Brokeback Mountain Trivia
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69 free Brokeback Mountain trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Who was supposed to play Ennis and Jack before Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, why was it filmed in Alberta instead of Wyoming, and what did the buyer of the two shirts compare them to? This Brokeback Mountain trivia quiz has 69 free questions with answers covering the 2005 film and Annie Proulx's 1997 short story: casting and production, the plot from the summer of 1963 to the closet scene, Gustavo Santaolalla's score, the Venice, Golden Globe, BAFTA and Oscar runs, the Crash upset, the censorship fights abroad, and the opera and West End play that followed. The early questions are the ones anyone who has seen the film once will get. Later ones dig into the working titles, the New Yorker publication, the eBay auction, the Alberta locations, the takes count on the tent scene and the actors who turned the roles down. It works for a movie night, a film-club round or a pub quiz picture round with a Western theme. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the film, the story, the soundtrack, the cast and the 78th Academy Awards, and each question links to the page and sentence that supports it.
30 of 69 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed Brokeback Mountain?
Ang Lee
Ang Lee directed Brokeback Mountain, his first film after considering retirement in 2003 following two exhausting productions; he shot it in Canada in summer 2004.
Q 02The film is adapted from a 1997 short story by which author?
Annie Proulx
Annie Proulx wrote the story; she had won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Shipping News and later wrote the libretto for the Brokeback opera herself.
Q 03In which magazine was the short story first published, in October 1997?
The New Yorker
The New Yorker published the story in October 1997; it won the 1998 National Magazine Award for Fiction, and the short italic prologue left out of the magazine text was restored in the book.
Q 04The story was later collected in which 1999 Pulitzer-finalist book?
Close Range: Wyoming Stories
Close Range: Wyoming Stories collected it in 1999 in a slightly expanded text and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist; Bad Dirt and Fine Just the Way It Is are the later volumes in the series.
Q 05Which actor plays Ennis Del Mar, the more closed-off of the two men?
Heath Ledger
Heath Ledger plays Ennis Del Mar; he pursued the part from the start, finding the guarded, fearful Ennis more complex than Jack, and earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for it.
Q 06Who plays Jack's wife Lureen, the rodeo rider turned businesswoman?
Anne Hathaway
Anne Hathaway plays Lureen, the Texas rodeo rider who takes over her father's farm-equipment business; she auditioned in a ball gown and hairpiece during a lunch break from another film.
Q 07Who plays Ennis's wife Alma?
Michelle Williams
She was one of the first to audition and earned her first Oscar nomination; she and Ledger became a couple and had a daughter, Matilda.
Q 08In what year does the story open, with the two men hired for a summer on the mountain?
1963
The story opens in 1963, when nineteen-year-old Ennis and Jack take a summer job on Brokeback Mountain; Ennis marries Alma that winter after the season ends.
Q 09What animals are Ennis and Jack hired to herd on the mountain?
Sheep
Sheep are what they herd on a summer grazing allotment above the tree line; Ennis and Jack share the work, one tending camp and one sleeping up with the flock.
Q 10What is the name of the rancher who hires the pair and later spies on them with binoculars?
Joe Aguirre
Joe Aguirre hires them for the summer and watches the pair through binoculars; he refuses to rehire Jack the following year, remarking that they had found a way to make the time pass.
Q 11What are the names of Ennis's two daughters?
Alma Jr. and Jenny
Alma Jr. and Jenny are Ennis's daughters with Alma; the grown Alma Jr. visits her father's trailer in the final scene to announce her engagement to an oil-field worker named Kurt.
Q 12Where does an upset Jack go to seek solace with male prostitutes after Ennis refuses to move?
Mexico
Jack drives down to Mexico and picks up a male prostitute in a border-town alley; the scene follows Ennis's divorce, which Jack had hoped would finally let them live together.
Q 13What does Monroe, whom Alma marries after divorcing Ennis, manage?
A grocery store
Q 21Which novel won one of the film's screenwriters the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction?
