Les Misérables (2012 Film)
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50 free Les Misérables (2012 Film) trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The 2012 screen version of Les Misérables took one of the best-loved stage musicals ever written and turned it into a two-and-a-half-hour epic of close-ups, mud and tears. It was a box-office hit and an awards-season fixture, and it started arguments that have never quite ended: viewers still disagree about some of the singing. This quiz covers the whole production. There are questions on the story, from the convict's parole to the barricade and beyond; on who played whom, and who nearly did; on how the numbers were filmed; and on the locations, the awards night and the parodies that followed. It is written for anyone who has seen the film, whether once at the cinema or a dozen times at home. Musical-theatre devotees will find a few deep cuts, but most questions can be worked out by a viewer who was paying attention, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The barricade battle in the 2012 film Les Misérables is based on which real Paris uprising?
The June Rebellion
The June Rebellion of 1832 was a two-day republican rising put down by the army, more than forty years after the French Revolution that many viewers assume the film shows.
Q 02How were the songs in the 2012 film Les Misérables recorded, unlike most movie musicals?
Sung live on set
Sung live on set, the vocals followed a piano played through earpieces, and a 70-piece orchestra was recorded only after filming had finished.
Q 03Which actress had her real hair cut off on camera to play Fantine in the 2012 film Les Misérables?
Anne Hathaway
Anne Hathaway first fell for the stage at eight, watching her own mother play Fantine in the first US national tour of the musical.
Q 04Which pop star was reported in January 2012 to have been offered a role in the film Les Misérables?
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift later said the reports were not entirely accurate, and the part of the innkeepers' daughter went to a West End actress who had already played it on stage.
Q 05For the 2012 film Les Misérables, crews built a replica of which Bastille monument in Greenwich?
A giant elephant
A giant elephant really stood at the Bastille: Napoleon wanted it cast in bronze, but only a full-size plaster model was ever built.
Q 06On which holiday did the 2012 film Les Misérables open in the US, moved to avoid The Hobbit?
Christmas Day
Christmas Day brought an $18.1 million opening, then a record first day for a musical, even with Django Unchained arriving in cinemas on the same date.
Q 07Which star gave up a part in Django Unchained to play Thénardier in the 2012 film Les Misérables?
Sacha Baron Cohen
Sacha Baron Cohen had to abandon his Django Unchained commitment to play the swindling innkeeper, then saw both movies open in US cinemas on the very same date.
Q 08Which prisoner number is Jean Valjean in the stage show and its 2012 film Les Misérables?
24601
24601 is what Javert keeps calling him, and it was the novelist's private code: he believed he had been conceived on a date he wrote as 24-6-01.
Q 09Which Best Picture winner beat the 2012 film Les Misérables despite its director not being nominated?
Argo
Argo was the first Best Picture winner since Driving Miss Daisy whose director missed a nomination; the musical left the same ceremony with three Oscars.
Q 10Which Sesame Street character starred as Jean Bom-Bom in a 2014 parody of the film Les Misérables?
Cookie Monster
Cookie Monster's sketch was called Les Mousserables, and it borrowed the film's own costume and set designs for its puppets.
Q 11Colm Wilkinson, the stage's original Jean Valjean, plays which character in the 2012 film Les Misérables?
The Bishop of Digne
The Bishop of Digne forgives Valjean for taking his silver, and the film brings him back in the final scene to welcome the dying hero.
Q 12Which office does Jean Valjean hold as a factory owner in the 2012 film Les Misérables?
Mayor
Mayor of a northern town is his respectable new identity, until Javert arrives as its chief of police and starts to suspect who he really is.
Q 13Why is Fantine dismissed from her factory job in the 2012 film Les Misérables?
She has a secret child
Q 21Which actor played Inspector Javert in the 2012 film Les Misérables, drawing criticism for his singing?
Russell Crowe
Russell Crowe prepared by visiting the novelist's Paris home, where the curator told him about Vidocq, a real convict who became a detective.
