Fall Movie Trivia
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60 free Fall Movie trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
56 free Fall Movie trivia questions with answers. Some films just belong to autumn: New York in falling leaves, prep-school sweaters, Thanksgiving road trips, small-town Halloweens. This quiz covers the ones people rewatch every fall, from When Harry Met Sally and You've Got Mail to Dead Poets Society, Good Will Hunting, Rushmore, Knives Out, Fantastic Mr. Fox and Coraline, plus the Halloween shelf: Hocus Pocus, Practical Magic, Beetlejuice, Casper, Halloweentown, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Halloween and Scream. Questions range from easy (which candy is in E.T.) to genuinely tricky (which university stood in for Georgetown, which company made the Ghostface mask). It works for a movie night warm-up, a fall party round or a pub quiz in October or November. Every answer has been checked against each film's Wikipedia entry, and the source appears once you have answered.
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Q 01Who directed the 1989 autumn romance 'When Harry Met Sally...'?
Rob Reiner
Rob Reiner directed from Nora Ephron's script; his own mother, Estelle Reiner, delivered the film's most famous line as the customer in the deli scene.
Q 02At which Manhattan deli was the 'I'll have what she's having' scene in 'When Harry Met Sally...' filmed?
Katz's Delicatessen
Katz's Delicatessen on East Houston Street hosted the scene; the deli hung a sign over the table reading 'Where Harry met Sally... hope you have what she had!'
Q 03'Dead Poets Society' is set in 1959 at which fictional boarding school?
Welton Academy
Welton Academy, the stuffy Vermont prep school the boys nickname 'Hellton', was played by St. Andrew's School in Middletown, Delaware.
Q 04Who won the Oscar for writing 'Dead Poets Society'?
Tom Schulman
Tom Schulman took Best Original Screenplay at the 1990 ceremony; Robin Williams (Best Actor) and Peter Weir (Best Director) were nominated but went home empty-handed.
Q 05What Latin phrase does John Keating teach his students in 'Dead Poets Society'?
Carpe diem
'Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary' was ranked 95th on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest movie quotes.
Q 06In 'Good Will Hunting', Will works as a janitor at which institution?
MIT
Will mops floors at MIT, where Professor Gerald Lambeau spots his genius after he anonymously solves a problem left on a hallway blackboard.
Q 07Which two friends wrote 'Good Will Hunting' and won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for it?
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, childhood friends from Cambridge, took Best Original Screenplay at the 1998 ceremony, where Robin Williams won Best Supporting Actor; the film had nine nominations.
Q 08Who directed 'Good Will Hunting'?
Gus Van Sant
Gus Van Sant directed it for about $10 million; it grossed roughly $226 million worldwide and earned him a Best Director nomination.
Q 09In which Massachusetts town is 'Hocus Pocus' set?
Salem
The Sanderson sisters haunt Salem, where the film shot exteriors at Pioneer Village and the Ropes Mansion; Max, a newcomer from Los Angeles, wakes them on Halloween night.
Q 10Which director of 'Hocus Pocus' later made the 'High School Musical' films?
Kenny Ortega
Kenny Ortega, a choreographer turned director, opened Hocus Pocus in July 1993 to weak box office; it became a Halloween staple through TV reruns, and he later directed all three High School Musical films.
Q 11What object must be lit by a virgin to bring the Sanderson sisters back in 'Hocus Pocus'?
The Black Flame Candle
Lighting the Black Flame Candle on All Hallows' Eve summons the sisters for one night; the film's rules require a virgin to light it, and the trio had been dead 300 years, since 1693.
Q 12'Hocus Pocus 2' arrived in 2022 on which streaming service?
Disney+
Disney+ released the sequel on 30 September 2022, 29 years after the original, reuniting Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy as the Sanderson sisters.
Q 13'You've Got Mail' takes its title from the greeting used by which online service?
AOL
The title is AOL's mailbox greeting, voiced by Elwood Edwards; it was Nora Ephron's highest-grossing film, taking about $250 million worldwide.
Q 21In 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles', Neal Page is trying to get home to which city for Thanksgiving?
Chicago
Neal, a Chicago advertising executive, is trying to get from New York back home to Chicago for Thanksgiving; John Hughes wrote, produced and directed the 1987 comedy.
