70 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 70 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 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed Brokeback Mountain?
Ang Lee
He had considered retirement in 2003 after two exhausting productions; the script tempted him back and won him his first Best Director Oscar.
Q 02The film is adapted from a 1997 short story by which author?
Annie Proulx
She won the Pulitzer 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
It won the National Magazine Award for Fiction in 1998; the two-paragraph prologue was accidentally left out of the magazine version.
Q 04The story was later collected in which 1999 Pulitzer-finalist book?
Close Range: Wyoming Stories
The collection version is slightly expanded from the magazine text; the other two titles are Proulx's later Wyoming collections and her memoir.
Q 05Which actor plays Ennis Del Mar, the more closed-off of the two men?
Heath Ledger
He wanted Ennis from the start, finding the closed-off, homophobic character more complex than Jack, and learned Wyoming and Texas accents for it.
Q 06Who plays Jack's wife Lureen, the rodeo rider turned businesswoman?
Anne Hathaway
She auditioned in a ball gown and hairpiece on a lunch break from another film and took two months of riding lessons after being cast.
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 film follows them across two decades, ending in the early 1980s with Ennis alone in a trailer.
Q 09What animals are Ennis and Jack hired to herd on the mountain?
Sheep
The province's environmental department initially refused to let the crew bring the animals into the Rockies, then insisted they be trucked in and out every day under a biologist's eye.
Q 10What is the name of the rancher who hires the pair and later spies on them with binoculars?
Joe Aguirre
He refuses to rehire Jack the next summer because of what he saw through the glasses.
Q 11What are the names of Ennis's two daughters?
Alma Jr. and Jenny
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
The scene follows Alma and Ennis's 1975 divorce, which Jack had hoped would finally let them live together.
Q 13Alma remarries a man named Monroe. What does he manage?
A grocery store
Alma works there too; the Thanksgiving dinner at his house is where she finally confronts Ennis about Jack.
Q 21Co-writer Larry McMurtry won a Pulitzer Prize for which novel?
Lonesome Dove
All four became major screen adaptations; McMurtry also ran a bookstore in Archer City, Texas, stocking nearly half a million volumes.
Q 22Which Argentine musician composed the score?
Gustavo Santaolalla
He wrote the music before filming even began, working from the story and one conversation with the director, and played the guitar parts himself.
Q 23The composer won the Best Original Score Oscar again the very next year for which film?
Babel
He later scored The Last of Us games and its HBO adaptation, favouring the small Andean ronroco.
Q 14A postcard Ennis sends Jack comes back stamped with a single word. Which?
Deceased
Ennis then phones and gets Lureen, who tells him the official story of how Jack died.
Q 15According to Lureen, how did Jack die?
A tire exploded in his face
As she talks, Ennis pictures something else entirely: men beating Jack to death.
Q 16Jack wanted his ashes scattered on the mountain. What does his father decide instead?
To bury them in the family plot
Jack's mother quietly lets Ennis into the old bedroom, where he finds the two shirts, and lets him keep them.
Q 17What are Ennis's last words in the film, spoken to the shirts and postcard in his closet?
"Jack, I swear..."
The postcard tacked to the closet door shows the mountain; Alma Jr.'s forgotten jacket goes into the closet with the shirts.
Q 18Which Roger Miller hit does Jack sing along with on the radio while driving to see Ennis?
King of the Road
The soundtrack album swaps Miller's original for a version by Teddy Thompson and Rufus Wainwright.
Q 19Which Willie Nelson recording plays over the end credits?
He Was a Friend of Mine
Jack plays a harmonica riff of the same tune twice on the mountain; Rufus Wainwright's "The Maker Makes" follows it in the credits.
Q 20Which pair wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay?
Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana
Ossana found the story days after it ran in the magazine, convinced her writing partner it was a masterpiece, and they finished a script by early 1998.
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
It plays as Jack drives south toward the Mexican border; Bernie Taupin co-wrote lyrics for the film's new songs.
Q 25The film premiered at which festival, where it won the Golden Lion?
Venice
The director would win the same prize again two years later for Lust, Caution.
Q 26Brokeback Mountain famously lost the Best Picture Oscar to which film?
Crash
Roger Ebert defended the choice; supporters raised $26,000 for a Daily Variety ad, and in a 2015 Hollywood Reporter revote of Academy members Brokeback won.
Q 27How many Oscar nominations did the film receive, the most of any film that year?
Eight
Three other films tied for second place with six nominations each.
Q 28Which three Oscars did the film win?
Director, Adapted Screenplay, Original Score
Ledger, Gyllenhaal and Williams were all nominated for acting but went home empty-handed.
Q 29The film's Best Director Oscar was a milestone for the Academy in what way?
First non-white winner
He repeated the feat for Life of Pi in 2013 and is one of only four filmmakers to win the Golden Lion twice.
Q 30Who hosted the 78th Academy Awards ceremony in March 2006?
Jon Stewart
It was his first time hosting; reviews were rough, and the telecast's 38.9 million viewers were down 8 percent on the year before.