Master and Commander
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50 free Master and Commander trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World put audiences on the gun deck of a British frigate in 1805 and refused to hurry. Russell Crowe's Captain Aubrey and Paul Bettany's Dr Maturin argue, make music and chase a faster, heavier French privateer halfway around the globe, in a film that earned ten Oscar nominations and a devoted following. This quiz covers the story from the first ambush to the final twist, the actors who crewed HMS Surprise, and how the film was made: the replica ships, the storm, the sound of the guns and the music played in the great cabin. It also reaches into Patrick O'Brian's novels, where Aubrey and Maturin sailed through twenty books. It is written for fans of the film and readers of the books alike. Most questions can be answered from one good viewing, a few are for people who know their topgallants from their studding sails, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Master and Commander was the first non-documentary film ever shot on location in which Pacific archipelago?
The Galápagos
The Galápagos appear for real when Dr Maturin goes collecting specimens. Most other scenes were shot in a giant studio tank in Mexico.
Q 02The giant Mexican water tank that floated Master and Commander's replica frigate was built for which earlier sea epic?
Titanic
Titanic needed a tank big enough for a 775-foot replica liner, so Fox built Baja Studios on the Mexican coast. The full-scale HMS Surprise later rocked there on gimbals.
Q 03Which 2003 hit kept Master and Commander at number two on its opening weekend at the North American box office?
Elf
Elf, in its second week, earned $26.3 million to the naval epic's $25.1 million. The Will Ferrell Christmas comedy had itself opened at number two a week earlier.
Q 04Which camouflaged creature from Dr Maturin's collection inspires Captain Aubrey to disguise HMS Surprise?
Stick insect
Stick insect camouflage gives Aubrey the idea of hiding his warship in plain sight. Maturin's specimen is a phasmid, one of the insects that pass for twigs to fool predators.
Q 05Chris Larkin, the marine captain who accidentally shoots Dr Maturin in Master and Commander, is which actress's son?
Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith's elder son took the stage name Larkin, after the poet Philip Larkin, so that he would not trade on his famous parents.
Q 06Master and Commander lost the Best Picture Oscar to which film that won every award it was nominated for?
The Return of the King
The Return of the King went eleven for eleven, matching Ben-Hur's record haul. Master and Commander's ten nominations were the second most of the night.
Q 07Russell Crowe bought which instrument himself for Master and Commander, one that sold in 2018 for US$104,000?
Violin
Violin duets fill Aubrey's evenings, and the budget would not cover the instrument Crowe wanted: one made in 1890 by the Italian maker Leandro Bisiach.
Q 08In Patrick O'Brian's novel The Far Side of the World, the enemy frigate belongs to which country instead of France?
United States
The United States frigate Norfolk is the quarry in the book, which is set during the War of 1812. The studio said moving the story to 1805 spared viewers a long history lesson.
Q 09The crew of HMS Surprise blame their misfortunes on Midshipman Hollom, branding him with which biblical name?
Jonah
Jonah is the crew's word for a man who carries a curse, and Hollom seems to be on hand wherever things go wrong. He ends by throwing himself overboard.
Q 10Which actor, the hobbit Pippin in The Lord of the Rings, plays Captain Aubrey's coxswain in Master and Commander?
Billy Boyd
Billy Boyd, a Scottish actor and musician, plays the coxswain Bonden, who reports that the rudder has been shot away in the opening attack.
Q 11Which Australian director of Dead Poets Society and The Truman Show made Master and Commander?
Peter Weir
Peter Weir won the BAFTA for Best Direction for the film, his first feature since 1998. He made only one more, The Way Back, before retiring.
Q 12Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany had already shared the screen in which Best Picture winner before Master and Commander?
A Beautiful Mind
A Beautiful Mind won four Academy Awards two years earlier and brought Crowe a Best Actor nomination as the mathematician Nash.
Q 13Russell Crowe, Captain Aubrey in Master and Commander, had won his Best Actor Oscar for which earlier film?
Gladiator
Q 21Master and Commander's storm used real waves filmed from a replica of Cook's Endeavour rounding which headland?
Cape Horn
Cape Horn is where HMS Surprise loses a mast, and a man with it, in the film's storm. The real footage was digitally combined with scenes shot in a studio tank.
