Lawrence of Arabia Trivia
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49 free Lawrence of Arabia trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Lawrence of Arabia is nearly four hours long, has no female speaking roles, and is still routinely voted the greatest British film ever made. This quiz covers it from the motorcycle crash that opens the picture to the car ride out of Damascus that closes it: the well, the Nefud crossing, Gasim, the fall of Aqaba, Deraa, Tafas and the collapse of the Arab Council, along with the actors behind Feisal, Auda, Allenby, Dryden and the Turkish Bey. The production questions are where it gets fun. Who was David Lean's first choice for Lawrence before Peter O'Toole? Why did Alain Delon turn down Sherif Ali? Which Spanish city doubled for Cairo, Jerusalem and Damascus, what did the Bedouin extras nickname O'Toole, and how many weeks did Maurice Jarre get to write two hours of music? There are questions on the seven Oscars, the record-setting UK run, the 1989 director's cut and the 8K restoration, plus a handful on the real T. E. Lawrence: where he was born, the alias he used to join the RAF, and the motorcycle he died on. Easy questions suit anyone who has seen the film once; the expert tier is for people who own the Blu-ray steelbook. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the film, its cast and T. E. Lawrence, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed the 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia?
David Lean
David Lean. He had scouted locations in India for a film about Gandhi with the same producer, Sam Spiegel, then dropped it and turned to T. E. Lawrence instead.
Q 02Which actor plays Prince Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia?
Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness. He had just played T. E. Lawrence himself on the London stage, in the 1960 play Ross, before taking the part of the prince.
Q 03Lawrence of Arabia is based on T. E. Lawrence's life and which 1926 book?
Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Lawrence said he lost most of the first draft while changing trains at Reading station in 1919 and had to rewrite it from memory.
Q 04Who beat Lawrence of Arabia's Peter O'Toole to the 1963 Best Actor Oscar?
Gregory Peck
Gregory Peck won for playing Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, so Lawrence of Arabia took seven Oscars, Best Picture among them, without one for its acting.
Q 05Who composed the famous score for Lawrence of Arabia?
Maurice Jarre
Maurice Jarre got the job only after William Walton and Malcolm Arnold fell through, and the score won him the first of his three Oscars.
Q 06Which cinematographer shot Lawrence of Arabia in Super Panavision 70?
Freddie Young
Freddie Young. To film a rider emerging from a mirage, he brought back from Panavision an extra-long telephoto lens that could shoot the shimmer in close-up.
Q 07Which playwright was hired to rewrite Michael Wilson's first draft of Lawrence of Arabia as a character study?
Robert Bolt
Robert Bolt. Midway through the script he was jailed over an anti-nuclear protest, and producer Sam Spiegel pressed him to sign his way out and finish it.
Q 08Lawrence of Arabia opens in 1935 with T. E. Lawrence dying how?
In a motorcycle accident
In a motorcycle accident. One of the doctors who treated him, Hugh Cairns, was so affected that he began the research that led to crash helmets for riders.
Q 09The memorial service that opens Lawrence of Arabia takes place at which building?
St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral. On its steps the reporter Bentley praises Lawrence for the record, then mutters that he was the most shameless exhibitionist since Barnum and Bailey.
Q 10In Lawrence of Arabia, Sherif Ali shoots Lawrence's guide Tafas for doing what?
Drinking from his well
Drinking from his well. The actor playing Ali had first screen-tested as Tafas, the guide his character guns down.
Q 11In Lawrence of Arabia, which desert must Lawrence's force cross to attack Aqaba from the landward side?
The Nefud
The Nefud. Aqaba's guns face the sea and cannot be turned round, Lawrence argues, so nobody will be watching the desert behind the town.
Q 12Lawrence of Arabia's most famous edit cuts from Lawrence blowing out what to a desert sunrise?
A match
A match. Moments earlier Lawrence snuffs one out with his bare fingers and tells a soldier who copies him that the trick is not minding that it hurts.
Q 13In Lawrence of Arabia, what does Lawrence promise the Howeitat leader Auda to bring him into the attack on Aqaba?
A Turkish gold hoard
Q 21Which then little-known actor passed an elaborate screen test to play Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia but turned the part down?
Albert Finney
Albert Finney. He shone in a lavish screen test, then walked away rather than sign the multi-year contract that producer Sam Spiegel wanted.
