Cult Classic Movies
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50 free Cult Classic Movies trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
A cult classic rarely starts as a hit. Most of these films opened to empty seats, baffled reviews or outright bans, then found their people at midnight screenings, on worn rental tapes and through late-night television. What they share is a following that knows every scene, dresses the part and brings props. This quiz covers the canon from the midnight-movie era to the modern favourites: science fiction that flopped before it was revered, horror shot for pocket change, comedies that live on in costumes and catchphrases, and a few films loved precisely because they are so inept. The questions range over plots, casts, directors, soundtracks, the books behind the scripts and the strange production stories that fans love to retell. It is written for adults who grew up renting, rewinding and rewatching, and for hosts who need a film round with answers they can trust. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a miss still leaves you with a story worth repeating.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actor's first film role was the alien scientist Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show?
Tim Curry
Tim Curry had already played the part on the London stage. The 1975 musical went on to become the longest-running theatrical release in film history.
Q 02Which cocktail does Jeff Bridges's slacker hero the Dude drink throughout the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski?
White Russian
White Russian orders surged after the 1998 comedy, in which the vodka, coffee liqueur and cream drink is the Dude's constant companion. The film also inspired Lebowski Fest, a fan gathering launched in Louisville in 2002.
Q 03Which objects do fans hurl at the screen, in tribute to a framed photo, at showings of Tommy Wiseau's The Room?
Spoons
Spoons fly whenever an unexplained framed picture of one appears on a table in Johnny's living room. Fans also toss footballs and shout along, much as Rocky Horror crowds do.
Q 04What kind of animal costume does the mysterious Frank wear in Jake Gyllenhaal's 2001 film Donnie Darko?
A rabbit
A rabbit costume with a monstrous face hides Frank, who warns Donnie that the world will end in 28 days. The film earned barely $500,000 in its first run before finding its audience on video.
Q 05Which product does Brad Pitt's character Tyler Durden sell for a living in David Fincher's 1999 film Fight Club?
Soap
Soap salesman Tyler meets the film's narrator on a business flight. The movie fell short of studio hopes in cinemas, then found its following on home video.
Q 06Which professional wrestler played the kindly strongman Fezzik in the 1987 fairy-tale adventure The Princess Bride?
André the Giant
André the Giant had just had major back surgery, so he could not lift his co-stars. When Fezzik appears to carry Robin Wright, she is actually hanging from cables.
Q 07What do servants bang together to mimic hoofbeats for the horseless knights in Monty Python and the Holy Grail?
Coconuts
Coconuts were a money-saver: the film's small budget ruled out real horses, so the knights mime riding while their servants clop the shells together behind them.
Q 08In the rock mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, the dials on Nigel Tufnel's special amplifier go up to what number?
Eleven
Eleven, one notch past the usual ten, gave English a new idiom for pushing anything beyond its limit. Christopher Guest played the proud guitarist.
Q 09Which red desk item does the mumbling Milton refuse to give up in Mike Judge's 1999 comedy Office Space?
A stapler
A stapler in red did not exist in Swingline's range, so the film's prop was custom-painted. Fans asked for one so often that the company began selling a red model in 2002.
Q 10Which rock star played Jareth, the villain who steals a baby brother, in Jim Henson's 1986 fantasy Labyrinth?
David Bowie
David Bowie also recorded five songs for the film, but Jareth's crystal-ball tricks were not his. Juggler Michael Moschen performed them blind from behind the singer's back.
Q 11Which filmmaker sold much of his comic book collection to help fund his 1994 debut, Clerks?
Kevin Smith
Kevin Smith shot the comedy in the New Jersey convenience store where he worked, on a total budget of $27,575. He later bought the comics back.
Q 12In which US state is the 2004 comedy Napoleon Dynamite set and filmed, around the small town of Preston?
Idaho
Idaho lawmakers passed a resolution praising the film for the attention it brought the state. Star Jon Heder was paid just $1,000 for the lead role.
Q 13Which actor plays sole survivor Ash Williams in Sam Raimi's 1981 cabin-in-the-woods horror The Evil Dead?
Bruce Campbell
Q 21Which musician funded the 1987 British comedy Withnail and I through his company HandMade Films?
George Harrison
George Harrison had set up the company to rescue Monty Python's Life of Brian, and it later bankrolled this tale of two unemployed actors in late-1960s London.
