Contact (1997 Movie)
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50 free Contact (1997 Movie) trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Contact asks a simple question and takes it seriously: what would really happen if a message from another civilisation arrived tomorrow? Adapted from Carl Sagan's only novel, the 1997 film follows astronomer Ellie Arroway from a lonely listening post to the centre of a worldwide argument about science, faith and who gets to speak for Earth. This quiz covers the whole story: the signal and what is hidden inside it, the building of the Machine, the rivals and allies around Ellie, and the ending that still divides viewers. It also goes behind the camera, with questions on the cast, the long road to the screen, the real observatories used as locations and the effects shots that film students still study. It is written for anyone who has seen the film and remembers the big moments, with a handful of harder questions for fans who know the novel and the production history. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will pick up a few new stories along the way.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Contact, which historical figure appears in the video hidden in the alien signal, from an early TV broadcast?
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler opening the 1936 Berlin Olympics is the image sent back: in the story it was the first broadcast strong enough to pass beyond Earth's ionosphere.
Q 02Which real US president appears in Contact through digitally altered news footage, prompting a White House complaint?
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton's real remarks on an unrelated scientific discovery were edited in so that he seemed to address alien contact, and the White House counsel wrote to protest.
Q 03Ellie Arroway's pod seems to drop straight through the Machine in Contact, yet how much static did the recorder log?
18 hours
18 hours of static is the detail officials keep confidential: it backs Arroway's claim that she was gone far longer than the moment observers saw the pod fall.
Q 04In the film Contact, the alien signal comes from which star, the brightest in the constellation Lyra?
Vega
Vega is only about 25 light-years from Earth, so in the story a television broadcast from the 1930s has had time to reach it and be sent back.
Q 05On the alien beach in Contact, whose appearance does the extraterrestrial borrow to speak with Ellie Arroway?
Her father
Her father died when Ellie was young, and the alien wearing his face says humanity's radio emissions have earned it a first step into the wider universe.
Q 06Which actress stars in Contact as Ellie Arroway, the astronomer who detects a signal from another star?
Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster was cast by the film's first director after he had considered Uma Thurman, and Julia Roberts had also shown interest in the part.
Q 07In Contact, the first sign that the signal is artificial is that its pulses count out which sequence?
Prime numbers
Prime numbers pulse through the signal first, and deeper layers then reveal a hidden video and tens of thousands of pages of encoded data.
Q 08Which actor plays Palmer Joss in Contact, having dropped out of the lead role in The Jackal?
Matthew McConaughey
Matthew McConaughey played the man of faith opposite a sceptical scientist years before returning to cosmic science fiction as the lead of Interstellar.
Q 09Reporters from which real news network appear throughout Contact, a decision its chairman later called a mistake?
CNN
CNN lent its anchors to make the story feel real, but its chairman said the cameos made the network look manipulated by its corporate parent and tightened the rules.
Q 10The giant Arecibo radio telescope where Ellie Arroway works in Contact also staged the climax of which James Bond film?
GoldenEye
GoldenEye staged its final fight on the dish two years before Contact was filmed there, and the telescope itself collapsed in December 2020.
Q 11Which director took over Contact after the studio fired its original choice, having first turned the job down?
Robert Zemeckis
Robert Zemeckis came aboard with total artistic control and final cut, having disliked an earlier script's ending full of angelic aliens.
Q 12Which character is chosen ahead of Ellie Arroway to ride the first Machine in Contact and dies when it is destroyed?
David Drumlin
David Drumlin, the president's science adviser, had earlier cut Arroway's funding and then presented her discovery to the press as his own.
Q 13How is the first Machine destroyed during testing at its launch site in the film Contact?
A suicide bombing
Q 21At which real radio observatory does Ellie Arroway's privately funded team detect the alien signal in Contact?
Very Large Array
Very Large Array dishes were in daily scientific use, so the crew had to negotiate with the National Science Foundation to turn them for the most dramatic shots.