Q 22Which actor played Marius in the 2012 film Les Misérables, a year after My Week with Marilyn?
Eddie Redmayne
Eddie Redmayne talked the director into letting his big lament for dead comrades begin with no accompaniment at all, to bring out the guilt.
Q 23Which actress played the adult Cosette in the 2012 film Les Misérables after an open casting call?
Amanda Seyfried
She has a secret child, Cosette, boarded with innkeepers who keep demanding money; once the wages stop she sells her hair and then her teeth.
Q 14How does Javert die in the 2012 film Les Misérables after allowing Jean Valjean to escape?
Jumps into the Seine
Javert jumps into the Seine after choosing compassion over the law, a contradiction his rigid sense of duty cannot survive.
Q 15How does Jean Valjean carry the wounded Marius from the barricade in the 2012 film Les Misérables?
Through the sewers
Through the sewers is the only way out, and Javert is waiting at the exit; seeing how near Marius is to death, he steps aside.
Q 16Which street urchin unmasks Javert as a police spy at the barricade in the 2012 film Les Misérables?
Gavroche
Gavroche was played by a boy who had already spent a year in the same role on the London stage before the cameras rolled.
Q 17Which character takes a bullet for Marius at the barricade in the 2012 film Les Misérables?
Éponine
Éponine dies in his arms after handing over the letter from Cosette that she had kept back from him.
Q 18What does Jean Valjean do when the rebels let him execute Javert in the 2012 film Les Misérables?
Releases him unharmed
Releases him unharmed, while letting the students believe the shot was fatal; the inspector cannot make sense of being spared.
Q 19Which celebration do the Thénardiers gatecrash to blackmail Marius in the 2012 film Les Misérables?
A wedding reception
A wedding reception, for Marius and Cosette, where the blackmail backfires by revealing that Valjean was the stranger who saved the groom's life.
Q 20Which actor earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination as Jean Valjean in the 2012 film Les Misérables?
Hugh Jackman
Hugh Jackman had asked the director for the part before production even began, then trained a voice he classed as baritone up into the tenor range.
Amanda Seyfried's casting was confirmed by a co-star, who mentioned it in an interview in January 2012, days after reports that she had been offered the part.
Q 24Who played Madame Thénardier in the 2012 film Les Misérables after playing a queen for its director?
Helena Bonham Carter
Helena Bonham Carter had already shared a film musical with the actor playing her husband: both appeared in Sweeney Todd in 2007.
Q 25Who played the Thénardiers' daughter in the 2012 film Les Misérables after playing her in the West End?
Samantha Barks
Samantha Barks got the news in public: the film's producer walked on during her curtain call in a touring musical and announced it to the audience.
Q 26Which director made the 2012 film Les Misérables as his follow-up to the Oscar-winning The King's Speech?
Tom Hooper
Tom Hooper turned down the chance to direct Iron Man 3 so that he could make the musical instead.
Q 27Which French author wrote the 1862 novel that inspired the 2012 film Les Misérables?
Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo heard the gunfire of the 1832 uprising himself while writing in a Paris garden, and sheltered between columns as barricades went up around him.
Q 28Which producer of the original London stage show also produced the 2012 film Les Misérables?
Cameron Mackintosh
Cameron Mackintosh announced in 1992 that TriStar Pictures would co-produce a screen version, but that project was abandoned and the film took two more decades to arrive.
Q 29Aaron Tveit auditioned for Marius but was cast as which student leader in the 2012 film Les Misérables?
Enjolras
Enjolras suited him better, he decided after reading the novel, even though he had never performed any part in the musical before.
Q 30Which Fantine ballad from the 2012 film Les Misérables led the teaser trailer?
I Dreamed a Dream
I Dreamed a Dream drew comparisons with Jennifer Hudson's showstopper in Dreamgirls, and one review predicted the scene would almost certainly win its singer an Oscar.