It's a Wonderful Life
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109 free It's a Wonderful Life trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
57 free It's a Wonderful Life trivia questions with answers. It's a Wonderful Life trivia is a Christmas Eve ritual in a lot of households, usually argued over during the commercial breaks. This quiz covers the whole film: George and Mary, Uncle Billy's lost $8,000, Harry's Medal of Honor, Clarence earning his wings, and the nightmare town without George. It also goes behind the camera. There are questions on the short story Frank Capra started from, the stars who nearly played the leads, the invention of quiet fake snow, the FBI memo that called the film Communist propaganda, and the clerical error that let it lapse into the public domain and become a television fixture. Roughly a third of the questions are easy enough for anyone who has seen the film once; the rest get progressively harder, ending with a handful only real devotees will get. Every answer was checked against a primary source before publication, and each explanation adds one more detail you can hand back at the dinner table.
30 of 109 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actor plays George Bailey?
James Stewart
James Stewart had just come home from wartime service, and he agreed to play George before Capra had managed to sell him on the story.
Q 02What is the name of the guardian angel sent to save George Bailey?
Clarence Odbody
Clarence Odbody saves him by jumping into the river first: he knew George would dive in to rescue a drowning stranger instead of ending his own life.
Q 03According to George Bailey's youngest daughter, what happens every time a bell rings?
An angel gets his wings
An angel gets his wings, she says, as a bell on the family Christmas tree rings: the sign that George's guardian angel has finally earned his.
Q 04In which fictional New York town is It's a Wonderful Life set?
Bedford Falls
Bedford Falls is the town George Bailey spends his life trying to leave: college, a world tour and even his honeymoon all fall through when the family firm needs him.
Q 05In the world where George Bailey was never born, what is his hometown called?
Pottersville
Pottersville takes its name from the man who now owns everything in it, and its main street has turned to bars, pool halls and pawnshops.
Q 06Which actor plays Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life?
Lionel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore could no longer walk unaided by 1946, so the film's villain runs the town from a wheelchair pushed by a silent attendant.
Q 07Which actress plays Mary Hatch Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life?
Donna Reed
Donna Reed, borrowed from MGM, got the part only after Capra's first choice for Mary proved unavailable.
Q 08What is Mr. Gower's job in It's a Wonderful Life?
Pharmacist
Pharmacist. Mr. Gower gives young George his after-school job at the soda fountain, and years later picks out a suitcase himself as a present for the trip George never takes.
Q 09How much of the Building and Loan's cash does Uncle Billy lose on Christmas Eve?
$8,000
$8,000 is the sum that vanishes, enough to mean scandal and prison for George; by nightfall the townspeople have filled a basket with more than enough to save him.
Q 10How does Uncle Billy lose the Building and Loan's cash?
He wraps it inside Potter's newspaper
He wraps it inside Potter's newspaper while gloating over a front-page story about his war-hero nephew; Potter finds the envelope, says nothing and keeps it.
Q 11George's brother Harry receives the Medal of Honor for what wartime act?
Stopping a kamikaze attack on a troopship
Stopping a kamikaze attack on a troopship: Navy flier Harry shoots down two planes about to hit a transport full of soldiers, men who all die in the world where George never saved him.
Q 12What lasting injury does young George Bailey suffer after pulling his brother from a frozen pond?
Deafness in his left ear
Deafness in his left ear, from an infection after the icy rescue; it later gets him classed 4-F, so he sits out the war at home as an air-raid warden.
Q 13Which short story by Philip Van Doren Stern is It's a Wonderful Life based on?
Q 21Which film beat It's a Wonderful Life to the top prize at the 1947 Oscars?
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Best Years of Our Lives swept the night, and its director, William Wyler, was a co-founder of the company that made Capra's film: Capra lost to his own business partner.
Q 22Which US network bought exclusive TV rights in 1994 and airs the film every Christmas Eve?
NBC
For a while in the late 1990s the network also ran it on Thanksgiving, but ratings were poor and the National Dog Show took the slot.
