Diner
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40 free Diner trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Barry Levinson's Diner (1982) follows six friends in 1959 Baltimore through the week between Christmas and a wedding that hangs on a football quiz. Eddie will not marry Elyse unless she passes his test on the Baltimore Colts, and that one stubborn idea has kept people quoting the film, arguing about it and searching for the quiz ever since. This quiz covers the whole picture: the plot and its pranks, the unknown cast who went on to long careers, how a small MGM production was nearly shelved before critics rescued it, and the real Colts history behind Eddie's obsession, from the championship seasons of the late 1950s to the team's later fate. It is pitched at fans of the film and of sports movies alike. About half the questions are ones a casual viewer can get, and the rest reward people who know their Baltimore football and their 1980s cinema.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Diner, what is never shown of Elyse, the bride whose football quiz drives the plot?
Her face
Her face is kept off screen from start to finish, so the woman the whole test is about stays a stranger even at her own reception.
Q 02Which actor played hard-drinking rich kid Fenwick in Diner two years before starring in Footloose?
Kevin Bacon
Kevin Bacon had just quit the soap Guiding Light when the audition came, and he read for the part with a 103-degree fever that he felt suited the woozy Fenwick.
Q 03How does Eddie first respond in Diner when his fiancée Elyse fails his football quiz by two points?
He cancels the wedding
He cancels the wedding on the spot, with both sets of parents waiting on the result, then changes his mind during a night out with his best man.
Q 04Barry Levinson made his directing debut with Diner and later won a directing Oscar for which film?
Rain Man
Rain Man won him the directing Oscar and took Best Picture too, six years after his own Diner script had lost in the screenplay category.
Q 05Two years after Diner came out, Baltimore's beloved Colts left town overnight for which city?
Indianapolis
Indianapolis got the Colts on March 29, 1984, when the franchise moved out in the middle of the night as Baltimore threatened to seize the team by eminent domain.
Q 06Which quarterback led the Colts, the team Eddie worships in Diner, to NFL titles in 1958 and 1959?
Johnny Unitas
Johnny Unitas was also the league's Most Valuable Player in 1959, three years after joining the Colts as a free-agent backup.
Q 07Vanity Fair argued that Diner's aimless booth banter paved the way, eight years on, for which sitcom?
Seinfeld
Seinfeld took its famous 'nothing' from the film, the magazine argued, and it traced the chatty hit men of Pulp Fiction back to the same booth.
Q 08An MGM executive wanted to cut the Diner scene in which Eddie and Modell bicker over what?
A roast beef sandwich
A roast beef sandwich is the whole point, Levinson told him: the squabble shows the friends' rivalry and fears better than any plot scene could.
Q 09Which actor played the married friend Shrevie in Diner before turning burglar as Marv in Home Alone?
Daniel Stern
Daniel Stern and his screen wife barely got along off camera, once spending a whole night filming in a car without speaking to each other.
Q 10Which actor played Colts-mad groom Eddie in Diner before starring as Mahoney in Police Academy?
Steve Guttenberg
Steve Guttenberg, just 22, was probably the most experienced of the young cast, having already shared sets with Laurence Olivier and Gregory Peck.
Q 11Boogie Sheftell, the smooth-talking gambler of Diner, is a law student who earns his living as what?
A hairdresser
A hairdresser by day, Boogie was patterned on a real friend of Barry Levinson's, and the actor studied his own stylist at work to prepare.
Q 12The friends in Diner argue over who is better for romance: Frank Sinatra or which other crooner?
Johnny Mathis
Johnny Mathis is the rival pick, and Barry Levinson said the argument came straight from his own nights at a Baltimore diner, as did the talk of Elvis Presley.
Q 13Which rock singer wrote the songs for the stage musical of Diner, with a book by Barry Levinson?
Sheryl Crow
Q 21What lands on the friends' table in the closing shot of Diner, leaving the men frozen and staring?
