King Kong Trivia
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47 free King Kong trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This King Kong trivia quiz covers nine decades of the giant ape, from Merian C. Cooper's 1933 original to the MonsterVerse. The easy questions ask which building Kong climbs, who screamed as Ann Darrow, what the last line of the 1933 film is, which twin towers replaced the Empire State Building in 1976 and who directed the 2005 remake. From there it moves through the making of the films: the stop-motion puppets, the man inside the 1976 ape suit, the New Zealand theatres that stood in for Broadway and the Japanese studio that pitted Kong against Godzilla. The hard end is for people who own the Criterion disc: the hoax gorilla documentary that convinced RKO to greenlight Kong, the writer credited with a screenplay he barely started, the Komodo dragon book that inspired the whole idea, the copyright slip that put the story in the public domain, the Donkey Kong lawsuit Universal lost, the albino Little Kong and the largest puppet ever built for the stage. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries on the character, the franchise, the 1933, 1976 and 2005 films, Son of Kong, King Kong vs. Godzilla, King Kong Escapes, Kong: Skull Island, Godzilla vs. Kong, Fay Wray, Merian C. Cooper and Willis O'Brien before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Godzilla, classic monster movies and Peter Jackson quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In the original 1933 film, Kong makes his last stand on top of which New York skyscraper?
The Empire State Building
The Empire State Building. Kong was scaled up by a third for the climb, because the filmmakers feared that at his jungle size he would look like a bug on it.
Q 02Which actress played Ann Darrow, the 'golden woman' offered to Kong, in the 1933 film?
Fay Wray
Fay Wray. She spent 22 hours straight on a fake tree limb, reacting to the already filmed fight between Kong and a dinosaur projected beside her.
Q 03What is Carl Denham's famous last line in the 1933 King Kong?
'It was Beauty killed the Beast.'
Denham's closing line, 'It was Beauty killed the Beast.', answers a policeman who credits the airplanes and caps the beauty-and-the-beast theme the film was built around.
Q 04The 1933 King Kong was directed and produced by Ernest B. Schoedsack and which other filmmaker?
Merian C. Cooper
Merian C. Cooper. He told the screenwriter to 'put us in it', and the showman Carl Denham is generally taken to be modelled on Cooper himself.
Q 05Which stop-motion pioneer, later Ray Harryhausen's mentor, animated Kong and the dinosaurs for the 1933 film?
Willis O'Brien
Willis O'Brien. The studio had just scrapped his dinosaur film Creation, so its leftover models were put to work on Skull Island instead.
Q 06Roughly how tall was the stop-motion model that played the towering Kong in the 1933 film?
18 inches
18 inches. For close-ups the crew also built a full-size head and a giant hand that could close around the lead actress and lift her off the floor.
Q 07King Kong opened in New York two days before which US president was first inaugurated?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt. He closed the nation's banks within days, so the Hollywood premiere was delayed and ticket prices were cut, yet the film still gave its ailing studio a major boost.
Q 08An explorer's 1927 book about which animals helped inspire the monsters of King Kong's Skull Island?
Komodo dragons
Komodo dragons. After reading W. Douglas Burden's The Dragon Lizards of Komodo, the film's co-creator wrote that he set out to 'giantize' both a gorilla and Burden's dragons.
Q 09Who played Ann Darrow in the 2005 King Kong?
Naomi Watts
Naomi Watts. The actress who first played Ann was asked to make a cameo and flatly refused, then seemed to come round, but she died at 96 before shooting began.
Q 10Which thriller writer got story credit on King Kong despite dying soon after a rough draft?
Edgar Wallace
Edgar Wallace. The studio wanted his best-selling name on the posters, though the film's co-creator complained that almost none of the script was his.
Q 11Kong's animator had already animated dinosaurs for a 1925 film of which Arthur Conan Doyle novel?
The Lost World
The Lost World. Its 1925 film also ends with a prehistoric beast shipped home and running loose in a modern city, eight years before Kong did the same.
Q 12Who composed the score for the 1933 King Kong?
Max Steiner
Max Steiner. The studio wanted old music recycled to save money, but the film's co-director insisted on a new score and offered to pay for it out of his own pocket.
Q 13The 1933 King Kong premiered on 2 March 1933 at the RKO Roxy and which other New York venue?