Lonesome Dove
Lonesome Dove, the 1985 cattle-drive epic, won its author the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; all four titles became major screen adaptations, and he ran a vast bookstore in Archer City, Texas.
Q 22Which Argentine musician composed the score?
Gustavo Santaolalla
Gustavo Santaolalla composed the score before filming began, working from the story and a single conversation with the director, and played the spare guitar parts himself.
Q 23The composer won the Best Original Score Oscar again the very next year for which film?
Babel
A grocery store is what Monroe manages; Alma works its checkout, and it is at his Thanksgiving table that she finally confronts Ennis about Jack.
Q 14In which Wyoming town do Ennis and Alma make their home after marrying?
Riverton
Riverton is where Ennis and Alma settle and raise their girls, and where Jack drives to find Ennis four years after the summer on the mountain.
Q 15According to Lureen, how did Jack die?
A tire exploded in his face
A tire exploded in his face, Lureen says, while Jack was changing it on a back road and the rim knocked him out; as she talks Ennis pictures men beating Jack to death.
Q 16What does Jack's father insist on doing with his ashes?
To bury them in the family plot
To bury them in the family plot is what John Twist insists on, refusing Jack's wish for the mountain; Jack's mother then quietly lets Ennis take the two shirts from Jack's old room.
Q 17What are Ennis's last words in the film, spoken to the shirts and postcard in his closet?
"Jack, I swear..."
"Jack, I swear..." is what Ennis says to the shirts and the postcard of the mountain inside his closet door, then closes it as the film ends.
Q 18Which Roger Miller hit does Jack sing along with on the radio while driving to see Ennis?
King of the Road
King of the Road is the song Jack belts along to in his truck; the soundtrack album swaps Miller's original for a cover by Teddy Thompson and Rufus Wainwright.
Q 19Which Willie Nelson recording plays over the end credits?
He Was a Friend of Mine
He Was a Friend of Mine, a traditional folk song in Willie Nelson's recording, plays over the end credits; earlier versions include Bob Dylan's and The Byrds'.
Q 20Which pair wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay?
Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana
Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana wrote the screenplay; Ossana found the story days after it ran in the magazine, persuaded her writing partner it was a masterpiece, and they finished a script by early 1998.
Babel, Alejandro González Iñárritu's 2006 film, earned him a second consecutive Best Original Score Oscar in 2007; he later scored The Last of Us games and their HBO adaptation.
Q 24Which song from the film, sung by Emmylou Harris, won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song?
A Love That Will Never Grow Old
A Love That Will Never Grow Old, with lyrics by Bernie Taupin and music by the film's composer, won the Golden Globe but was ruled ineligible for the Oscar because it played too briefly in the film.
Q 25The film premiered at which festival, where it won the Golden Lion?
Venice
Venice gave the film its world premiere in September 2005 and its top prize, the Golden Lion; the director won the same award two years later for Lust, Caution.
Q 26Brokeback Mountain famously lost the Best Picture Oscar to which film?
Crash
Crash took Best Picture in the night's biggest upset; Roger Ebert defended the choice, fans raised $26,000 for a Daily Variety thank-you ad, and a 2015 Hollywood Reporter revote of Academy members gave it to Brokeback.
Q 27How many Oscar nominations did the film receive, the most of any film that year?
Eight
Eight nominations made Brokeback the most-nominated film at the 78th Academy Awards; three other films tied for second place with six each.
Q 28Which actress plays Cassie, the waitress Ennis dates after his divorce?
Linda Cardellini
Linda Cardellini plays Cassie Cartwright, the waitress Ennis dates after his divorce and then lets drift away; she later asks him, hurt, what she did wrong.
Q 29The film's Best Director Oscar was a milestone for the Academy in what way?
First non-white winner
First non-white winner is the milestone: the film's director became the first Asian and first person of colour to take Best Director; he won it again for Life of Pi in 2013.
Q 30Who hosted the 78th Academy Awards ceremony in March 2006?
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart hosted for the first time, the night Brokeback lost Best Picture; reviews were mixed, and the 38.9 million viewers were down about 8 percent on the previous year.