Q 23Which upstate New York town says it inspired the film's setting and holds an It's a Wonderful Life festival?
Seneca Falls
The Greatest Gift
The Greatest Gift found no publisher, so Stern printed it himself and mailed it to friends as a Christmas card in 1943; one copy found its way to a Hollywood studio.
Q 14On their walk home from the dance, what does George Bailey offer to lasso for Mary?
The moon
The moon. Mary later sets out a picture captioned 'George Lassos the Moon' when he comes to call, and it hangs on their bedroom wall once they are married.
Q 15RKO first bought the story behind It's a Wonderful Life as a vehicle for which star?
Cary Grant
Cary Grant never got to play George: RKO shelved the project after several failed scripts, and he made another Christmas favourite, The Bishop's Wife, instead.
Q 16Which book does the angel leave George, inscribed 'Remember, no man is a failure who has friends'?
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the book the angel carries down from Heaven and hangs up to dry after the river rescue; he leaves it on the pile of donated cash.
Q 17In the world where George Bailey was never born, what job does Mary have?
Librarian
Librarian. Without George, Mary never marries; he finds her locking up the town library, and she screams when this stranger insists he is her husband.
Q 18Before It's a Wonderful Life, movie snow was usually made from which cereal, too noisy for live sound?
Cornflakes
Cornflakes, painted white, crunched so loudly that dialogue had to be dubbed later, so RKO's effects team mixed a quiet foam snow for Capra and won an Academy technical award for it.
Q 19Which song does the crowd in the Baileys' living room sing as It's a Wonderful Life ends?
Auld Lang Syne
Auld Lang Syne. The townspeople strike it up right after Harry arrives through the snow and raises a toast to his big brother, moments before the bell on the tree rings.
Q 20After its copyright lapsed in 1974, what turned It's a Wonderful Life into a Christmas classic?
Repeated TV broadcasts
Repeated TV broadcasts. Stations took the film to be free to show, and so many ran it each December that a box-office disappointment became a holiday fixture.
Seneca Falls fills every December with events built on the claim, yet the town seen on screen was a four-acre set with a 300-yard main street, built in California.
Q 24A 1947 FBI memo called It's a Wonderful Life a possible Communist trick for trying to discredit which group?
Bankers
Bankers. The memo complained that Mr. Potter had been written as the most hated man in the picture, and that making the rich look mean was a common Communist trick.
Q 25Which actor plays George Bailey's guardian angel?
Henry Travers
Henry Travers. Heaven's own verdict on his character is that he has 'the I.Q. of a rabbit' but 'the faith of a child', and on the strength of the second he is sent to save George.
Q 26What becomes of Mr. Potter by the end of It's a Wonderful Life?
He gets away with it
He gets away with it. Potter is last seen snarling 'Happy New Year to you, in jail!' as George runs past his window, and the film ends with his own crime never found out.
Q 27Which drink does George Bailey's guardian angel order in a bar, 'heavy on the cinnamon and light on the cloves'?
Mulled wine
Mulled wine. The bartender snaps that he serves hard drinks for men who want to get drunk fast, and throws the pair out when the angel gives his age as 293.
Q 28In the nightmare world without George Bailey, what has become of Mr. Gower?
He was jailed for manslaughter
He was jailed for manslaughter: with no young George to catch the fatal mistake he made in his grief over his son's death, he served twenty years and came out a drunk.
Q 29Which 1844 song do George and Mary sing together on their walk home from the school dance?
Buffalo Gals
Buffalo Gals becomes the couple's theme: Mary puts the record on when George comes calling years later, then smashes it when the visit turns sour.
Q 30Which legendary director played Mr. Potter in It Happened One Christmas, the 1977 TV remake of It's a Wonderful Life?
Orson Welles
Orson Welles. The remake flipped the story's sexes: Marlo Thomas's Mary is the one who wishes she had never been born, and her guardian angel is a woman, played by Cloris Leachman.