50 free John Williams trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This John Williams trivia quiz covers the composer of the most famous film scores in history, from his jazz-drummer father in Queens to his honorary knighthood at 90. The early questions deal with his Air Force years, his piano lessons at Juilliard, his session work for Mancini and Bernstein, his television themes for Lost in Space and Gilligan's Island, and the disaster movies that made his name in the early 1970s. The heart of the quiz is the great collaborations: the lunch with a 'seventeen-year-old kid' named Spielberg, the two notes that made Spielberg laugh, the five-note signal of Close Encounters, the Raiders March, E.T., Jurassic Park and the score he thought he was not good enough to write for Schindler's List; then Star Wars and its Holst and Korngold roots, the Imperial March, Superman's three-note motif, Hedwig's Theme, NBC's 'The Mission' and the Olympic fanfares. The last questions cover the Boston Pops, the concertos for Yo-Yo Ma and Anne-Sophie Mutter, the Obama inauguration piece, the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic debuts, and the awards, including 54 Oscar nominations, second only to Walt Disney. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on Williams and his best-known scores.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which New York borough was John Williams born in 1932?
Queens
His father Johnny Williams was a jazz drummer with the Raymond Scott Quintet; the family moved to Los Angeles in 1948.
Q 02What did Williams's father do for a living?
Jazz drummer
Johnny Williams collaborated with Bernard Herrmann, and his son sometimes joined him at rehearsals.
Q 03Which branch of the military did Williams join in 1951, playing piano and arranging for its band?
The Air Force
He was stationed in Tucson and then in St. John's, Newfoundland, where he wrote his first film music for a tourism promotion.
Q 04With which famous teacher did Williams study piano at Juilliard in 1955?
Rosina Lhévinne
He took private lessons rather than enrolling, and switched to composition after hearing John Browning and Van Cliburn play.
Q 05Williams played the piano part in the famous title theme of which Henry Mancini television series?
Peter Gunn
As a session pianist he also recorded Breakfast at Tiffany's, Charade, To Kill a Mockingbird and West Side Story.
Q 06Under what first name did John Williams release early jazz albums such as Jazz Beginnings?
Johnny
He also worked as arranger and bandleader on pop albums with Ray Vasquez and Frankie Laine.
Q 07Which producer's series Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants did Williams score in the 1960s?
Irwin Allen
He also scored the pilot of Gilligan's Island and later Allen's disaster films The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno and Earthquake.
Q 08Williams's first Academy Award nomination came for which 1967 film?
Valley of the Dolls
He was nominated again for Goodbye, Mr. Chips in 1969 and won his first Oscar for adapting Fiddler on the Roof in 1971.
Q 09Williams's first Oscar was for adapting the score of which 1971 musical?
Fiddler on the Roof
The award was for Best Scoring: Adaptation and Original Song Score; the original music was Jerry Bock's.
Q 10Which 1974 film was Williams's first collaboration with the director he called 'this seventeen-year-old kid'?
The Sugarland Express
Spielberg, whom Williams remembered as 'this seventeen-year-old kid', had been impressed by his scores for The Reivers and The Cowboys.
Q 11How did Spielberg react when Williams first played him the two-note Jaws theme on the piano?
He thought it was a joke
After hearing the idea at different speeds, Spielberg conceded that 'sometimes the best ideas are the most simple ones'.
Q 12The Jaws shark theme is an ostinato alternating which two notes?
E and F
The low-strings figure was performed by tuba player Tommy Johnson; Williams has said it derives from Ravel's La valse.
Q 13Which Williams score did Spielberg use as a temp track while editing Jaws?
Images
Williams named his Images score, written for Robert Altman with a debt to Varèse, as a personal favourite.
Q 21Which composer scored Spielberg's The Color Purple, one of few Spielberg features Williams did not score?
Quincy Jones
Thomas Newman later took over Bridge of Spies when Williams had a minor health issue in 2015.
Q 22Who recommended Williams to George Lucas for his 1977 space opera?
Steven Spielberg
Williams's symphonic score drew on Dvořák, Holst's The Planets and Golden Age Hollywood composers Steiner and Korngold.
Q 23Which theme did Williams introduce in The Empire Strikes Back for Darth Vader and the Galactic Empire?
The Imperial March
The same score added Yoda's Theme and 'Han Solo and the Princess'; the Emperor's Theme came in Return of the Jedi.
Q 14How many notes make up the famous alien communication motif in Close Encounters of the Third Kind?
Five
Williams later realised the surprise of the last two notes comes because the first three are already resolved.
Q 15What did Williams call the theme he wrote for Indiana Jones in the hero's first film?
The Raiders March
He also wrote themes for the Ark itself, for Marion Ravenwood and for the Nazi villains.
Q 16Spielberg liked Williams's cue for E.T.'s climactic chase so much that he did what?
Re-edited the film to match the score
The score won Williams his second Oscar for Best Original Score.
Q 17When Williams said Spielberg needed 'a better composer' for Schindler's List, what did Spielberg reply?
'I know, but they're all dead'
Williams asked Itzhak Perlman to play the main theme, and the score won his fourth Oscar for Best Original Score.
Q 18Which violinist performs the main theme of Schindler's List?
Itzhak Perlman
Williams later wrote his Violin Concerto No. 2 for Anne-Sophie Mutter, who recorded his film themes on the album Across the Stars.
Q 19For which Spielberg film did Williams write a national anthem for the fictional country of Krakozhia?
The Terminal
His jazz-inspired Catch Me If You Can score two years earlier nodded to Henry Mancini.
Q 20Which Spielberg film was Williams's first score for an animated feature?
The Adventures of Tintin
He used 1920s European jazz for the credits and 'pirate music' for the sea battles, and won an Annie Award.
Q 24What cameo role does Williams play in the ninth episode of the Skywalker saga, The Rise of Skywalker?
A bartender on Kijimi
His character is named Oma Tres; he had said the ninth film would 'round out a series of nine, that will be quite enough for me'.
Q 25Which ensemble recorded the original 1977 Lucas space-opera score?
The London Symphony Orchestra
The Library of Congress later added the score to the National Recording Registry.
Q 26Richard Donner said his 1978 superhero film's three-note theme motif musically evoked what?
The word 'Superman'
He ran onto the soundstage during the demo shouting 'The music actually says Superman!', and Williams agreed 'there's everything to that'.
Q 27Which was Alfred Hitchcock's final film, scored by Williams in 1976?
Family Plot
Hitchcock's one instruction was to remember that 'murder can be fun'.
Q 28What is the name of the news music package Williams wrote for NBC in 1985?
The Mission
Two of its four movements are still used on Today, NBC Nightly News and Meet the Press.
Q 29How many Harry Potter films did Williams score?
Three
His Hedwig's Theme was used in every later film; David Yates wanted him back for the finale but the schedules did not align.
Q 30Hedwig's Theme opens with a solo on which instrument?
Celesta
The bell-like keyboard sets up the main theme on which the rest of the piece is built.