robert Patrick plays the T-1000; at roughly $100 million, Terminator 2 was the most expensive film made to that point and won four Oscars, including visual effects and makeup.
Q 04Which martial-arts star was originally cast as the creature in Predator (1987)?
Jean-Claude Van Damme
Jean-Claude Van Damme was first cast as an agile, ninja-like creature; that suit proved unworkable, and Kevin Peter Hall, fresh from Harry and the Hendersons, took over.
Q 05In First Blood (1982), how does Deputy Galt, the film's only fatality, die?
Falls from a helicopter
Galt falls from a helicopter after Rambo throws a rock that cracks its windshield; it is the only death in First Blood, unlike David Morrell's far bloodier novel.
Q 06In Speed (1994), the bus is rigged to explode if its speed drops below what?
50 mph
The bomb arms above 50 mph and detonates if the bus drops below 50 mph; Dennis Hopper plays the bomber, and the film won two Oscars, for sound and sound effects editing.
Q 07In Point Break (1991), the bank-robbing surfers wear rubber masks of what?
Ex-presidents
The ex-presidents masks are Reagan, Carter, Nixon and LBJ; Patrick Swayze's Bodhi leads the gang and Keanu Reeves plays FBI agent Johnny Utah.
Q 08In The Rock (1996), Connery and Cage break into which former prison to stop rogue Marines with VX gas?
Alcatraz
The prison is Alcatraz; Connery's John Mason is the only man to have escaped the island, which is why the FBI needs him, and Ed Harris's General Hummel leads the rogue Marines.
Q 09Who directed Face/Off (1997), in which an FBI agent and a terrorist swap faces?
John Woo
John Woo directed Face/Off, his biggest Hollywood hit, bringing his Hong Kong trademarks of doves and two-gun shootouts to a $245 million worldwide gross.
Q 10In Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), Tom Cruise scales the outside of which building?
Burj Khalifa
The building is Dubai's Burj Khalifa; Cruise did the climb himself, attached by cables that ILM erased digitally, and the sequence was shot with IMAX cameras.
Q 11Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) was shot mainly in which country's desert?
Namibia
Namibia's Namib desert stood in for the wasteland after unusual rain had greened the Australian outback, so George Miller moved the production; Charlize Theron played Furiosa.
Q 12How many Academy Awards did Mad Max: Fury Road win?
Six
Editing, production design, costume, makeup, sound editing and sound mixing; Charlize Theron's Furiosa was the breakout.
Q 13What is the name of the beagle puppy whose killing brings John Wick out of retirement in the 2014 film?
Daisy
Daisy was a final gift from Wick's late wife Helen; her killing by the mobster's son Iosef sets off the 2014 film's rampage.
Q 21Heat (1995) was promoted around the first on-screen scenes together of which two actors?
Al Pacino and Robert De Niro
Al Pacino and Robert De Niro were both in The Godfather Part II but never shared a frame; Michael Mann shot their diner scene with minimal rehearsal.
Q 22Enter the Dragon premiered in Hong Kong on 26 July 1973, how long after Bruce Lee's death?
Six days
Lee died on 20 July 1973, aged 32, six days before the Hong Kong premiere; the film was added to the US National Film Registry in 2004.
Q 23In Taken (2008), Liam Neeson's ex-CIA officer Bryan Mills hunts kidnappers in which city?
Paris
Q 14The Matrix (1999) popularised which slow-motion visual effect?
Bullet time
Bullet time makes the camera appear to sweep at normal speed through a frozen scene; The Matrix won four Oscars, including visual effects and editing.
Q 15Which colour of pill does Neo take from Morpheus in The Matrix (1999)?
Red
Red uncovers the truth, blue returns him to his ordinary life; the Wachowskis wrote and directed.
Q 16George Lucas named Indiana Jones after what?
His Alaskan Malamute dog
The character was originally 'Indiana Smith'; Tom Selleck was the first choice but CBS would not release him from Magnum, P.I.
Q 17Which TV star was first choice for Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark but was tied to his series contract?
Tom Selleck
Tom Selleck lost the part when CBS refused to release him from Magnum, P.I.; the 1981 writers' strike then delayed the show, so he could have done both after all.
Q 18The Bourne Identity (2002) opens with Jason Bourne being pulled from which sea by fishermen?
The Mediterranean
Fishermen haul him from the Mediterranean with two bullets in his back and no memory; Robert Ludlum's 1980 novel and Doug Liman's film introduced the CIA's Treadstone programme.
Q 19RoboCop (1987) is set in a crime-ridden near-future version of which city?
Detroit
Paul Verhoeven's satire is set in a near-future Detroit, where Peter Weller's cyborg cop battles the megacorporation OCP and its malfunctioning ED-209 robot.
Q 20In Aliens (1986), how long has Ripley been drifting in stasis when she is found?
57 years
Ripley has drifted for 57 years when a salvage crew finds her; James Cameron wrote and directed, and Sigourney Weaver earned a rare science-fiction Best Actress nomination.
Luc Besson co-wrote it and Pierre Morel directed; the phone speech to the kidnappers became an internet meme.
Q 24In Casino Royale (2006), what game does Bond play against Le Chiffre?
Texas hold 'em
The film switched Fleming's baccarat to Texas hold 'em to ride the 2000s poker boom; the game at the Casino Royale in Montenegro carries a $10 million buy-in.
Q 25Which actor died of a heart attack during the making of Gladiator (2000)?
Oliver Reed
Oliver Reed, playing the trainer Proximo, died in Malta during the shoot; his remaining scenes used a body double and digital effects. The film won Best Picture and Best Actor.
Q 26Who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing US Marshal Samuel Gerard in The Fugitive (1993)?
Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones's marshal chases Ford's Dr. Kimble, who jumps from a dam spillway to escape him; the film, based on the 1960s TV series, was nominated for Best Picture.
Q 27Top Gun (1986), the year's highest-grossing film worldwide, won an Academy Award for which song?
Take My Breath Away
Take My Breath Away, Berlin's ballad written by Giorgio Moroder and Tom Whitlock, won both the Oscar and the Golden Globe for Best Original Song.
Q 28Who wrote Lethal Weapon (1987)?
Shane Black
Shane Black wrote Lethal Weapon in his early twenties, launching a career that later made him Hollywood's highest-paid screenwriter; Mel Gibson and Danny Glover starred as Riggs and Murtaugh.
Q 29In Independence Day (1996), how do the humans finally defeat the alien mothership?
A computer virus
Jeff Goldblum's David Levinson uploads a computer virus from a refurbished alien fighter to drop the shields; the film was 1996's highest grosser and won the visual-effects Oscar.
Q 30In John Carpenter's Escape from New York (1981), Manhattan has become what?
A maximum-security prison
Set in the far-off year of 1997, it gives Kurt Russell's Snake Plissken 24 hours to rescue the President.