Movie Musical Trivia
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47 free Movie Musical trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
42 free Movie musical trivia questions with answers. Movie musicals go back to the first feature with synchronized singing, and this quiz covers the whole run of them. Forty-two questions take in The Jazz Singer, The Wizard of Oz and Singin' in the Rain, the Oscar-sweeping 1960s of West Side Story, My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, Cabaret, Fiddler, Grease and Rocky Horror, then Moulin Rouge!, Chicago, Dreamgirls, Mamma Mia!, Les Misérables, La La Land, The Greatest Showman and Wicked. Expect questions about who really sang the songs (Marni Nixon gets her due), which stars turned down which parts, the film that held the box-office crown for five years, the only Best Actress tie in Oscar history and the longest theatrical run in film history. Easy ones ask who plays Danny Zuko; the hard ones want the year Gigi swept nine for nine. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the films, and each question carries the sentence that supports it.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which 1927 film was the first feature with synchronized music and lip-synced speech?
The Jazz Singer
The Jazz Singer: outside its songs it has barely two minutes of synchronized talking, and the rest of its dialogue still appears on title cards.
Q 02Which 1929 musical, advertised as 'All-Talking, All-Singing, All-Dancing', won Best Picture?
The Broadway Melody
The Broadway Melody: MGM followed it with three more Broadway Melody films, and its song 'You Were Meant for Me' later turned up in Singin' in the Rain.
Q 03Which song from The Wizard of Oz won the Oscar for Best Original Song?
Over the Rainbow
Over the Rainbow: the costly film needed re-releases in 1949 and 1955, then regular TV screenings, to become the favourite it is today.
Q 04Which actor was originally cast as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz before being replaced by Jack Haley?
Buddy Ebsen
Buddy Ebsen: aluminium dust in his make-up coated his lungs, and his recording of 'If I Only Had a Heart' never made the finished film.
Q 05Singin' in the Rain (1952) follows performers caught up in which Hollywood change?
The switch from silents to talkies
The switch from silents to talkies: the plot turns on a silent star whose grating voice has to be secretly dubbed for her first talkie.
Q 06Who co-directed and co-choreographed Singin' in the Rain with Gene Kelly?
Stanley Donen
Stanley Donen: apart from two new numbers, every song in this classic had already been written for earlier pictures.
Q 07In MGM's 1939 film of The Wizard of Oz, what colour are Dorothy's magic slippers?
Ruby red
Ruby red: in L. Frank Baum's novel they are silver, but MGM changed the colour to show off its Technicolor.
Q 08Which musical won all nine of the Oscars it was nominated for, including Best Picture?
Gigi
Gigi: Hollywood's censors had earlier ruled that its story of a girl raised to be a courtesan broke the Production Code.
Q 09Who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing Anita in West Side Story (1961)?
Rita Moreno
Rita Moreno: Chita Rivera had created the role of Anita on Broadway, but the film gave the part to Moreno.
Q 10In West Side Story, the Jets fight which rival gang?
The Sharks
The Sharks: George Chakiris, who plays their leader Bernardo, had played Riff, leader of the rival Jets, in the London stage show.
Q 11Who provided Natalie Wood's singing voice as Maria in West Side Story?
Marni Nixon
Marni Nixon: Natalie Wood recorded the songs herself, not knowing that almost all of her singing would be replaced.
Q 12Who played Eliza Doolittle in the 1964 film of My Fair Lady, replacing the stage star Julie Andrews?
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn: yet Julie Andrews, dropped because the studio wanted a bigger name, won that year's Best Actress Oscar, a race Hepburn wasn't even in.
Q 13Which song from Mary Poppins (1964) won the Oscar for Best Original Song?
Chim Chim Cher-ee
Chim Chim Cher-ee: the film came only after Walt Disney spent more than 20 years persuading author P. L. Travers to let him make it.
Q 21In Cabaret, which is the only musical number not performed inside the Kit Kat Klub?
Tomorrow Belongs to Me
Tomorrow Belongs to Me: a boy's sweet song in a country beer garden swells into a Nazi anthem as the crowd rises to join in.
Q 22The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) became a hit as what?
A midnight movie
A midnight movie: it did only middling business at first, until late-night audiences began dressing up as the characters and joining in.
Q 23Who wrote The Rocky Horror Show and played Riff Raff in The Rocky Horror Picture Show?
Richard O'Brien
Richard O'Brien: his show was a hit in London, yet its 1975 Broadway run closed after only about 50 performances.
Q 14Which songwriting duo, under contract to Disney, wrote the songs for Mary Poppins?
The Sherman Brothers
The Sherman Brothers: Walt Disney loved their 'Feed the Birds' so much that he asked them to play it for him in his office.
Q 15The Sound of Music became the highest-grossing film in history in 1966, overtaking which movie?
Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind: yet the real von Trapps saw little of the profits, having signed away the rights to their story to a German producer.
Q 16In which city is The Sound of Music set?
Salzburg
Salzburg: as in the film, the real von Trapps won a prize at a Salzburg singing competition in 1936, then toured Europe as a choir.
Q 17Which film became the next musical to win Best Picture, 34 years after Oliver!?
Chicago
Chicago: most of its songs are staged as fantasies playing out inside Roxie Hart's imagination.
Q 18In Funny Girl (1968), Barbra Streisand won Best Actress playing which real-life comedian?
Fanny Brice
Fanny Brice: a publicity photo of Streisand kissing her Egyptian co-star, Omar Sharif, led Egypt's press to campaign to strip him of his citizenship.
Q 19Fiddler on the Roof (1971) follows Tevye, a poor Jewish man in what trade?
Milkman
Milkman: director Norman Jewison cast Topol over Broadway's Zero Mostel, feeling Mostel's big stage persona would not work on film.
Q 20Cabaret (1972) won eight Oscars but lost Best Picture to which film?
The Godfather
The Godfather: yet Cabaret's Bob Fosse beat Francis Ford Coppola for Best Director that same night.
Q 24Who plays Danny Zuko in Grease?
John Travolta
John Travolta: he had once toured in the stage show as Doody, a minor member of Danny's gang, before landing the lead.
Q 25Grease was 1978's second-best-selling US album, behind the soundtrack of which 1977 film?
Saturday Night Fever
Grease was the highest-grossing film of 1978 and the highest-grossing musical ever at the time.
Q 26Which film began the Disney Renaissance and won Oscars for Best Score and Best Song?
The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid: Disney first turned the idea down because a sequel to the live-action mermaid film Splash was already in the works.
Q 27Which song, written specially for Madonna's 1996 Evita, won the Oscar for Best Original Song?
You Must Love Me
You Must Love Me: director Alan Parker persuaded Lloyd Webber and Rice, who had not written together for years, to create it.
Q 28Moulin Rouge! is the third and final entry in which Baz Luhrmann series?
The Red Curtain Trilogy
It followed Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet, and won Oscars for production and costume design.
Q 29Which choreographer earned a Best Director Oscar nomination for their very first feature film, in 2002?
Rob Marshall
Rob Marshall: a herniated disc suffered while dancing in Cats on Broadway moved him from performing into choreography.
Q 30Dreamgirls, whose Dreams echo the Supremes, was the acting debut of which American Idol alum?
Jennifer Hudson
Jennifer Hudson: she had finished only seventh on American Idol, yet won an Oscar for her very first film role.