Boardwalk Empire Trivia
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131 free Boardwalk Empire trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Boardwalk Empire trivia quiz covers all five seasons of HBO's Prohibition-era drama, from the $18 million Martin Scorsese pilot in January 1920 to Nucky Thompson's final walk on the boardwalk in 1931. The easy questions are the ones any viewer will know: who plays Nucky, which city the show is set in, what Richard Harrow wears over his face and which Chicago gangster starts out as Johnny Torrio's driver. From there it digs into the season-by-season plot: the D'Alessio brothers, the Commodore's stroke, Emily's polio, the Irish whiskey deal, Gyp Rosetti's blockade at Tabor Heights, the Onyx Club, Agent Knox's real name, the Cuba rum scheme and the flashbacks to 1884 and 1897. There are production questions too, on the 300-foot boardwalk built in Brooklyn, the Brian Jonestown Massacre theme, the Grammy-winning soundtrack, the Emmys, and the real Enoch "Nucky" Johnson, the Atlantic City boss who inspired the character. Fans of period crime dramas may also like our Sopranos and Peaky Blinders quizzes. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for the series, its seasons, its characters and its historical figures before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question.
30 of 131 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actor plays Nucky Thompson in Boardwalk Empire?
Steve Buscemi
Steve Buscemi plays Nucky Thompson; he had already worked with the show's creator on The Sopranos, where he played Tony Blundetto and directed several episodes.
Q 02Where is Boardwalk Empire chiefly set?
Atlantic City, New Jersey
Boardwalk Empire is set in Prohibition-era Atlantic City, New Jersey; its boardwalk set was actually built on an empty lot in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
Q 03Who created Boardwalk Empire?
Terence Winter
He had spent 2000 to 2007 writing for another HBO mob drama before creating this one.
Q 04Which famous film director directed the pilot episode of Boardwalk Empire?
Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese directed the pilot, his first television episode since Amazing Stories' 'Mirror, Mirror' in 1986, and stayed on as an executive producer without directing again.
Q 05How many seasons of Boardwalk Empire were made?
5
The run totalled 56 episodes between September 2010 and October 2014.
Q 06How many episodes of Boardwalk Empire aired in total?
56
Boardwalk Empire aired 56 episodes: 12 in each of seasons one through four, plus a shortened eight-episode fifth season.
Q 07What is Nucky Thompson's official job title in Atlantic County?
Treasurer
The real boss he is based on was county treasurer among many other posts.
Q 08On what real historical figure is Nucky Thompson loosely based?
Enoch L. Johnson
Nucky Thompson is based on Enoch L. 'Nucky' Johnson, who ran Atlantic City's Republican machine from around 1911 until his federal conviction in 1941.
Q 09Whose 2002 non-fiction book inspired the series?
Nelson Johnson
Nelson Johnson, an Atlantic County lawyer who later became a New Jersey Superior Court judge, wrote the 2002 history that Terence Winter adapted.
Q 10What is the subtitle of the book Boardwalk Empire that the show adapted?
The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City
The subtitle is The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City; Nelson Johnson's 2002 history reached the New York Times bestseller list after HBO's series premiered in 2010.
Q 11How much did the Boardwalk Empire pilot ultimately cost to make?
$18 million
The pilot cost about $18 million, one of the most expensive ever made; early reports had put it as high as $50 million, and the boardwalk set alone ran roughly $5 million.
Q 12What year does the first season of Boardwalk Empire take place in?
1920
Season one is set in 1920, opening on the eve of national Prohibition, which took effect on January 17, 1920, and running through that autumn.
Q 13Which band performs "Straight Up and Down", the show's opening theme?
The Brian Jonestown Massacre
The Brian Jonestown Massacre's 'Straight Up and Down', from the 1996 album Take It from the Man!, was chosen by Winter as a deliberately anachronistic opening theme.
Q 21Which English actor plays the young Al Capone?
Stephen Graham
Stephen Graham plays Al Capone, introduced as a Chicago driver and bodyguard and last seen in the finale facing federal charges over his bookkeeping.
Q 22Which actor plays Albert "Chalky" White?
Michael Kenneth Williams
Michael Kenneth Williams was already famous as Omar Little on The Wire.
Q 23What is the name of Nucky's loyal German butler?
Eddie Kessler
Nucky's valet is Eddie Kessler, modeled on Louis Kessel, the real Nucky Johnson's longtime bodyguard and valet.
Q 14In Boardwalk Empire, which actor plays Jimmy Darmody, Nucky's protégé who returns from World War I?
Michael Pitt
Michael Pitt was previously known for Murder by Numbers, The Dreamers and Dawson's Creek.
Q 15Which university did Jimmy Darmody leave to serve in the war?
Princeton
Jimmy Darmody left Princeton to enlist; season two's 'Under God's Power She Flourishes' flashes back to his student days there, when he met Angela and his mother Gillian visited.
Q 16Who plays Margaret Schroeder, the Irish immigrant who becomes Nucky's mistress and later wife?
Kelly Macdonald
Kelly Macdonald plays Margaret Schroeder; the Scottish actress, earlier seen in Trainspotting and No Country for Old Men, earned Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for the role.
Q 17Which actor plays Prohibition agent Nelson Van Alden?
Michael Shannon
Michael Shannon had just been Oscar-nominated for Revolutionary Road when he was cast.
Q 18What alias does Nelson Van Alden adopt while living as a fugitive in Chicago?
George Mueller
Under the name he sells irons door to door before becoming muscle for Dean O'Banion.
Q 19Who is Eli Thompson to Nucky?
His younger brother
Eli Thompson is Nucky's younger brother, installed as Atlantic County sheriff; he and his wife June raise a large family, including son Willie, who later works for Nucky.
Q 20Which real gangster does Michael Stuhlbarg portray?
Arnold Rothstein
Michael Stuhlbarg plays Arnold Rothstein, the New York gambler tied to the 1919 World Series fix, whose protégés on the show include Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky.
Q 24What does Richard Harrow wear to cover the war wound to his face?
A tin mask
Richard Harrow wears a painted tin mask over the left side of his face, molded to mirror his intact right side, like the masks sculptor Anna Coleman Ladd made for disfigured veterans.
Q 25Who plays the disfigured war veteran Richard Harrow?
Jack Huston
Jack Huston plays Richard Harrow; he is the grandson of director John Huston and nephew of Anjelica Huston.
Q 26What was Richard Harrow's role in the US Army during World War I?
Sharpshooter
Richard Harrow served as a sharpshooter, a skill he keeps using as a hitman; the war cost him his left eye, upper jaw and most of his left cheekbone.
Q 27In which state is Richard Harrow's home town of Plover, where his twin sister lives?
Wisconsin
Plover is in Wisconsin; Richard's twin sister Emma, played by Katherine Waterston, nursed him there after the war and later takes in his son Tommy.
Q 28Who plays Gillian Darmody, Jimmy's mother?
Gretchen Mol
Gretchen Mol plays Gillian Darmody, recurring in season one before joining the main cast for seasons two through five.
Q 29Which mentor of Nucky's, called the Commodore, is played by Dabney Coleman?
Louis Kaestner
Dabney Coleman plays Commodore Louis Kaestner, loosely based on the real Atlantic City boss who ran the Republican machine before Nucky Johnson took it over.
Q 30Owen Sleater, who has an affair with Margaret, is a volunteer for which organization?
The Irish Republican Army
Charlie Cox later played the character's near-opposite, Daredevil, for Marvel.