Amitabh Bachchan Trivia
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50 free Amitabh Bachchan trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Amitabh Bachchan trivia for Bollywood fans, KBC viewers and anyone who has watched Sholay more times than they can count. The quiz starts before the fame: the poet father who chose the surname Bachchan, the boy nearly named Inquilaab, the All India Radio audition he failed, and the debut as a mere voice in Bhuvan Shome. Then it follows the career arc that Truffaut called a 'one-man industry': Salim-Javed insisting on him for Zanjeer, the angry young man years of Deewaar, Sholay, Don and Amar Akbar Anthony, six hits in a single year in 1978, the near-fatal Coolie accident that changed a film's ending, the myasthenia gravis diagnosis, the brief Lok Sabha seat, the ABCL collapse and the humble visit to Yash Chopra that led to Mohabbatein. Later rounds cover Kaun Banega Crorepati, Black, Paa, Piku, Pink, The Great Gatsby, Kalki 2898 AD, the four National Awards, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the Madame Tussauds first, and the Olympic torch in London. Questions run from easy to expert, and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. See also our Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan and Indian cinema quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actor played Veeru, the partner in crime of Bachchan's character in Sholay?
Dharmendra
Dharmendra. He was in love with Hema Malini, who played Veeru's sweetheart Basanti, during the shoot, and the two later married.
Q 02What was the profession of Amitabh's father, Harivansh Rai Bachchan?
Hindi poet
Hindi poet Harivansh Rai wrote as 'Bachchan'; asked for a surname when enrolling his son at school, he gave the pen name instead of his caste name, and the family kept it.
Q 03Born amid 1942's Quit India movement, Bachchan was nearly given which name?
Inquilaab
Inquilaab, after the freedom slogan 'Inquilab Zindabad' (long live the revolution); the writer Sumitranandan Pant suggested Amitabh instead.
Q 04Which reality show did Bachchan host for a single season in 2009?
Bigg Boss
Bigg Boss. He fronted only its third season; Salman Khan took over the next year and became the show's long-running host.
Q 05From which Delhi University institution did Bachchan graduate with a science degree in 1962?
Kirori Mal College
Kirori Mal College. Its drama teacher Frank Thakurdas, an English professor, urged him into the college plays; Bachchan later called him his mentor.
Q 06Which job did Bachchan famously fail to land in the late 1960s, before his film career began?
All India Radio newsreader
All India Radio newsreader. He failed the audition in Delhi, years before that deep baritone became the hallmark of his screen performances.
Q 07In which 1969 film did Bachchan make his on-screen acting debut?
Saat Hindustani
Saat Hindustani. He played one of a band out to free Goa from Portuguese rule, but audiences had already heard him that year as the narrator of Bhuvan Shome.
Q 08For which 1971 film opposite Rajesh Khanna did Bachchan win his first Filmfare Award?
Anand
Anand. On the morning it opened nobody knew him at a petrol pump; when he went back that evening, people recognised him.
Q 09Which duo insisted the struggling Bachchan be cast as the lead in Zanjeer?
Salim-Javed
Salim-Javed pushed for him after bigger names had passed on the unsmiling inspector; one veteran star had wanted the hero to sing a few songs.
Q 10Which star took over Bachchan's double role in the 2006 remake of Don?
Shah Rukh Khan
Shah Rukh Khan. Farhan Akhtar's remake kept the look-alike plot but changed the climax, and its success led to Don 2 in 2011.
Q 11Which actress did Bachchan marry in June 1973?
Jaya Bhaduri
Jaya Bhaduri. She had stepped in as his heroine in Zanjeer for his sake after Mumtaz dropped out, and the film made him a star.
Q 12What was the name of Bachchan's character in Sholay (1975)?
Jaidev
Jaidev, better known as Jai, tricks his partner into fleeing to safety and dies holding off the bandits alone.
Q 13Who directed Deewaar (1975), with Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor as brothers on opposite sides of the law?
Yash Chopra
Yash Chopra. Rajesh Khanna had been lined up for the smuggler brother before the part went to Bachchan.
Q 21How did Manmohan Desai respond to Bachchan's 1982 on-set accident?
