Box Office
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7correct to beat the crowd
50 free Box Office trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Ticket sales are the scoreboard of the film business. Every weekend the numbers decide which releases are hits, which are disasters, and which quietly keep selling seats for months. The tallies also make for great trivia, because the winners are not always the films people remember as the biggest. This quiz covers the milestones and the mishaps: the first releases to pass each billion-dollar mark, record-setting opening weekends, the yearly chart-toppers from Hollywood's studio era through the 2020s, animated and superhero champions, hits from Japan, China and India, and the expensive failures that sank the companies behind them. Most questions ask you to name the film, with a clue or two to reason from. It is written for film fans, pub quiz setters and anyone who likes settling arguments about which blockbuster earned more. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play straight through or print the questions for a group.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which film, the costliest ever made at the time, was the first to gross over $1 billion worldwide?
Titanic
Titanic passed the mark on March 1, 1998, during a run of 15 straight weeks at number one in North America. Critics had predicted the $200 million production would be a commercial failure.
Q 02Which 1939 film is the highest-grossing ever when box office totals are adjusted for inflation?
Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind earned about $390 million over decades of re-releases, a total Guinness World Records valued at $3.44 billion in 2014 money.
Q 03Which 1975 thriller, backed by heavy TV advertising, is regarded as the first summer blockbuster?
Jaws
Jaws opened on more than 450 screens at once, an unusually wide release for 1975, backed by $700,000 of national TV spots. Along with Star Wars, it set the summer-release model Hollywood has followed since.
Q 04Which 2002 romantic comedy took $241 million in North America without ever being number one?
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
My Big Fat Greek Wedding was an independent film made for $5 million. It stayed the highest-grossing film never to top the North American chart until the cartoon Sing in 2016.
Q 05Which independent film, shot in the woods for around $60,000, grossed nearly $250 million worldwide?
The Blair Witch Project
The Blair Witch Project was bought at the Sundance festival for $1.1 million and went on to gross $248.6 million. Its marketing listed the three actors as missing or deceased.
Q 06Hollywood's 'domestic' box office total combines the United States with which other country?
Canada
Canada and the United States are tracked together as a single market, which is why the trade press also calls a film's domestic total its North American box office.
Q 07Which 2023 release was the first directed solely by a woman to gross $1 billion at the box office?
Barbie
Barbie crossed $1 billion on August 6, 2023, and finished as the year's highest-grossing film with about $1.45 billion. It also replaced Little Women as director Greta Gerwig's biggest hit.
Q 08Which 3D science-fiction epic was the first release to take more than $2 billion at the box office?
Avatar
Avatar passed $2 billion on January 31, 2010, the same day it became the first film to earn $700 million in North America.
Q 09Which child star, later a US ambassador, was Hollywood's top box office draw in the mid-1930s?
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple outdrew every adult star in Hollywood until 1938, the year she turned ten. As an adult she served as US ambassador to Ghana and to Czechoslovakia.
Q 10Which 1990 Christmas comedy spent twelve straight weekends as North America's number-one film?
Home Alone
Home Alone led the chart from its opening in November 1990 until the first weekend of February 1991. It remained North America's top-grossing live-action comedy until 2023.
Q 11Which superhero film's $1.2 billion worldwide debut nearly doubled the previous opening record?
Avengers: Endgame
Avengers: Endgame opened to $1.2 billion worldwide in April 2019, including a record $357.1 million in North America. The previous best, $640 million, had been set a year earlier by its predecessor, Infinity War.
Q 12Which DC Comics sequel was the first superhero film to gross $1 billion, after a 2009 reissue?
The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight crossed $1 billion in February 2009 thanks to a reissue timed for the run-up to the Oscars. It was only the fourth film of any kind to reach that mark.
Q 13Which comic-book film, released in October 2019, became the first R-rated film to gross $1 billion?
Joker
Q 21Which 1980 Western made just $3.5 million in the US and led to the sale of United Artists?
Heaven's Gate
Heaven's Gate cost $44 million, and the bad publicity drove United Artists' owner Transamerica out of film production. Director Michael Cimino's first preview cut ran five hours and twenty-five minutes.