The bouquet
The bouquet drops in front of them in slow motion, and the men freeze, struck silent by the thought of who marries next.
Q 22What prank does Fenwick stage for his friends on the drive from the dance that opens Diner?
A fake car crash
A fake car crash it is: he flips his own car over and smears himself with ketchup to play the victim by the roadside.
Q 23Where is a drunken Fenwick found in his underwear in Diner, shortly before the friends' arrest?
A church Nativity scene
Sheryl Crow wrote the music and lyrics, and the show had its premiere at Signature Theatre in Virginia, which she was glad to find so close to Baltimore.
Q 14The diner seen in Diner was trucked to Baltimore on a flatbed from a diner graveyard in which state?
New Jersey
New Jersey supplied it after talks with a real Baltimore diner broke down over money, and it looked so authentic that a trucker pulled up asking for breakfast mid-shoot.
Q 15On day one of shooting Diner, first-time director Barry Levinson had to be prompted to say which word?
Action
Action went unsaid while actors and crew stood waiting in a pool hall, until an assistant director whispered a reminder to his boss.
Q 16The Colts-themed wedding that closes Diner takes place on which holiday night?
New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve gives the film its clock: the story opens at a Christmas dance in 1959 and ends as the decade does.
Q 17Which stand-up comic made his film debut as Modell in Diner after tagging along to a friend's audition?
Paul Reiser
Paul Reiser was only out to buy socks that day, yet much of what he says on screen was ad-libbed and his unscripted toast closes the film.
Q 18Which actor won the National Society of Film Critics supporting award as the gambler Boogie in Diner?
Mickey Rourke
Mickey Rourke had turned heads a year earlier as the arsonist in Body Heat, and Boston's critics also named him best supporting actor for Boogie.
Q 19Which actress, the only one Barry Levinson saw for the part, played Shrevie's wife Beth in Diner?
Ellen Barkin
Ellen Barkin threw the script in the trash halfway through her first read, and her agent had to talk her into leaving a Broadway play to take the part.
Q 20What does Beth misfile in Diner, causing her husband Shrevie to lose his temper and storm out?
His records
His records are the trigger, and the row leaves Beth in tears and drifting toward Boogie, an old flame who consoles her.
A church Nativity scene is where he settles, in the manger, and after he topples the display his is the only family that leaves its son in jail overnight.
Q 24Boogie Sheftell spends Diner dodging a $2,000 debt run up by a losing bet on which sport?
Basketball
Basketball sinks him, not the Colts, and he turned down the chance to call the wager off before the game; an older family friend finally settles the debt.
Q 25Which 1959 Troy Donahue romance is on screen during Boogie's popcorn-box prank in Diner?
A Summer Place
A Summer Place brought MGM a lawsuit: its star Richard Egan sued in 1984, saying he had never been paid for the scenes reused on screen.
Q 26Which comedy director, for whom Barry Levinson wrote High Anxiety, urged him to write Diner?
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks kept hearing his writer's stories about the old Baltimore gang, and the script finally came in a three-week burst while Levinson's wife was away filming.
Q 27Which New Yorker critic saw a smuggled print of Diner and told MGM her rave would run regardless?
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael was a friend of the executive producer's mother, which is how he got the film to her after poor test screenings left MGM unsure about releasing it.
Q 28Diner is set in 1959, when Eddie's beloved Colts beat which team for the NFL title?
New York Giants
The New York Giants led 9–7 entering the fourth quarter in Baltimore before the Colts scored 24 straight points to win 31–16.
Q 29Barry Levinson's script for Diner earned the film's only Oscar nomination but lost to which film?
Gandhi
Gandhi won for John Briley's script on a night when Tootsie, a film Levinson had quietly helped to write, lost in the same category.
Q 30What does Boogie tip straight into his mouth at the counter in Diner, a flourish his actor invented?
Sugar
Sugar, washed down with a Coke, was the actor's own idea for a scene Barry Levinson wrote in fifteen minutes because two of his stars asked for one together.