Q 22What does John Candy's character Del Griffith sell in 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles'?
Shower curtain rings
Del is a travelling salesman for the shower curtain rings division of American Light and Fixture; at a bus station he hawks the rings as earrings to raise cash for the trip.
Q 23Wes Anderson's 'Rushmore' was co-written with which actor, who also appears in most of his films?
Owen Wilson
Q 14In 'You've Got Mail', what is the name of Kathleen Kelly's independent children's bookstore?
The Shop Around the Corner
The Shop Around the Corner is named for Ernst Lubitsch's 1940 film the story remakes, itself adapted from Miklós László's Hungarian play Parfumerie.
Q 15Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' adapts a 1970 novel by which author?
Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl published Fantastic Mr Fox in 1970; George Clooney voices the fox, and the film picked up Oscar nominations for animated feature and score.
Q 16What are the names of the three farmers who hunt the title character in 'Fantastic Mr. Fox'?
Boggis, Bunce and Bean
Boggis, Bunce and Bean are 'one fat, one short, one lean' in Dahl's rhyme, which the animals repeat in the film; they run chicken, duck-and-goose, and turkey-and-apple farms.
Q 17What is the surname of the witch family played by Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman in 'Practical Magic'?
Owens
The Owens sisters, Sally and Gillian, come from Alice Hoffman's 1995 novel about a family of witches whose men die under a centuries-old curse.
Q 18'Practical Magic' was shot in Coupeville, Washington, on which Puget Sound island?
Whidbey Island
Coupeville's waterfront on Whidbey Island stood in for the film's Massachusetts town; the famous seaside house was a shell built on nearby San Juan Island and torn down after filming.
Q 19Which detective does Daniel Craig play in 'Knives Out'?
Benoit Blanc
Benoit Blanc, the drawling Southern sleuth, was created by writer-director Rian Johnson, whose script earned an Oscar nomination for original screenplay.
Q 20Who plays the crime novelist Harlan Thrombey, whose death sets 'Knives Out' in motion?
Christopher Plummer
Christopher Plummer plays the 85-year-old patriarch found with his throat cut after his birthday party; Ana de Armas is his nurse Marta, who cannot lie without vomiting.
Owen Wilson co-wrote Rushmore with Anderson, as he had Bottle Rocket and would The Royal Tenenbaums; the prep school was played by St. John's School in Houston, Anderson's own alma mater.
Q 24Who plays the precocious student Max Fischer in 'Rushmore'?
Jason Schwartzman
Jason Schwartzman, then 17 and a nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, made his film debut as Max; Bill Murray plays the industrialist Herman Blume who becomes his rival in love.
Q 25Which company's first feature film was 'Coraline' (2009)?
Laika
Laika, the Oregon studio backed by Nike co-founder Phil Knight, debuted with Henry Selick's stop-motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman's novella, which earned a Best Animated Feature nomination.
Q 26In 'Coraline', what does the Other Mother want to sew onto Coraline's eyes?
Buttons
The Other Mother's people all have buttons for eyes, and she offers Coraline the chance to stay forever if she lets them be sewn on; the family has just moved to the Pink Palace in Ashland, Oregon.
Q 27Which Peanuts character waits in the pumpkin patch in 'It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown'?
Linus
Linus spends Halloween night in the pumpkin patch with Sally, convinced the Great Pumpkin will rise; the 1966 show was only the third Peanuts TV special, with music by Vince Guaraldi.
Q 28What does Charlie Brown get instead of candy while trick-or-treating in the Great Pumpkin special?
Rocks
At every house Charlie Brown opens his bag to report 'I got a rock', ending the night with only rocks; meanwhile Snoopy, as the World War I Flying Ace, battles the Red Baron.
Q 29Who provides Jack Skellington's singing voice in 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'?
Danny Elfman
Danny Elfman sings every one of Jack's numbers and wrote the songs; Chris Sarandon handles the spoken lines, and the two voices were matched so closely most viewers never notice.
Q 30'The Nightmare Before Christmas' was the first animated film nominated for which Oscar?
Best Visual Effects
Its 1994 nomination for Best Visual Effects was the first for an animated feature; Disney released the film under its Touchstone label, worried the Gothic look was too scary for children.