He changed the ending so the character lived
He changed the ending so the character lived: the script had the hero shot dead, but after Bachchan's real brush with death Desai would not kill him on screen.
Q 22After his 1982 accident, Bachchan was diagnosed with which illness?
Myasthenia gravis
Myasthenia gravis. With the muscle-weakening disease keeping him at home, director Manmohan Desai came to visit and promised to seat him in a wheelchair and give him a silent role.
Q 23Which constituency did Bachchan win in the 1984 Lok Sabha election?
Allahabad
Q 14Which 1976 film cast Bachchan against type as a lovelorn poet?
Kabhi Kabhie
Kabhi Kabhie. Its title song was a Sahir Ludhianvi poem that composer Khayyam had first recorded in 1950, for a film that was never finished.
Q 15Which character in a 1977 film about three separated brothers won Bachchan his first Filmfare Best Actor Award?
Anthony Gonsalves
Anthony Gonsalves was named for a real Goan musician, the teacher of the film's co-composer Pyarelal, who wrote the hit song as a tribute.
Q 16In Don (1978), Bachchan played the gang leader and which look-alike?
Vijay
Vijay. Producer Nariman Irani made Don to clear his debts, but died after a studio wall fell on him, months before it reached cinemas.
Q 17Which of Bachchan's films topped the box office in 1978?
Muqaddar Ka Sikandar
Muqaddar Ka Sikandar. Filming a bar scene, Bachchan threw a glass that struck co-star Vinod Khanna on the chin; he took his friend to hospital for stitches and apologised to Khanna's wife.
Q 18In which 1979 film did Bachchan first use his own singing voice for a song?
Mr. Natwarlal
It earned him nominations for both Best Actor and Best Male Playback Singer.
Q 19Bachchan's 1981 Bengali debut Anusandhan was shot simultaneously in Hindi under what title?
Barsaat Ki Ek Raat
Barsaat Ki Ek Raat. In both versions Bachchan turns up in Darjeeling's tea country as a mysterious stranger, and only after taking on the local thug is he revealed as a police officer.
Q 20On the set of which film did Bachchan suffer a near-fatal injury on 26 July 1982?
Coolie
Coolie. A table corner ruptured his spleen in a fight scene with Puneet Issar, and the finished film freezes on that frame with a caption marking the moment.
Allahabad, his birthplace. The political novice beat Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna, a former chief minister of the state, then gave up the seat within three years.
Q 24Which scandal linked to brother Ajitabh prompted Amitabh Bachchan to quit parliament in 1987?
Bofors
Bofors. A newspaper tied his brother to the arms-deal payoffs; Ajitabh later won libel damages, and the Swedish police chief who led the inquiry cleared the family.
Q 25Bachchan won his first National Film Award for Best Actor for playing a Mafia don in which 1990 film?
Agneepath
Agneepath. The film lost money on release despite the award, and only later grew into a cult favourite.
Q 26Bachchan's company ABCL lost millions sponsoring which 1996 event in Bangalore?
The Miss World pageant
The Miss World pageant drew protests over a perceived culture clash, and when ABCL could not pay its dues afterwards the company slid into bankruptcy.
Q 27Which 2000 film, offered after Bachchan went to a director friend asking for work, relaunched his career?
Mohabbatein
Mohabbatein. Deep in debt, he told an old collaborator that nobody was giving him work; the stern headmaster he was handed won him a Filmfare Award.
Q 28Kaun Banega Crorepati moved to Sony in 2010; on which channel had Bachchan launched it in 2000?
Star Plus
Star Plus cut the show's second season short in 2006, when Bachchan fell ill with two dozen episodes still to film.
Q 29In Black (2005), Bachchan played an ageing teacher of a girl with which condition?
Deaf-blindness
Deaf-blindness. Late in the film the teacher develops Alzheimer's disease, and the pupil he once taught to communicate sets out to help him remember.
Q 30Sarkar (2005), in which Bachchan starred with son Abhishek, was an adaptation of which Hollywood film?
The Godfather
The Godfather. Director Ram Gopal Varma admits the debt in the opening credits, and moved the story to present-day Mumbai.