Classic Movies
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149 free Classic Movies trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free classic movies trivia questions with answers. From the golden age of Hollywood to the rise of the summer blockbuster, classic movies have shaped our culture, language, and imagination. This quiz spans decades of cinematic history — testing your knowledge on legendary directors like Hitchcock, Kubrick, and Spielberg, iconic performances from Bogart to Brando, unforgettable scenes, groundbreaking techniques, and the stories behind the stories. Whether you're a casual moviegoer or a devoted cinephile, these 149 questions will put your film knowledge to the test.
30 of 149 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed, co-wrote and starred in Citizen Kane (1941) at the age of 25?
Orson Welles
Orson Welles had never made a feature film, yet RKO gave him the right of final cut, a freedom almost unheard of for a newcomer, on the strength of his fame from the War of the Worlds radio broadcast.
Q 02In Casablanca (1942), what is the name of the nightclub owned by Humphrey Bogart's character?
Rick's Café Américain
Rick's Café Américain existed only as a studio set until 2004, when a former American diplomat opened a real Rick's Café in the Moroccan city, designed to recreate the one in the film.
Q 03Who directed Psycho (1960)?
Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock kept costs down by shooting Psycho with the crew of his television series, then insisted on an unusual rule for cinemas: no one was to be admitted once the film had started.
Q 04What is the dying word of newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane (1941)?
Rosebud
Rosebud sends a reporter hunting for its meaning, and he never finds it: only the audience sees the name on Kane's childhood sled as it is thrown into a furnace.
Q 05Which actor played Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather (1972)?
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando won Best Actor for the role and refused it: he stayed away from the ceremony and sent Sacheen Littlefeather to decline the Oscar in protest at Hollywood's treatment of Native Americans.
Q 06What color are Dorothy Gale's magical slippers in the 1939 MGM musical?
Ruby red
Ruby red was the film's own idea: in L. Frank Baum's novel Dorothy's magic shoes are silver, and the change is said to have been made so that they would stand out in colour photography.
Q 07Which 1975 film is credited with inventing the summer blockbuster?
Jaws
Jaws became the highest-grossing film up to that time, although its mechanical shark broke down so often that the director chose to suggest the creature rather than show it for most of the running time.
Q 08Who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars (1977)?
Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness told friends in letters that the script was 'fairy-tale rubbish', yet the part he doubted brought him an Oscar nomination.
Q 09Who played Scarlett O'Hara in the 1939 film of Margaret Mitchell's novel?
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh was a British outsider in a much-publicised search for the role: the producer first met her on the night the burning of Atlanta was filmed, and she was tested and signed within weeks.
Q 10Which classic film features the line 'Here's looking at you, kid'?
Casablanca
Casablanca's best-known line was not in the draft scripts: Humphrey Bogart is thought to have first said it to Ingrid Bergman off camera, during a poker game between takes.
Q 11In The Shawshank Redemption (1994), what does Andy Dufresne use to tunnel through his cell wall?
A rock hammer
A rock hammer so small that Red jokes it would take a man six hundred years to tunnel out with it; Andy does it in nineteen, hiding the hole behind the pin-up posters on his cell wall.
Q 12Who directed Schindler's List (1993)?
Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg doubted he was ready for the subject and for years tried to hand the film to other directors before deciding that he had to make it himself.
Q 13Which 1940 adaptation of a Daphne du Maurier novel was the 'Master of Suspense's' first American film?
Rebecca
Q 21Which 1950 film ends with Norma Desmond announcing that she is ready for her close-up?
Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard ends with the faded silent star believing that the newsreel cameras sent to cover her arrest are filming her comeback; Cecil B. DeMille, the director she addresses, plays himself in the film.
Q 22Which 1994 film won the Academy Award for Best Picture over The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction?
Forrest Gump
Forrest Gump took six Oscars that night, while The Shawshank Redemption won none of its seven nominations; it found its audience later, as the most rented video of 1995.
Q 23Which film was the top-grossing release of the 1990s and the first to pass $1 billion?
Titanic
Rebecca won Best Picture, the only one of its director's films ever to do so, yet he lost Best Director that night and never won that award in five nominations.
Q 14In The Godfather (1972), what does Hollywood producer Jack Woltz wake up to find in his bed?
The head of his prize racehorse
The head of his prize racehorse was real: the director disliked the studio's fake, so the crew obtained one from a company that was slaughtering horses for dog food.
Q 15The line 'You talkin' to me?' is spoken to a mirror by Travis Bickle in which 1976 film?
Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver's screenwriter has said the speech was improvised on set by the film's star, in a scene where the lonely Travis imagines a confrontation that lets him draw his gun.
Q 16Which actor won an Oscar for the title role in Ben-Hur (1959)?
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston got the part after Paul Newman flatly refused it: Newman had hated making an earlier costume epic, The Silver Chalice, and said he didn't have the legs for a tunic.
Q 17Who played the title character in Lawrence of Arabia (1962)?
Peter O'Toole
Peter O'Toole was little known when he won the part, after Albert Finney screen-tested for it and turned it down; it earned the first of his eight Best Actor nominations, none of which he won.
Q 18Which real-life newspaper tycoon banned any mention of Citizen Kane (1941) from his papers?
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was enraged by a film whose Charles Foster Kane was partly modelled on him, and Hollywood feared his revenge: studio boss Louis B. Mayer is reported to have tried to buy the negative and destroy it.
Q 19Which classic film features the chariot race as its most famous scene?
Ben-Hur
Ben-Hur's race lasts under ten minutes on screen, but its arena covered eighteen acres, the largest film set built up to that time, and some eighty horses were shipped to Italy from Yugoslavia and Sicily to run it.
Q 20Who directed 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)?
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick won the only Oscar of his career for this film, and it was not for directing: the award was for the special visual effects, which he had designed and supervised himself.
Titanic was the most expensive film made up to that time, a $200 million production that two studios had to share; it earned over $1.8 billion and stayed the top earner until the same director's Avatar.
Q 24Who played Norman Bates in the original Psycho (1960)?
Anthony Perkins
Anthony Perkins never left Norman Bates behind: he returned to the role in three sequels between 1983 and 1990, and directed the third film in the series himself.
Q 25In which 1954 film does Marlon Brando tell his brother 'I coulda been a contender'?
On the Waterfront
On the Waterfront has ex-boxer Terry Malloy say it to his brother Charley in the back of a cab, blaming him for making Terry throw the fight that could have made his name.
Q 26What was the first feature-length animated film made by Walt Disney?
Snow White
Snow White was known around Hollywood as 'Disney's Folly' while it was being made, because of its huge cost, and Walt Disney had to borrow heavily to finish it; it went on to break attendance records.
Q 27In Rear Window (1954), what is Jimmy Stewart's character's profession?
Photographer
Photographer L.B. Jefferies is stuck at home with a broken leg, so he watches his neighbours through a long lens; the whole film was shot on one vast courtyard set of 31 apartments built inside the studio.
Q 28Which classic film popularized the phrase 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn'?
Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind nearly lost the line: the Hays Office at first refused to certify the film with the word 'damn' in it, and gave way only weeks before the premiere after the producer argued it was no curse.
Q 29Who composed the menacing two-note theme of Jaws?
John Williams
John Williams first played the two notes on a piano for the director, who is said to have laughed, taking the idea for a joke; the finished score won an Academy Award.
Q 30Which computer answers 'I'm afraid I can't do that' when asked to open the pod bay doors in 2001: A Space Odyssey?
HAL 9000
HAL 9000 refuses because it has read the astronauts' lips while they talked in a sealed pod, and knows they plan to disconnect it.