Q 22Which Geena Davis pirate adventure flopped so badly in 1995 that Carolco Pictures ceased operations?
Cutthroat Island
Cutthroat Island lost an estimated $147 million in inflation-adjusted terms. In April 2012 Guinness World Records listed it as the biggest box office bomb of all time.
Q 23Which Disney adventure set on Mars led the studio to take a $200 million writedown in 2012?
John Carter
Joker set box office records for an October release on its way to the milestone. It stayed the highest-grossing R-rated film until Deadpool & Wolverine overtook it in 2024.
Q 14Which Star Wars film was the first release to gross more than $900 million in North America?
The Force Awakens
The Force Awakens passed $900 million in North America on February 5, 2016, less than two months after it opened. It had been the first film to reach $800 million there only four weeks earlier.
Q 15Which 1993 film took the all-time worldwide box office record from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial?
Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park grossed more than $900 million on its first run and was the first film to take $500 million outside North America. A 2013 re-release later lifted it past $1 billion.
Q 16Which director's films were the year's top-grossing release five times between 1975 and 1993?
Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg led the yearly chart in 1975, 1981, 1982, 1989 and 1993. Cecil B. DeMille had also done it five times, between 1932 and 1956.
Q 17Which Julie Andrews musical became the highest-grossing film in history in 1966?
The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music took the record in November 1966, some twenty months after its premiere, and kept it for five years. It had opened as a limited roadshow release in March 1965.
Q 18Which 1972 crime drama was, for a time, the highest-grossing film ever made?
The Godfather
The Godfather earned between $250 and $291 million and was the top release of 1972. Paramount had picked Francis Ford Coppola partly because he would work for a low fee.
Q 19Which Walt Disney film, derided as a folly during production, briefly became the highest-grossing sound film ever made?
Snow White
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs earned more than $8 million on its first release against a cost of $1.5 million. Walt Disney's wife and his brother Roy had both tried to talk him out of making it.
Q 20Which epic was the highest-grossing film of 1963 yet nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox?
Cleopatra
Cleopatra cost an estimated $31 million, making it the most expensive film made up to that point. Fox had already posted an annual loss in 1961, blamed on the production's mounting costs.
John Carter grossed $284 million worldwide, yet Disney took the writedown within two weeks of its release. It grew out of a studio effort to adapt Edgar Rice Burroughs' works that began in the late 2000s.
Q 24Which 2002 superhero film was the first release to take $100 million in a single opening weekend?
Spider-Man
Spider-Man earned $114.8 million across its first three days in May 2002. Its budget had grown from a planned $70 million to around $100 million to pay for the web-swinging sequences.
Q 25Which Pixar sequel was the first animated film to gross $1 billion worldwide?
Toy Story 3
Toy Story 3 grossed $1.067 billion and was the highest-grossing film of 2010. It stayed the top-earning animated film until 2014.
Q 26Which hand-drawn Disney film took $763 million on its first run as 1994's top-grossing release?
The Lion King
The Lion King ended that first run as the second-highest-grossing film of all time. A photorealistic computer-animated remake later out-earned the original.
Q 27Which Disney musical passed $1 billion on its 101st day of release and was 2013's top-grossing film?
Frozen
Frozen ended its run as the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time. Co-director Jennifer Lee was the first woman to direct a Walt Disney Animation Studios feature.
Q 28Which DreamWorks animated film earned over $900 million to become the highest-grossing release of 2004?
Shrek 2
Shrek 2 took about $440 million of that in North America, where no animated film earned more until Finding Dory in 2016.
Q 29Which Tom Cruise film grossed over $546 million to finish as the highest-grossing release of 2000?
Mission: Impossible 2
Mission: Impossible 2 gave Paramount the biggest opening weekend the studio had ever had. It also beat the first film's record debut for a film based on a TV series.
Q 30Which animated sequel grossed $1.699 billion to become the highest-grossing film of 2024?
Inside Out 2
Inside Out 2 overtook Incredibles 2 on July 10, 2024, to become Pixar's highest-grossing film. It also became the biggest animated film ever released, a record it lost within a year.