Crash Movie Trivia
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50 free Crash Movie trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Crash trivia quiz covers Paul Haggis's 2004 ensemble drama, the surprise Best Picture winner of the 78th Academy Awards. It moves through the interlocking Los Angeles stories: Detective Waters and Ria's fender-bender, Anthony and Peter carjacking the district attorney, Sergeant Ryan's traffic stop and the rescue that follows, Officer Hansen's fatal misreading of a hitchhiker, and the van full of Cambodian immigrants. Then it goes behind the camera to the real 1991 carjacking outside a Blockbuster that inspired the script, the actors who dropped out, the three mortgages Haggis took on his house, the 32-day shoot and the heart attack that paused it. A final round covers the Oscars: the win over the heavily favoured Brokeback Mountain, Jack Nicholson's 'whoa', Jon Stewart's first hosting gig, and the critics who have since named it the worst Best Picture winner of the century, plus the Starz series that followed. Note: this page is about the 2004 Haggis film, not the 1996 Cronenberg movie or the video game. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Paul Haggis also wrote which Clint Eastwood film, the Best Picture winner the year before Crash?
Million Dollar Baby
Million Dollar Baby. Haggis wrote it on spec with no buyer in sight and struggled to sell it, yet the script he could not place ended up winning Best Picture.
Q 02What crime against Paul Haggis in 1991 gave him the idea for Crash?
A carjacking
A carjacking. Two armed men took his Porsche and even the video he had just rented, and he says he wondered who they were once a year for a decade before writing the script.
Q 03What unlikely weather falls on Los Angeles in the closing scenes of Crash?
Snow
Snow. It drifts down as yet another fender-bender sets two drivers trading racial insults, ending the film exactly where it began.
Q 04Who plays Jean Cabot, the district attorney's wife, in Crash?
Sandra Bullock
Sandra Bullock. Like the rest of the ensemble she worked for union-scale pay, which is how a film with so many famous faces was made for about $6.5 million.
Q 05In Crash, what does locksmith Daniel give his frightened young daughter to protect her from bullets?
An invisible cloak
An invisible cloak. He says a fairy gave it to him when he was five and that nothing can get through it, a bedtime story she believes completely.
Q 06Who plays Detective Graham Waters in Crash and also co-produced the film?
Don Cheadle
Don Cheadle. He was the first big name to sign on, and Haggis asked him to produce as well because, he said, other good actors would follow him.
Q 07Which actor plays Sergeant John Ryan, the Crash cop who molests Christine Thayer at a traffic stop?
Matt Dillon
Matt Dillon. John Cusack had wanted the part but dropped out as the shoot kept slipping, and Dillon's turn became the film's only acting nomination at the Oscars.
Q 08Who plays Christine Thayer, the television director's wife, in Crash?
Thandiwe Newton
Thandiwe Newton. Billed then as Thandie Newton, she won the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress for the role but was left out of the Oscar nominations altogether.
Q 09Which rapper plays Anthony, who lectures his partner in crime about racial stereotypes all through Crash?
Ludacris
Ludacris. His character insists that buses have huge windows to humiliate the people who have to ride them, and later has to ride one himself.
Q 10What figurine does Peter stick on the dashboard of the stolen car in Crash?
St. Christopher
St. Christopher. Peter will not ride without the patron saint of travellers, while Anthony grumbles about having that 'voodoo' thing in the car.
Q 11In Crash's opening lines, Detective Waters says people in Los Angeles crash into each other just to do what?
Feel something
Feel something. He says everyone in the city lives behind metal and glass and misses being touched, a speech he delivers moments after his own car has been rear-ended.
Q 12In Crash, what does Jean Cabot suspect locksmith Daniel Ruiz of being?
A gang member
A gang member. Jean takes his tattoos as proof and wants the locks changed all over again, but the film follows him home to the five-year-old daughter he dotes on.
Q 13Who plays Daniel, the locksmith, in Crash?
Michael Peña
Michael Peña. After years of small television parts, he went from this role to a lead in Oliver Stone's World Trade Center.