Q 22Captain Aubrey escapes the Acheron by night in Master and Commander by cutting which decoy adrift?
Raft with lanterns
A raft with lanterns draws the French guns in the dark while HMS Surprise slips away. The trick comes from the first novel in O'Brian's series, the one that gave the film its title.
Q 23At the end of Master and Commander, the Acheron's captain avoids capture by posing as which member of his crew?
Surgeon
Gladiator won Crowe the award for its title role. It was the middle one of his three Best Actor nominations in three straight years.
Q 14Captain Aubrey lures the Acheron into range by disguising HMS Surprise as which kind of vessel?
Whaler
Whaler crews were the Acheron's prey in the Pacific, so the privateer closes in on what looks like one more easy prize and is dismasted at close range.
Q 15Master and Commander opens with the French privateer Acheron ambushing HMS Surprise off the coast of which country?
Brazil
Brazil was as far as Aubrey's orders told him to follow the privateer, as he later admits. He pursues her into the Pacific anyway.
Q 16Shot in the stomach, Dr Maturin removes the bullet himself in Master and Commander with the help of which object?
Mirror
A mirror held by the steward Killick lets Maturin operate on himself rather than trust his assistant. The scene is borrowed from an earlier O'Brian novel, HMS Surprise.
Q 17After young Lord Blakeney loses an arm in Master and Commander, Captain Aubrey gives him a book about which admiral?
Horatio Nelson
Horatio Nelson had lost a limb in battle too, which is why Aubrey picks the book for the boy, whose right arm Maturin has just had to amputate.
Q 18The replica frigate that played HMS Surprise later appeared as HMS Providence in which Pirates of the Caribbean film?
On Stranger Tides
On Stranger Tides cast the frigate as a Royal Navy ship again in 2010. It was the fourth film of a franchise that began the same year as Master and Commander.
Q 19Paul Bettany, Dr Maturin in Master and Commander, later joined the Marvel films as which Avenger?
Vision
Vision first appeared in Avengers: Age of Ultron in 2015, after Bettany had spent seven years as the voice of Tony Stark's computer, J.A.R.V.I.S.
Q 20Master and Commander inspired Naomi Novik's Temeraire novels, which add which creatures to the Napoleonic Wars?
Dragons
Dragons fight in the air in Novik's alternate history. She began by writing fan fiction about Aubrey and Maturin after watching the film.
The surgeon de Vigny hands over the dead captain's sword, and only later does Maturin learn that the real de Vigny died of fever months before. Aubrey turns about to give chase.
Q 24Carpenter's mate Nagle receives which punishment in Master and Commander after shouldering past Midshipman Hollom?
Flogging
Flogging Nagle is forced on Aubrey because the insult to an officer was made in front of the whole crew. It only hardens the men's feeling against Hollom.
Q 25Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin novels are most often compared with the work of which earlier novelist?
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was one of O'Brian's greatest inspirations. One critic suggested his naval officers could talk with her characters and recognise them.
Q 26Which nickname did early success at sea earn Captain Aubrey in the novels behind Master and Commander?
Lucky Jack
Lucky Jack is brilliant at sea but far less competent on land, where rash remarks and poor financial decisions keep landing him in trouble.
Q 27Dr Maturin is hunting which rare bird when he spots the Acheron at anchor in Master and Commander?
Flightless cormorant
The flightless cormorant is the only cormorant that has lost the power to fly. Maturin abandons his specimens to warn Aubrey and never gets his bird.
Q 28Master and Commander won two Oscars from ten nominations: Best Sound Editing and which other award?
Cinematography
Cinematography went to the Australian who had first worked with the film's director on Picnic at Hanging Rock almost thirty years earlier.
Q 29After Master and Commander, the replica HMS Surprise was bought by the maritime museum of which California city?
San Diego
San Diego's museum re-registered her under her screen name in honour of the role, and sailed her alongside its 1863 barque Star of India.
Q 30Before Master and Commander renamed her HMS Surprise, the replica frigate bought for the film sailed under which name?
Rose
Rose was built in Nova Scotia in 1970 as a copy of a British warship of 1757. Fox bought her in 2001 and gave her a reshaped stern and a new figurehead for the part.