50 free Moonlight Movie trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Moonlight trivia quiz covers Barry Jenkins's 2016 Best Picture winner, told in three chapters. It follows Chiron from the crackhouse where Juan finds him, through the beach with Kevin and the chair over Terrel's head, to the diner in Miami and Barbara Lewis on the jukebox. It asks about the play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue that started it, the three actors who never met while playing the same character, Naomie Harris shooting all her scenes in three days, the twenty-five-day shoot in Liberty City, the three film-stock looks, Nicholas Britell's chopped-and-screwed score and the $1.5 million budget. A final round covers the 89th Academy Awards, from Mahershala Ali becoming the first Muslim to win an acting Oscar to Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway and the backup envelope that briefly handed Best Picture to La La Land. Note: this page is about the 2016 film, not the Harry Styles song or the astronomical phenomenon. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who wrote and directed Moonlight?
Barry Jenkins
It was his first feature in eight years, after Medicine for Melancholy.
Q 02The film is based on an unpublished play with what title?
In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue
Tarell Alvin McCraney wrote it in 2003 to cope with his mother's death from AIDS.
Q 03Who plays child Chiron, known as Little?
Alex Hibbert
He and Jaden Piner were found through an open casting call in Miami.
Q 04In which Miami neighbourhood is the film set?
Liberty City
Both Jenkins and McCraney grew up in its Liberty Square housing project.
Q 05Who plays Juan, the drug dealer who becomes a father figure?
Mahershala Ali
It made him the first Muslim to win an acting Oscar.
Q 06What is Juan's ethnic background?
Afro-Cuban
He tells the boy that a stranger once nicknamed him Blue.
Q 07Who plays Paula, Chiron's mother?
Naomie Harris
She initially refused to play a crack addict, then shot all her scenes in three days.
Q 08Who plays Teresa, Juan's girlfriend, in her first film role?
Janelle Monáe
She said she had family with similar struggles over drugs and sexual identity.
Q 09What does Chiron ask Juan the meaning of at the end of the first chapter?
A homophobic slur
Juan then admits he sells drugs and that Chiron's mother uses them.
Q 10What has happened to Juan by the second chapter?
He has died
Teresa now lives alone and gives Chiron money that Paula takes.
Q 11What nickname does Kevin give teenage Chiron on the beach?
Black
It becomes the title of the third chapter.
Q 12What does the bully Terrel manipulate Kevin into doing?
Punching Chiron in a hazing ritual
Chiron refuses to name his attackers.
Q 13How does Chiron get his revenge on Terrel?
Smashes a chair over his head in class
He's arrested and driven away in a police cruiser while Kevin watches.
Q 21Why did Jenkins keep the three actors playing Chiron apart during filming?
To avoid them imitating one another
Each filmed in a separate two-week period.
Q 22How long was the film's shoot?
Twenty-five days
One lead did all her scenes in three days and another in five.
Q 23What was the film's production budget?
$1.5 million
It grossed $65.3 million worldwide.
Q 24Which company financed and distributed the film, its first production?
Q 14Where is adult Chiron living and dealing drugs in the third chapter?
Atlanta
He drives back to Miami to see Kevin.
Q 15What does Kevin do for a living as an adult?
Cook at a diner
He makes Chiron a meal and asks about his life.
Q 16Which song does Kevin play on the jukebox?
Hello Stranger by Barbara Lewis
He says it's the song that made him think of Chiron.
Q 17What does Chiron admit to Kevin at the end?
He hasn't been intimate with anyone since their night on the beach
The film ends with Little standing on a beach in the moonlight.
Q 18Who plays adult Chiron?
Trevante Rhodes
He originally auditioned for Kevin.
Q 19Who plays adult Kevin?
André Holland
He'd acted in McCraney's plays and read the source play a decade earlier.
Q 20Who plays teenage Kevin in his feature debut?
Jharrel Jerome
He later won an Emmy for When They See Us.
A24
Brad Pitt's Plan B came aboard after Jenkins showed the script at a film festival.
Q 25Which earlier role made Jenkins hesitant to cast the actor who plays Juan?
Remy Danton in House of Cards
Ali's range and understanding of Juan won him over.
Q 26Where did Jenkins write the first draft of the screenplay?
Brussels
He wrote it in a month-long visit after meeting McCraney through the Borscht arts collective.
Q 27How did the play's three parts differ structurally from the film?
They ran simultaneously rather than as separate chapters
In the play, it isn't clear the three characters are the same person until halfway through.
Q 28The three chapters were graded to imitate what?
Different film stocks
Fuji for chapter one, Agfa for two, a modified Kodak for three.
Q 29Which hip-hop remix technique did composer Nicholas Britell apply to his orchestral score?
Chopped and screwed
The Chopstars released a chopped and screwed version of the soundtrack itself.
Q 30Which festival gave the film its world premiere?
Telluride
It then played Toronto, New York and London.