Birdman Movie Trivia
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48 free Birdman Movie trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Birdman trivia quiz covers Alejandro González Iñárritu's 2014 Best Picture winner, subtitled The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance. It follows Riggan Thomson through his Broadway adaptation of a Raymond Carver story: the light that falls on Ralph, Mike Shiner's gin and prop-gun complaints, the fire-escape lockout and the underwear walk through Times Square, the critic who promises to kill the play, the real gun in the final scene and the hospital window. Behind the scenes it covers the continuous-take idea everyone told Iñárritu not to try, the four writers working over Skype, the abandoned ending with Johnny Depp, the Batman jokes Keaton asked about, the actor originally cast as Mike, the proxy stage built at Sony, the St. James Theatre shoot, the Alexa cameras and 18mm lens, and Antonio Sánchez's all-drum score that the Academy ruled ineligible. It finishes with the 87th Academy Awards, where the film tied The Grand Budapest Hotel and won without an editing nomination. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Riggan Thomson is first seen in Birdman meditating in his underwear while showing which apparent superpower?
Levitation
Levitation. The director said the whole film grew from that one image of a man floating cross-legged in mid-air, and it never changed between first idea and final cut.
Q 02Birdman's star was Oscar-nominated for playing Riggan Thomson, but which actor beat him to Best Actor?
Eddie Redmayne
Eddie Redmayne. He won for playing Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, so Birdman took Best Picture without any of its three nominated actors winning.
Q 03What is Birdman's parenthetical subtitle?
The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance
The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance. The phrase turns up late in the film as the headline of a newspaper review, and the director said the subtitle was added to the title afterwards.
Q 04Which author's short story is Riggan adapting for Broadway in Birdman?
Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver. The director feared the author's widow, Tess Gallagher, would refuse the rights, but she loved the script and said Carver would be laughing about it.
Q 05Riggan last played Birdman in 1992, the same year Birdman's star made his second film as which superhero?
Batman
Batman. Batman Returns came out in 1992, and the director said he wanted Michael Keaton for Riggan partly because, like the character, he had worn a cape.
Q 06Who plays Mike Shiner, the volatile method actor, in Birdman?
Edward Norton
Edward Norton. He read the script in one sitting at 3 am, laughing so hard he woke people up, and asked to meet the director the very next day.
Q 07In Birdman, what injures the actor Ralph, opening up the role that Mike takes?
A falling stage light
A falling stage light. It knocks Ralph cold in mid-rehearsal, and Riggan, who thought him a terrible actor, tells his producer it was no accident: he made it happen.
Q 08Who plays Sam, Riggan's daughter and assistant, in Birdman?
Emma Stone
Emma Stone. As the recovering addict she flattens her father in one furious speech, telling him he doesn't matter, and the performance earned her an Oscar nomination.
Q 09Who plays Jake, Riggan's lawyer and producer, in Birdman?
Zach Galifianakis
Zach Galifianakis. The director called casting the comedian as the play's anxious straight man 'a bet', made on instinct because he found him so sensitive.
Q 10Why does Mike break character during the first preview in Birdman?
His gin has been replaced with water
His gin has been replaced with water. He hurls the glass at the wall and rants that he is supposed to be drunk, while a delighted audience films him on their phones.
Q 11In Birdman, what does Mike steal from Riggan in a newspaper interview, starting their backstage brawl?
His reason for doing the play
His reason for doing the play. Riggan had shown him the note that made him an actor, scribbled by the author on a cocktail napkin, and Mike tells the paper the story as his own.
Q 12In Birdman, how does Riggan end up crossing Times Square in his underwear?
A door locks shut on his robe
A door locks shut on his robe. He has slipped out for a cigarette during the final preview, so he abandons the robe, pushes through the crowds and re-enters through the audience.
Q 13Which British stage veteran plays the critic Tabitha Dickinson in Birdman?
Q 21Which star, then four films into his own blockbuster series, was to appear in Birdman's abandoned original ending?
Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp. He was to sit in Riggan's dressing room pulling on the same wig while a Pirates of the Caribbean poster spoke to him, a joke about endless sequels the director came to find embarrassing.