Q 22Noël Coward quipped that if Peter O'Toole were any prettier, Lawrence of Arabia would have been called what?
Florence of Arabia
Florence of Arabia. Coward said it to O'Toole after the premiere; the director had been just as taken, settling on the little-known actor after a single screen test.
Q 23Which actor was first sought for Prince Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia but never played the part?
Laurence Olivier
A Turkish gold hoard. Auda finds only paper money in the captured garrison, so Lawrence writes him a promissory note and rides to Cairo to fetch real gold.
Q 14In Lawrence of Arabia, how does Daud, one of Lawrence's two young servants, die?
Drowned in quicksand
Drowned in quicksand. Lawrence tells Allenby he killed the boy by leading him into it, and later shoots the other servant, Farraj, himself to spare him capture.
Q 15In Lawrence of Arabia, the American journalist Jackson Bentley is based on which real reporter?
Lowell Thomas
Lowell Thomas. His films and lectures made Lawrence world famous, and he is often credited with the barb that Lawrence had a genius for backing into the limelight.
Q 16In Lawrence of Arabia, Dryden reveals which secret Anglo-French agreement to carve up the Middle East?
Sykes-Picot
Sykes-Picot. The film has Lawrence learn of it late and feel betrayed, but his authorised biographer argues he knew its terms by early 1917, before Aqaba fell.
Q 17Which actor plays the Howeitat chief Auda Abu Tayi in Lawrence of Arabia?
Anthony Quinn
Anthony Quinn. His Auda fights for whoever pays, a portrait the real chief's descendants resented enough to sue Columbia Pictures.
Q 18Which actor makes his entrance in Lawrence of Arabia riding out of a mirage?
Omar Sharif
Omar Sharif. Already a star of Arabic-language cinema, he had never made an English-language film; this one brought him an Oscar nomination and the lead in Doctor Zhivago.
Q 19In Lawrence of Arabia, which actor plays the Turkish Bey who has Lawrence beaten at Deraa?
José Ferrer
José Ferrer. The scene follows Lawrence's own account of being captured and beaten at Deraa, which some of his biographers accept and others say never happened.
Q 20In Lawrence of Arabia, which veteran of Casablanca plays Mr Dryden of the Arab Bureau?
Claude Rains
Claude Rains. Dryden never existed: the screenplay rolls several real British officials and scholars into one smooth civilian who speaks for the politicians.
Laurence Olivier. The producer announced he was negotiating with him for the prince, but in 1962 Olivier instead opened the Chichester Festival Theatre as its first director.
Q 24Which blue-eyed French star tested for Sherif Ali in Lawrence of Arabia but balked at wearing brown contact lenses?
Alain Delon
Alain Delon. With Horst Buchholz already committed to a Billy Wilder comedy and Delon out, the part went to a newcomer to English-language film.
Q 25Lawrence of Arabia reunited the director and producer of which earlier Best Picture winner?
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai. Both films won seven Oscars, and blacklisted writer Michael Wilson worked on both without screen credit; the Academy recognised him for each decades later.
Q 26The real Prince Faisal of Lawrence of Arabia, driven from Syria by France, became the first king of which modern country?
Iraq
Iraq. To ease resistance to its rule there, Britain sponsored Faisal for the new throne, and he was crowned in Baghdad in 1921.
Q 27Lawrence of Arabia runs nearly four hours without a single speaking part for whom?
Women
Women. They are glimpsed only as extras in crowd scenes, since the script never leaves the soldiers, tribesmen and officials fighting the desert war.
Q 28In Lawrence of Arabia, Lawrence's desert trek to Cairo ends when a ship seems to glide through the dunes on what?
The Suez Canal
The Suez Canal. A rider on the far bank shouts 'Who are you?' across the water, and Lawrence, still in his Arab robes, stands silent.
Q 29Before shooting Lawrence of Arabia, its director reportedly studied which John Ford western for ideas?
The Searchers
The Searchers. Ethan Edwards riding in across the prairie is echoed in Sherif Ali's long ride in across the desert, and the film uses its red-rock valley much as Ford used Monument Valley.
Q 30Lawrence of Arabia was first meant to be shot entirely in which country, whose king visited the set several times?
Jordan
Jordan. King Hussein let his soldiers work as extras and in 1961 married Toni Gardiner, who had run the production's switchboard.