Q 22Which British actor plays S. R. Hadden, the reclusive billionaire who bankrolls Ellie Arroway in Contact?
John Hurt
John Hurt's Hadden also supplies the primer that lets the team read the message, a coincidence the film uses to keep the idea of a hoax alive.
Q 23Which actor plays Michael Kitz, the security chief who tries to take over Ellie Arroway's project in Contact?
James Woods
A suicide bombing by a religious fanatic wrecks the Machine and kills several people, leaving a secretly built second Machine as the only way forward.
Q 14The second Machine in Contact is secretly built on which Japanese island, where Ellie Arroway finally makes the trip?
Hokkaido
Hokkaido hides the backup built in secret by the US government and Hadden Industries, which is revealed only after the first Machine is lost.
Q 15Terminally ill billionaire S. R. Hadden spends his last days aboard which real space station in Contact?
Mir
Mir was still flying when the film was released, and the real station was deorbited four years later after its funding was cut off.
Q 16Ellie Arroway begins her search for alien signals in Contact at the Arecibo Observatory, on which Caribbean island?
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico's Arecibo dish was real and more sensitive than the photogenic array Arroway moves to next, as SETI researchers pointed out when they reviewed the film.
Q 17Nations pool their money to build the first Machine in Contact at which American launch site?
Cape Canaveral
Cape Canaveral's neighbour, the Kennedy Space Center, let the filmmakers into areas closed to most visitors, where they studied a shuttle pad's gantry to design the Machine's supports.
Q 18Which trait of Ellie Arroway does Palmer Joss raise before the selection panel in Contact, costing Arroway the seat?
Her atheism
Her atheism sinks the bid once Joss presses the point, though he later admits he voted against Arroway because he feared she would not survive the trip.
Q 19Carl Sagan, whose novel became the film Contact, was best known on television for presenting which science series?
Cosmos
Cosmos has been seen by hundreds of millions of people, and Sagan died in December 1996 while Contact was still being shot, so the film closes with a dedication to him.
Q 20Contact opened in second place at the North American box office behind which other 1997 film about aliens?
Men in Black
Men in Black was already in its second weekend, yet Contact still gave its lead actress the biggest opening of her career for the next five years.
James Woods's Kitz later chairs the hearing that brands the journey a hoax, even though he has seen confidential evidence that supports Arroway.
Q 24Which actor plays the presidential science adviser who takes credit for Ellie Arroway's discovery in Contact?
Tom Skerritt
Tom Skerritt had already gone into deep space as the captain in Alien, and here plays a rival who wants the seat on the Machine for himself.
Q 25Which actress plays Rachel Constantine, the White House official who advises the president in Contact?
Angela Bassett
Angela Bassett took the part four years after her breakthrough playing Tina Turner, and her character is one of two people who discuss the film's final secret.
Q 26Which actress plays the young Ellie Arroway in Contact, years before appearing as Johanna Mason in The Hunger Games?
Jena Malone
Jena Malone won a Saturn Award for best performance by a younger actor for the part, which shows the childhood loss that drives the adult scientist.
Q 27Which former Brat Pack actor plays Richard Rank, seen arguing on a television debate show in Contact?
Rob Lowe
Rob Lowe's character spars on screen with one of the film's own story writers, who makes a cameo appearance as herself.
Q 28Which actor plays Kent, the blind SETI astronomer on Ellie Arroway's team in Contact?
William Fichtner
William Fichtner's character was based on Kent Cullers, a real SETI physicist described as the first astronomer to have been blind from birth.
Q 29Which composer wrote the score for Contact, having earlier written the music for Forrest Gump?
Alan Silvestri
Alan Silvestri has scored almost every film Contact's director has made since the two first worked together in 1984.
Q 30Which Oscar-winning actor was approached to play the US president in Contact but chose to make The Jackal instead?
Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier turned the part down, and shortly afterwards the filmmakers found real presidential news footage that they could adapt instead.