Q 22Which actor played Lord Summerisle, leader of a pagan Scottish community, in the 1973 folk horror The Wicker Man?
Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee was a Hammer horror regular who wanted to break free of his monster image, and the film grew out of his meeting with screenwriter Anthony Shaffer.
Q 23Which director turned up in person to accept his Worst Director Razzie for the 1995 flop Showgirls?
Paul Verhoeven
Bruce Campbell and his friends shot the film in a remote Tennessee cabin. A rave review from horror author Stephen King helped it win a wide release.
Q 14Which director's zombie film Night of the Living Dead slipped into the public domain over a missing copyright notice?
George A. Romero
George A. Romero lost the copyright when the distributor changed the title and left the notice off. Made for about $100,000, the film earned more than 250 times its budget.
Q 15Which director's first feature, Eraserhead, took years to shoot before becoming a midnight-movie hit in the late 1970s?
David Lynch
David Lynch kept running out of money, and donations from friends including actress Sissy Spacek kept the surreal production alive.
Q 16In which city did John Waters shoot his notorious 1972 midnight movie Pink Flamingos, starring Divine?
Baltimore
Baltimore is where Waters and most of his cast and crew grew up. Art students nicknamed his paint-heavy homemade look the Baltimore aesthetic.
Q 17Which composer does gang leader Alex adore in Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film A Clockwork Orange?
Beethoven
Beethoven is ruined for Alex when the music accompanies his aversion therapy. After reports of copycat violence, Kubrick had the film withdrawn from British cinemas.
Q 18Which singer-songwriter composed and performed the music for Hal Ashby's 1971 black comedy Harold and Maude?
Cat Stevens
Cat Stevens scored a slow burner: the romance between a death-obsessed young man and a 79-year-old woman failed on release and took until 1983 to turn a profit.
Q 19Which Brooklyn neighborhood is home turf for the gang fleeing the Bronx in the 1979 film The Warriors?
Coney Island
Coney Island sits at the far end of New York from the Bronx, where the gang is framed for the murder of a respected leader and has to fight its way home.
Q 20Which horror star died before Ed Wood made Plan 9 from Outer Space yet appears through leftover silent footage?
Bela Lugosi
Bela Lugosi, the screen's best-known Dracula, had been filmed for an unfinished project, and a body double filled in for him. A 1980 book crowned the result the worst film ever made.
Paul Verhoeven collected the prize himself as his Las Vegas drama took a then-record seven Razzies. It has since been re-evaluated by some critics as a satire and has a dedicated fanbase.
Q 24Which author's 1968 novel about hunting rogue androids became Ridley Scott's science fiction film Blade Runner?
Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick died shortly before the film opened, but he was shown a 20-minute effects reel and was pleased with it. His novel is called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Q 25Which future Oscar winner had his breakout role as Wooderson in Richard Linklater's 1993 film Dazed and Confused?
Matthew McConaughey
Matthew McConaughey was an unknown when he was cast, like most of the ensemble. The film follows Texas teenagers on the last day of school in 1976.
Q 26Katsuhiro Otomo's 1988 anime Akira takes place in a futuristic rebuilt version of which city?
Tokyo
Tokyo is destroyed in 1988 in the film's backstory, and the action unfolds decades later in the gang-ridden metropolis that replaced it. The film helped open Western audiences to anime.
Q 27Which country produced the 1979 low-budget action film Mad Max, starring a young Mel Gibson?
Australia
Australia's accents and slang were dubbed over by American voice actors for the US release. The film's earnings against its tiny budget set a Guinness record for profitability.
Q 28Which masked killer, partly inspired by murderer Ed Gein, stalks victims in 1974's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?
Leatherface
Leatherface is named only in passing, by a hitchhiker who turns out to be his brother. The low-budget shocker was banned in several countries.
Q 29Which studio agreed to finance the 1982 computer-world adventure Tron after several rivals rejected its storyboards?
Disney
Disney backed one of the first films to make extensive use of computer-generated imagery, yet its groundbreaking visuals earned no Oscar nomination for effects.
Q 30Which board game inspired a 1985 ensemble comedy that reached cinemas with different endings at different screenings?
Clue
Clue went out with three different solutions to its mystery, and each screening showed just one of them. A box-office bomb in 1985, the film later developed a cult following.