Dirty Harry
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50 free Dirty Harry trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Dirty Harry arrived in 1971 and changed the screen cop for good. Clint Eastwood's Harry Callahan, a San Francisco detective with a huge revolver and little patience for red tape, hunts a sniper who calls himself Scorpio, and the film's standoffs have been imitated, parodied and argued over ever since. This quiz covers the original film from its opening shots to its final gesture, then follows Callahan into Magnum Force, The Enforcer, Sudden Impact and The Dead Pool. Expect questions on the plot, the cast, the locations, the stars who nearly took the lead, and the famous speech that asks a cornered man whether he feels lucky. It is written for fans who have seen the films more than once, with enough easy questions for anyone who only knows the catchphrases. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so even the misses leave you with a little-known story.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which never-identified serial murderer, known for taunting letters, was the loose model for Scorpio in Dirty Harry?
The Zodiac Killer
The Zodiac Killer had terrorised the San Francisco Bay Area only a few years before filming. Scorpio also borrows from kidnapper Gary Steven Krist, who held a young woman for ransom.
Q 02What does Harry Callahan hurl into the water before walking away in the final scene of Dirty Harry?
His badge
His badge goes into the water in a gesture said to echo the 1952 Western High Noon. Eastwood first resisted the idea, fearing it meant Callahan was quitting the force.
Q 03What vehicle does Scorpio hijack to demand a ransom and a flight out of the country in Dirty Harry?
A school bus
A school bus full of children becomes his last bargaining chip. Eastwood made the leap onto its roof from an overpass himself, with no stunt double.
Q 04Which American gunmaker built the Model 29, the .44 Magnum revolver Harry Callahan carries in Dirty Harry?
Smith & Wesson
Smith & Wesson had sold the Model 29 mostly to hunters and handgun enthusiasts since the 1950s. After the film came out, retailers struggled to keep it in stock.
Q 05Harry Callahan gives his famous speech about losing count of his shots after foiling which crime in Dirty Harry?
A bank robbery
A bank robbery interrupts his lunch break, and he stops it almost alone. The speech comes back at the quarry, in the final showdown with Scorpio.
Q 06Which US president borrowed Harry Callahan's Sudden Impact catchphrase in a speech threatening to veto tax rises?
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan, himself a former actor, used the line at the American Business Conference in 1985. The film had made it famous only two years earlier.
Q 07Which future comedy star plays doomed rock singer Johnny Squares in the last Dirty Harry film, The Dead Pool?
Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey was still six years away from Ace Ventura: Pet Detective when he played Squares, whose apparent overdose turns out to be murder.
Q 08Harry Callahan's revolver was once named the second-greatest movie weapon of all time, behind which Star Wars icon?
The lightsaber
The lightsaber was the only weapon to outrank the Model 29. Callahan himself was voted the 17th-greatest hero on the American Film Institute's list of heroes and villains.
Q 09Which hard rock band makes an uncredited cameo at a rock singer's funeral in the Dirty Harry film The Dead Pool?
Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses appear as mourners for the murdered singer. Members are also seen at the docks while a nightmare scene for a horror film is being shot.
Q 10Which actress, later Mary Beth Lacey in Cagney & Lacey, plays Dirty Harry's partner Kate Moore in The Enforcer?
Tyne Daly
Tyne Daly turned the part down three times before accepting. Her reviews as the desk officer turned homicide detective outshone those of Eastwood himself.
Q 11Which director of Invasion of the Body Snatchers made Dirty Harry, one of five films he shot with Eastwood?
Don Siegel
Don Siegel called himself a liberal and his star a conservative, and said the two of them never once talked politics while making the film.
Q 12Which singer and film star, then 55, was first cast as Harry Callahan before leaving Dirty Harry?
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra fit a script that imagined Callahan in his mid-to-late fifties. When he left, the producers turned to younger actors, and Eastwood took the part at 41.
Q 13Which star turned down Dirty Harry as too right-wing for him, then suggested Clint Eastwood for the part?
Paul Newman
Q 21When a cornered suspect insists on knowing, what does Harry Callahan's trigger pull reveal early in Dirty Harry?