Q 21Which actor, later Tony Stark's fellow captive Yinsen in Iron Man, plays shopkeeper Farhad in Crash?
Shaun Toub
Shaun Toub. His Farhad is taken for an Arab by a gun dealer and by the vandals who wreck his shop, though the family is Persian.
Q 22In Crash, why is Daniel's young daughter unhurt after leaping in front of Farhad's gun as he fires?
The bullets were blanks
The bullets were blanks. His daughter Dorri had quietly chosen that box at the gun shop, so a baffled Farhad decides the little girl is his guardian angel.
Q 23Which sitcom actor plays Fred, who tells TV director Cameron a Black character isn't talking 'Black' enough in Crash?
Tony Danza
Q 14In Crash, what does Lieutenant Dixon demand in return for approving Officer Hansen's transfer?
Silence about Ryan's conduct
Silence about Ryan's conduct. Dixon says a racism complaint would wreck his own career, so the paperwork has to blame Hansen's 'uncontrollable flatulence' instead.
Q 15How does Sergeant Ryan meet Christine Thayer a second time in Crash?
He pulls her from a burning car
He pulls her from a burning car. Recognising the officer who assaulted her, she fights him off at first, and he has to crawl back in as the flames reach the wreck.
Q 16In Crash, what does Flanagan offer Detective Waters to go along with a cover-up?
A job with the district attorney
A job with the district attorney. Waters holds evidence that the dead officer was dirty, yet he swallows it, takes the deal and lets the white cop carry the blame.
Q 17Why does Officer Hansen shoot his hitchhiker in Crash?
He thinks the man is reaching for a gun
He thinks the man is reaching for a gun. The hitchhiker had laughed at the statuette on Hansen's dashboard and was only pulling out an identical one of his own.
Q 18The body found by the roadside at the start of Crash turns out to be whose?
Waters's brother Peter
Waters's brother Peter. Their mother had begged Graham to find him, and when he fails she blames him for the death and turns her back on him.
Q 19What does Anthony find in the back of the white van he steals in Crash?
Chained Cambodian immigrants
Chained Cambodian immigrants. A chop-shop owner offers to buy them from him, but Anthony drives them to Chinatown and sets them free instead.
Q 20In Crash, Sergeant Ryan's furious calls to an HMO administrator are about medical care for whom?
His father
His father. Ryan nurses him at home through his illness, a tenderness the film sets against the abuse of power he commits on patrol.
Tony Danza. Haggis said the storyline was something he had witnessed on a studio lot, and in the film Cameron ends up reshooting the scene.
Q 24In Crash, locksmith Daniel warns shopkeeper Farhad that the real problem is not his lock but his what?
Door
Door. Farhad calls him a cheat and the locksmith walks off unpaid; when the shop is ransacked, the insurer will not cover it, precisely because the door was never fixed.
Q 25Crash had its world premiere in 2004 at which film festival in its director's home country?
Toronto
Toronto. A distributor bought it within a day of the screening, then held it back until the following May rather than rush it into awards season.
Q 26How did Paul Haggis help cover Crash's shrunken budget out of his own pocket?
He mortgaged his house
He mortgaged his house. He stretched the money further by reusing locations, so that one house plays the homes of two different families.
Q 27What happened to Paul Haggis while he was directing one of Crash's final scenes?
He had a heart attack
He had a heart attack. Told to rest for months, he refused to let another director finish the film and was back on set within about two weeks.
Q 28After her fall down the stairs in Crash, whom does Jean Cabot call the best friend she has?
Her housekeeper, Maria
Her housekeeper, Maria. Jean has spent the film snapping at her over the dishwasher, but a friend on the phone is too busy to come and it is Maria who drives her to hospital.
Q 29Before it became a film, Paul Haggis first pitched Crash as what?
A TV series
A TV series. The networks he pitched had no interest, so after being fired from his own CBS drama he dug out the outline and rewrote it as a movie.
Q 30Which studio bought Crash within a day of its 2004 festival premiere?
Lions Gate Films
Lions Gate Films. Only a couple of other buyers showed interest after the screening, and the studio's own president admitted surprise that there was no bidding war.