Q 22What did Michael Keaton first ask Iñárritu about the lead role in Birdman?
Whether he was making fun of him
Whether he was making fun of him. 'Not at all,' the director said over dinner, warning that the part would leave him naked in every sense, and Keaton signed on as they walked to their cars.
Q 23The director gave each Birdman actor a photo of which high-wire walker, telling them 'We are doing that'?
Lindsay Duncan
Lindsay Duncan. She took the part for the writing, which she called 'delicious', and admitted some sympathy for a critic who despises modern film culture.
Q 14In Birdman, what does Riggan confess to his ex-wife Sylvia on opening night?
He once tried to drown himself
He once tried to drown himself. He walked into the ocean the night she caught him cheating, and he tells her so with a strange calm, minutes before picking up a real gun.
Q 15In Birdman, what injury does Riggan suffer when he fires a real gun on stage?
He blows off his nose
He blows off his nose. The audience takes the shot for the play's climax and rises in a standing ovation, and he wakes in hospital with a surgically rebuilt nose.
Q 16In Birdman, how does the critic Tabitha respond to Riggan's play after he shoots himself on stage?
A glowing rave
A glowing rave. She takes his suicide attempt for technique and credits him with unwittingly inventing a new form of theatre, one in which real blood is spilled.
Q 17What does Sam do in Birdman's last shot, finding Riggan's hospital room empty?
Looks up at the sky and smiles
Looks up at the sky and smiles. She first scans the ground below the open window and finds nothing, and the film cuts to black on her smile without showing what she sees.
Q 18Why did Birdman's director want the film to look like one unbroken shot?
Life has no editing
Life has no editing. 'We live our lives with no editing,' he said, so he wanted the audience shut inside Riggan's desperate days with no cut to let them out.
Q 19What was cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki's first reaction to reading Birdman's script?
He did not want the job
He did not want the job. It was a studio-bound comedy in very long takes, three things he had hoped to avoid, and only more talks with the director changed his mind.
Q 20How did Birdman's four screenwriters mostly collaborate?
Over Skype calls and emails from three cities
Over Skype calls and emails from three cities. One of the four said the film's best moments came from 2 am Skype sessions in which two of them cracked each other up.
Philippe Petit
Philippe Petit. The photo showed him on the wire between the Twin Towers: with no cuts, the director warned, he could hide neither a weak performance nor his own mistakes.
Q 24Why did Josh Brolin lose his part in Birdman?
Scheduling conflicts
Scheduling conflicts. One of the film's financiers said that when they came aboard they switched out a couple of actors, and Brolin's Mike Shiner was one of them.
Q 25Which Broadway house plays itself in Birdman's stage scenes?
St. James Theatre
St. James Theatre. Its stage, lobby and exterior are the real thing, but the cramped backstage corridors and dressing rooms were a set built at a film studio in Queens.
Q 26Which Birdman plot point did several real reviewers call unbelievable?
A critic vowing to pan a play unseen
A critic vowing to pan a play unseen. The New Yorker's Anthony Lane wrote that critics, though often mean, are not mean in advance, and anyone who behaved like Tabitha would not last long in the job.
Q 27What lights most of Birdman's backstage scenes?
Lamps visible on set
Lamps visible on set. Low ceilings and tight walls left nowhere to hide film equipment, and the cinematographer found lighting the film harder than moving the camera through it.
Q 28How did Birdman's crew stop Times Square tourists staring at its star?
A band
A band. It struck up on cue on a busy Friday night, the tourists turned to watch, and the actor crossed among the film's own extras in just two takes.
Q 29Which mishap by the actress playing Sam ruined a six-minute take of Birdman?
Walking around a corner too quickly
Walking around a corner too quickly. Every move was timed to the camera, so the smallest slip scrapped a whole take, and some scenes needed about twenty of them.
Q 30Birdman was a first for director Alejandro González Iñárritu in which way?
His first comedy
His first comedy. After a run of bleak dramas, he said that turning 50 made him want to face his own troubles in another way than tragically.