60 free Marcello Mastroianni trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Marcello Mastroianni trivia quiz covers Italy's most iconic leading man from the carpenter's son of Fontana Liri to the darkened Trevi Fountain of December 1996: the escape from a German camp, Big Deal on Madonna Street, La Dolce Vita and 8½ with Fellini, Divorce Italian Style, White Nights, La Notte, The 10th Victim, City of Women, Ginger and Fred and Dark Eyes. It also covers the eleven films with Sophia Loren, the three Oscar nominations and two Cannes prizes, Faye Dunaway and Catherine Deneuve, his daughters Barbara and Chiara, the wife he never divorced, his late roles for Tornatore, Angelopoulos and Altman, and the honours Italy gave him. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one. Every answer has been checked against a primary reference and each question carries its citation. Enjoy this one? Try our Sophia Loren, Federico Fellini and Italian Cinema quizzes next.
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Q 01Which director's La Dolce Vita and 8½ made Mastroianni an international star?
Federico Fellini
He played a disillusioned tabloid columnist in the first and a creatively blocked film director in the second.
Q 02With which actress did Mastroianni form a famous screen partnership across eleven films?
Sophia Loren
They co-starred from Too Bad She's Bad in 1954 to Robert Altman's Prêt-à-Porter in 1994.
Q 03How many films did Mastroianni make in his career, from 1939 to 1996?
147
He debuted as an uncredited extra in Marionette at 14 but only pursued acting seriously in the 1950s.
Q 04In which small Lazio village was Mastroianni born in 1924?
Fontana Liri
His parents both came from nearby Arpino, and he grew up in Turin and Rome; his uncle Umberto was a sculptor.
Q 05What business did Mastroianni's father Ottone run?
A carpentry shop
His brother Ruggero became a film editor who cut City of Women and Ginger and Fred.
Q 06What happened to Mastroianni during World War II?
He escaped a German prison camp and hid in Venice
The camp was loosely guarded, and he slipped away after Italy split into Axis and Allied zones.
Q 07Which 1958 caper comedy about a bungled pawn-shop burglary was Mastroianni's breakthrough?
Big Deal on Madonna Street
Mario Monicelli's I soliti ignoti also starred Vittorio Gassman and was Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Language Film.
Q 08What is the name of Mastroianni's tabloid journalist in La Dolce Vita?
Marcello Rubini
Over seven days and nights he searches Rome's decadent high society for love and happiness.
Q 09In which Roman landmark does Mastroianni wade with Anita Ekberg in La Dolce Vita?
The Trevi Fountain
Fellini claimed Ekberg stood in the cold water for hours while Mastroianni wore a wetsuit under his clothes.
Q 10Which everyday word comes from a photographer character in La Dolce Vita?
Paparazzi
Walter Santesso played the intrusive news photographer Paparazzo.
Q 11Which top prize did La Dolce Vita win at Cannes in 1960?
The Palme d'Or
It also took the Oscar for costumes and was a worldwide hit despite censorship in some regions.
Q 12What is the name of the film director Mastroianni plays in 8½?
Guido Anselmi
Blocked on a science-fiction epic, he is surrounded by the women of his life, played by Cardinale, Aimée and Sandra Milo.
Q 13Which Oscar did 8½ win?
Best Foreign Language Film
It also won for black-and-white costume design and ranked 10th in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll.
Q 21Who directed A Special Day?
Ettore Scola
Carlo Ponti produced it and it won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.
Q 22Dark Eyes (1987) was inspired by stories by which Russian writer?
Anton Chekhov
The Lady with the Dog was the chief source; director Nikita Mikhalkov dubbed Mastroianni's voice for the Russian release.
Q 23Who directed Dark Eyes?
Nikita Mikhalkov
The Italian-Soviet co-production won Mastroianni his second Cannes prize and third Oscar nomination.
Q 14Mastroianni was the first actor Oscar-nominated for a performance in what?
A non-English language
He was nominated three times for Best Actor and never won.
Q 15For which three films was Mastroianni nominated for the Best Actor Oscar?
Divorce Italian Style, A Special Day, Dark Eyes
The nominations came in 1963, 1978 and 1988.
Q 16Which two other actors have also won Best Actor at Cannes twice?
Jack Lemmon and Dean Stockwell
Mastroianni won in 1970 for The Pizza Triangle and in 1987 for Dark Eyes.
Q 17For which 1970 film opposite Monica Vitti did Mastroianni win his first Cannes prize?
The Pizza Triangle
He starred opposite Monica Vitti in the comedy also known as Jealousy, Italian Style.
Q 18What scheme does Mastroianni's Sicilian baron hatch in Divorce Italian Style?
Find his wife a lover so he can commit an 'honour killing'
Divorce was illegal in Italy, and honour killings drew light sentences; the film won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Q 19Who directed Divorce Italian Style?
Pietro Germi
Mastroianni won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for playing Ferdinando Cefalù.
Q 20A Special Day is set in Rome on the day of which 1938 event?
Hitler's visit to Mussolini
Loren's housewife and Mastroianni's persecuted neighbour stay home while the city parades.
Q 24Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, with Loren and Mastroianni, is what kind of film?
A three-story anthology
De Sica's trio of couples won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film; Loren was coached for its striptease by a Crazy Horse choreographer.
Q 25Marriage Italian Style was adapted from which Eduardo De Filippo play?
Filumena Marturano
Mastroianni plays Domenico, tricked into marriage by Loren's Filumena feigning a deathbed.
Q 26In which city was Antonioni's La Notte, starring Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau, filmed?
Milan
It follows a novelist and his alienated wife through one day and night and won the Golden Bear at Berlin.
Q 27Visconti's White Nights (1957), with Mastroianni, adapts a story by which author?
Fyodor Dostoevsky
It won the Silver Lion at Venice; Maria Schell and Jean Marais co-starred.
Q 28In a 1986 Fellini film, Mastroianni and Giulietta Masina play impersonators of which duo?
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers sued over the title in the US and lost.
Q 29What is the name of Mastroianni's character in Fellini's City of Women?
Snàporaz
He voyages through male and female spaces in a dreamlike confrontation with his attitudes to women.
Q 30In which 1965 science-fiction film does Mastroianni hunt and get hunted by Ursula Andress?
The 10th Victim
Elio Petri's film adapts Robert Sheckley's story Seventh Victim; Andress famously fires a gun from her bra.