The gun is empty
The gun is empty, so the bluff costs the man nothing but his nerve. When Callahan repeats the challenge to Scorpio at the end, the revolver fires.
Q 22Why does the district attorney say Scorpio must be freed in Dirty Harry?
The evidence was seized illegally
The evidence was seized illegally: Callahan kicked in a door without a warrant and forced a confession, so none of it could be used in court.
Q 23In Dirty Harry, how does the freed Scorpio make it look as if Callahan assaulted him?
Paul Newman thought the film would suit Eastwood even though its politics were not his own. Burt Lancaster refused the part too, objecting to its end-justifies-the-means moral.
Q 14Steve McQueen refused the lead in Dirty Harry rather than make another cop movie after which San Francisco thriller?
Bullitt
Bullitt had cast McQueen as a police detective in the same city three years earlier, and its car chase over the hills became famous.
Q 15Which then-unknown actor, later the lead in Hellraiser, played the Scorpio killer in Dirty Harry?
Andy Robinson
Andy Robinson was a pacifist who flinched whenever he had to fire a gun, so filming paused while he was sent for shooting lessons.
Q 16The actor who played Scorpio in Dirty Harry later became the Cardassian tailor Garak in which Star Trek series?
Deep Space Nine
Deep Space Nine kept him busy from 1993 to 1999 as a tailor with a past in espionage. He had first auditioned for a different part, Odo.
Q 17In Dirty Harry, a hospital doctor reveals that Scorpio lives in a room at which San Francisco football venue?
Kezar Stadium
Kezar Stadium was chosen after Eastwood and his director watched a 49ers game there and were struck by its eerie look, like a Greek amphitheater.
Q 18Which rookie partner is assigned to Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry, against the detective's own wishes?
Chico Gonzalez
Chico Gonzalez saves Callahan's life at the ransom drop and is shot in the chest for it. He survives, but decides to leave the police and become a teacher.
Q 19Which Argentine-born composer of the Mission: Impossible theme wrote the jazzy score for Dirty Harry?
Lalo Schifrin
Lalo Schifrin scored four of the five Callahan films, missing only The Enforcer. His work with Eastwood had begun on Coogan's Bluff in 1968.
Q 20Which studio bought Dirty Harry after ABC judged the script too violent to become a television movie?
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. first planned the film around an older star and another director, Irvin Kershner. Both had left the project by the time Eastwood signed on.
Pays a man to beat him
He pays a man to beat him severely, at a price of $200, then blames the injuries on Callahan. The stunt forces the detective to stop tailing him.
Q 24After Dirty Harry opened, the actor who played Scorpio got an unlisted phone number because he was receiving what?
Death threats
Death threats followed because audiences found his killer so convincing. He had been cast, his director said, for having a face like a choirboy.
Q 25What rank does Harry Callahan hold in the San Francisco Police Department throughout the Dirty Harry films?
Inspector
Inspector Callahan usually works homicide, but angry bosses keep punishing him with transfers to stakeout duty and the personnel office.
Q 26In Dirty Harry, how does Callahan say his wife died?
Killed by a drunk driver
She was killed by a drunk driver, he tells his partner's wife. Mrs Callahan is seen only in an old photograph, which he turns around in Magnum Force.
Q 27Sent to talk down a suicide jumper in Dirty Harry, what reason does Callahan give for his nickname?
He gets the worst jobs
He gets the worst jobs, he says: every unpleasant assignment that comes along lands on him. Eastwood directed the jumper scene himself.
Q 28Clues across the Dirty Harry films suggest Callahan once served in which branch of the US military?
The Marines
The Marines are hinted at more than once: an old friend talks of the twenty years they might have served, and a mug with the Corps seal sits on Callahan's desk in The Dead Pool.
Q 29After a payphone chase in Dirty Harry, Scorpio meets Callahan beneath a giant cross on which San Francisco hill?
Mount Davidson
Mount Davidson is the city's highest natural point, crowned by a 103-foot concrete cross. There Scorpio admits he never meant to let his hostage live.
Q 30In which city was the first script for Dirty Harry set, before the story moved to San Francisco?
New York
New York was home to the hard-edged police detective of the first draft, titled Dead Right. That version ended with a police sniper, not Callahan, shooting the killer.