Animals in Movies
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50 free Animals in Movies trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Some of cinema's biggest stars never read a script. Dogs, horses, cats, apes and even a mechanical shark have carried films, upstaged their human co-stars and, now and then, been paid more than them. This quiz covers animals on screen from the silent era to modern animation: loyal dogs and scene-stealing cats, cartoon sidekicks, creature thrillers, wildlife documentaries, and the true stories and real animal actors behind famous roles. It suits movie-night hosts, pub quiz writers and anyone who has ever cried at a film about a dog. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will leave with a few stories worth retelling.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In The Hangover, the tiger found in a Las Vegas hotel bathroom turns out to belong to which celebrity?
Mike Tyson
Mike Tyson plays himself, knocking Alan out cold and demanding his tiger back. Both the boxer and the big cat were late additions, written in when the director reworked the script.
Q 02The mechanical shark in Jaws was nicknamed what on set, after Steven Spielberg's lawyer?
Bruce
Bruce broke down so often in salt water that Spielberg chose mostly to suggest the shark rather than show it. The name came from his lawyer, Bruce Ramer.
Q 03Toto in The Wizard of Oz was played by a female dog named Terry, who was which breed?
Cairn Terrier
A Cairn Terrier called Terry played Toto for $125 a week, more than many of the film's human actors earned.
Q 04Michael Jackson's first solo US number one, Ben, was written for a film about a boy and which pet?
A rat
A rat named Ben befriends a lonely boy in the 1972 horror film, a sequel to the killer-rodent hit Willard. The tender ballad about him was nominated for an Oscar.
Q 05Keiko, the orca who starred in Free Willy, was later flown to which country to be returned to the sea?
Iceland
Iceland was where Keiko had been captured as a calf in 1979. In 2002 he became the first captive orca to be fully released back into the ocean.
Q 06In which crime film does a Hollywood producer wake to find his prize racehorse's severed head in his bed?
The Godfather
The Godfather used a real horse's head for the scene, supplied by a dog-food company. In the story the racehorse, Khartoum, was worth $600,000.
Q 07Lassie, a female character, was first played in the film Lassie Come Home by a male collie named what?
Pal
Pal took over after the female collie first hired was dropped, and six weeks of filming were reshot with him. Generations of his descendants have played the part since.
Q 08In the 1997 film Air Bud, a runaway golden retriever named Buddy shows a talent for which sport?
Basketball
Basketball was a real skill of the dog who played him, who had bounced balls into a hoop on David Letterman's talk show before Hollywood called.
Q 09The 1995 film Babe, about a pig who learns to herd sheep, was shot in which country?
Australia
Australia hosted the shoot, in the village of Robertson in New South Wales. The talking-pig tale went on to earn seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.
Q 10Future US president Ronald Reagan starred in the 1951 comedy Bedtime for Bonzo opposite which animal?
A chimpanzee
A chimpanzee named Bonzo is raised like a human child by Reagan's character, a psychology professor who hopes to settle the nature-versus-nurture question.
Q 11Indiana Jones, the archaeologist hero of Raiders of the Lost Ark, has a famous fear of which animals?
Snakes
Snakes arrived by the thousand for the Well of Souls scene, after handlers across London and Europe answered a call for more.
Q 12In The Lion King, what kind of animal is Timon, Pumbaa's fast-talking friend who helps raise Simba?
Meerkat
A meerkat in the wild travels on all fours and only stands up on its hind legs, whereas Timon strolls about upright for the whole film.
Q 13In the Harry Potter films, Harry's pet Hedwig, a birthday gift from Hagrid, is what kind of bird?
Snowy owl
A snowy owl made such an appealing pet on screen that the films raised fears of a boom in the illegal trade in the birds.
Q 21Which Disney film ends with a Texas boy having to shoot his beloved dog after it catches rabies?
Old Yeller
Old Yeller is bitten while fighting off a rabid wolf to protect the family, and young Travis insists on pulling the trigger himself because the dog is his.
Q 22Hachi: A Dog's Tale, starring Richard Gere, retells the true story of a loyal Japanese dog of which breed?
Akita
An Akita named Hachiko kept returning to a Tokyo railway station to wait for his owner for almost ten years after the man's death.
Q 23In Pixar's Finding Nemo, Dory, the friendly fish with short-term memory loss, belongs to which species?
Blue tang
Blue tang Dory, voiced by Ellen DeGeneres, proved so popular that she got a sequel of her own, Finding Dory, 13 years after the first film.
Q 14In the 1992 family comedy Beethoven, the enormous dog who wrecks the Newton household is which breed?
St. Bernard
A St. Bernard puppy gets the name Beethoven when he barks along as the family's daughter plays the Fifth Symphony on the piano.
Q 15Which actor played the tidy detective saddled with a slobbering dog in the comedy Turner & Hooch?
Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks later called the shoot one of his most demanding, because he had to act around whatever the dog did. Hooch was a Dogue de Bordeaux named Beasley.
Q 16Whose voice narrates the English-language release of the Antarctic documentary March of the Penguins?
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman's single narrator replaced the French original's approach, which told the story in the first person as if the penguins themselves were speaking.
Q 17Which director turned gulls and crows against a California seaside town in the thriller The Birds?
Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock did without a conventional musical score, commissioning an electronic soundtrack of bird noises to carry the menace instead.
Q 18In Disney's Zootopia, which animals staff the DMV, much to the frustration of Judy Hopps?
Sloths
Sloths run the Department of Mammal Vehicles, where a clerk named Flash is billed as the fastest worker in the building.
Q 19Alex the lion and Marty the zebra are star attractions at which zoo before being shipwrecked on Madagascar?
Central Park Zoo
Central Park Zoo loses its four stars after Marty's tenth-birthday bid for freedom ends with their crates falling off a ship at sea.
Q 20Which actor voices the sword-fighting cat Puss in Boots, who first appeared in Shrek 2?
Antonio Banderas
Antonio Banderas voices Puss in the English, Spanish and Italian versions alike, and has called the part an important one in his career.
Q 24Which comedian played the doctor who can talk to animals in the 1998 remake of Dr. Dolittle?
Eddie Murphy
Eddie Murphy shared the screen with a wisecracking guinea pig voiced by Chris Rock, and the film gave him the biggest opening weekend of his career to that point.
Q 25Ace Ventura: Pet Detective centres on the theft of Snowflake, an NFL team mascot of which species?
Dolphin
A dolphin named Snowflake vanishes from the Miami team's stadium shortly before the Super Bowl, and quarterback Dan Marino is kidnapped soon afterwards.
Q 26Which actor gave the motion-capture performance as the ape leader Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes?
Andy Serkis
Andy Serkis was the main performer, but the effects team also called on a smaller stand-in, Devyn Dalton, whose height matched a real ape's.
Q 27Clint Eastwood's trucker in Every Which Way but Loose lives with Clyde, who is what kind of animal?
An orangutan
An orangutan named Manis played Clyde, and Eastwood called his co-star one of the most natural actors he had ever worked with.
Q 28In Bringing Up Baby, the Baby that upends the life of Cary Grant's paleontologist is which animal?
A leopard
A leopard named Nissa played Baby, and her trainer stood just off screen with a whip for every one of her scenes.
Q 29Balto is loosely based on a 1925 sled-dog run carrying diphtheria serum to which Alaskan town?
Nome
Nome's port was icebound for the winter, so relays of dog teams carried the antitoxin across Alaska, with Balto leading the final stretch into town.
Q 30Which actress played the primatologist Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist, set largely in Rwanda?
Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver won a Golden Globe for the part, playing a scientist who takes on the poachers laying traps around her mountain research camp.