Radio City Music Hall
Q 21The 1976 King Kong remake swapped the original's climactic skyscraper for which then-new landmark?
The World Trade Center
The World Trade Center's twin towers, then only a few years old, host the remake's finale: Kong leaps from one tower to the other before helicopter gunships shoot him down.
Q 22Which producer, famous for lavish spectacles, made the 1976 King Kong?
Dino De Laurentiis
Dino De Laurentiis. He snapped up the remake rights while Universal thought it had a deal, and the two sides sued each other before Universal dropped its rival film.
Q 23The 1976 King Kong remake launched the screen career of which actress, who played the castaway Dwan?
Jessica Lange
Radio City Music Hall. Sharing the film with the RKO Roxy, it helped take $90,000 over the opening weekend, even as banks across the country were shutting their doors.
Q 14Which body's National Film Registry added King Kong in 1991?
Library of Congress
Library of Congress. By then scenes that censors had cut, of Kong biting and trampling villagers, had turned up again after years thought lost.
Q 15In the 1933 sequel Son of Kong, what does Denham find on his return to Skull Island?
A giant albino gorilla
A giant albino gorilla, nicknamed Little Kong, befriends Denham and drowns holding him above the waves when an earthquake sinks the island.
Q 16King Kong's original leading lady was born on a ranch in which country?
Canada
Canada. Born near Cardston, Alberta, she was taken south as a small child, and Canada claimed her back after her death with a Walk of Fame star and a postage stamp.
Q 17A co-director of King Kong (1933) once founded a volunteer air squadron for which country's war against Soviet Russia?
Poland
Poland. His volunteer Kościuszko Squadron flew against the Bolsheviks until he was shot down in 1920; he escaped from a Soviet prison camp and received Poland's highest military decoration.
Q 18The animator of the 1933 King Kong received his only Oscar for the effects of which 1949 film?
Mighty Joe Young
Mighty Joe Young. The effects Oscar crowned the veteran's career, yet most of the ape's animation was done by his young assistant, Ray Harryhausen.
Q 19Which Japanese studio made King Kong vs. Godzilla in 1962?
Toho
Toho made King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) after producer John Beck brought it a treatment in which Kong fought a giant Frankenstein monster; the Japanese studio swapped in Godzilla.
Q 20In King Kong Escapes (1967), what is the name of the robot double that Kong fights in Tokyo?
Mechani-Kong
Mechani-Kong. The robot and its maker, the mad scientist Dr. Who, were lifted from a Saturday-morning cartoon, The King Kong Show, on which the film was loosely based.
Jessica Lange. A fashion model with no acting credits, she got the part after the producer turned down Meryl Streep, and won a Golden Globe as best newcomer.
Q 24Which makeup artist wore the ape suit and played Kong for most of the 1976 film?
Rick Baker
Rick Baker. He was hired only to build a back-up suit, but the full-size animatronic ape kept failing, so he ended up playing Kong for almost the whole film.
Q 25In the 1976 King Kong, who mounts the expedition that discovers the ape's island?
An oil company
An oil company, Petrox, sends the expedition to an island hidden under a permanent cloud bank; when its oil proves useless, the executive ships Kong home as a publicity stunt instead.
Q 26Which future Best Actor winner played the hero of the 1976 King Kong?
Jeff Bridges
Jeff Bridges. His character is a primate scientist who stows away on the expedition ship because he wants to warn the crew off the island.
Q 27Who directed the 2005 remake of King Kong?
Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson. He calls the 1933 film his favourite and tried to remake it as a boy, with a home-movie camera and his own stop-motion models.
Q 28Who provided the motion-capture performance for Kong in the 2005 film?
Andy Serkis
Andy Serkis. He studied real gorillas so that this Kong would move like a silverback, on its knuckles, and he also appears in the flesh as the ship's cook.
Q 29Which comedy star played the obsessed filmmaker Carl Denham in the 2005 King Kong?
Jack Black
Jack Black. In one of his few dramatic roles he based the performance on Orson Welles, the model the writers had in mind for their Denham.
Q 30The 2005 King Kong won three Academy Awards, for Best Visual Effects and which two others?
Sound Editing and Sound Mixing
Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. The soundtrack was a race: the first composer left two months before release, and his replacement wrote and recorded nearly three hours of music in about five weeks.