Onward Trivia
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60 free Onward trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Onward is the Pixar film that had the worst luck of any in the studio's history: it opened in March 2020, cinemas closed within a fortnight, and it went from the big screen to Disney+ in under a month. It deserved better, and this quiz is a chance to give it a proper second look. The questions cover the whole story of Ian and Barley Lightfoot's quest, from the sixteenth-birthday gift and the half-finished visitation spell to Guinevere, the Pixie Dusters, Corey the tavern owner and the dragon made of a high school. Beyond the plot, there is plenty on how the film was made: director Dan Scanlon's real family story and the cassette recording that started it all, the voice cast, the Danna brothers' prog-rock score, the Brandi Carlile song, the box office collapse, the Gulf-state ban, the lawsuit over a unicorn van and the Oscar race it lost to another Pixar film. Easy questions suit kids who have watched it a dozen times; the harder ones are for the grown-ups who read the credits. Every answer has been checked against a primary reference and each question carries its source.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Ian and Barley Lightfoot, the brothers at the centre of Onward, are what kind of mythical creature?
Elves
Elves. Magic was once common in their world but hard to master, so over the centuries easier technology took its place and spells fell out of use.
Q 02Which actor voices Ian Lightfoot, the shy younger brother in Onward?
Tom Holland
Tom Holland's Ian is terrified of driving, so naturally the quest puts him behind the wheel for a freeway chase with a furious biker gang on his tail.
Q 03Who voices Barley Lightfoot, the older brother obsessed with a role-playing game, in Onward?
Chris Pratt
Chris Pratt's Barley hides a regret behind the bluster: as a boy he was too scared to go in and see his dying father one last time.
Q 04Who voices Laurel Lightfoot, the widowed mother of Ian and Barley, in Onward?
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Julia Louis-Dreyfus's Laurel gets a heroic turn of her own: she sets off after her sons and ends up driving a magic sword into a dragon's heart.
Q 05In Onward, who voices Corey, the tavern owner who once sent heroes off on quests?
Octavia Spencer
Octavia Spencer's Corey has a mid-life crisis on screen: realising how tame she has become, she drives out her customers and accidentally sets her own tavern on fire.
Q 06In Onward, what kind of mythical creature is Corey?
A manticore
A manticore: part lion, part bat, part scorpion. Corey has neglected her wings for so long that she starts the rescue by car, yet by the finale she flies Laurel into battle.
Q 07What is the name of Ian and Barley's late father in Onward?
Wilden
Wilden died just before Ian was born, and left the staff and spell with their mother so that he could come back and see who his sons had become.
Q 08In Onward, Laurel's police-officer boyfriend is what kind of mythical creature?
A centaur
A centaur, with the horse-pun name Colt Bronco to match. The brothers can't stand him, and his pursuit of them ends in the police chase that costs Barley his van.
Q 09In Onward, Laurel gives her sons their late father's gift on what occasion?
Ian's 16th birthday
Ian's 16th birthday. Barley, the family's magic fanatic, tries the spell first and can't raise a spark; it answers only to shy Ian.
Q 10In Onward, the rare gem the brothers' father left behind is what kind of gem?
A Phoenix gem
A Phoenix gem. The first one disintegrates mid-spell, which is why the brothers have to set off on a quest to find another.
Q 11In Onward, what is the spell in the father's letter called?
Visitation
Visitation. Ian sets the spell off alone, almost by accident, and it is Barley rushing in to help that interrupts him and cuts it short.
Q 12In Onward, for how long can the spell bring Ian and Barley's father back?
One day
One day. The spell runs out at the next sunset, so once the first attempt goes wrong the whole quest becomes a race against the clock.
Q 13In Onward, when Ian's first try at the spell is cut short, which part of his father appears?
Only his lower half
Only his lower half. The brothers rig up a stuffed dummy torso so they can take the legs along, and Dad talks back by tapping his foot.
Q 21In Onward, Barley finally finds the second gem hidden inside what?
A historic fountain
A historic fountain. Prising the gem loose wakes the curse Corey had warned of, which is why she and Laurel turn up just then with a sword.
Q 22In Onward, the gem's curse builds a dragon-shaped golem out of pieces of what?
Ian's high school
Ian's high school. The cave's exit had dumped the brothers right outside it, back where they started, and Ian stormed off thinking the whole quest had been for nothing.
Q 23In Onward, what shows Ian that Barley has been a father figure all along?
A to-do list for time with his dad
Q 14What does Barley call his beloved van in Onward?
Guinevere
Guinevere. Barley got the battered old van running himself, and after it is lost on the quest he replaces it with Guinevere the Second, which Ian paints for him as a surprise.
Q 15In Onward, Corey's tavern, once a gathering place for would-be adventurers, has become what?
A family restaurant
A family restaurant, with a costumed mascot and a karaoke machine. Corey has gone so respectable that she refuses to let the brothers have her old quest map.
Q 16In Onward, after the tavern fire destroys the map, what is the only surviving clue to the gem's location?
A children's menu
A children's menu. Corey's kids' menus are based on her old quest maps, so the throwaway handout still carries a real clue.
Q 17In Onward, the clue that survives the tavern fire sends the brothers to which nearby mountain?
Raven's Point
Raven's Point. It turns out to be no single peak but a trail of raven statues, each one aimed at the next, leading the brothers down into a cave.
Q 18In Onward, Laurel and Corey take back Corey's old sword from what kind of business?
A pawn shop
A pawn shop, where Corey had sold it when money was tight. The owner tries to jack up the price, so Corey leaves her paralysed on the shop floor and they walk out with the sword.
Q 19What is the name of the biker gang the brothers tangle with on the road in Onward?
The Pixie Dusters
The Pixie Dusters are sprites who ride motorbikes because their kind stopped flying. Barley's lecture on their unused wings insults them into a chase, and a crash sends them airborne again.
Q 20In Onward's police chase, Barley sacrifices his van to trigger what?
A landslide
A landslide. Barley wedges a rock on the accelerator and sends his beloved van into the cliffs without him, burying the road and cutting off the police.
A to-do list for time with his dad. Reaching 'driving lesson', Ian remembers Barley coaching him through the freeway chase, and one by one he ticks off every item.
Q 24Who directed Onward?
Dan Scanlon
Dan Scanlon based the story on his own family: his father died in a car accident when he was a baby, and he grew up wondering how alike the two of them were.
Q 25Before Onward, its director had made which earlier Pixar feature?
Monsters University
Monsters University, the 2013 prequel. After it he was encouraged to tell a more personal story, and the result was a film about his own father.
Q 26In Onward, what is the name of the role-playing game that Barley treats as real history?
Quests of Yore
Quests of Yore. Everyone treats Barley's obsession as a joke, but the game's rules turn out to be true, and its spells are what get Ian through the journey.
Q 27On an old tape, Onward's director heard his late father's voice for the first time, saying just "Hi" and what?
Goodbye
Goodbye. Home movies of the day had no sound, so those two words were all he had ever heard of his father's voice, and he called the moment 'magical'.
Q 28In Onward, Ian crosses a bottomless pit by casting a spell that creates what?
An invisible bridge
An invisible bridge that holds only while he believes in it. Barley ties a safety rope round him, and Ian strolls the rest of the way across without noticing that the rope has run out.
Q 29At which event was Onward first announced, in July 2017?
D23 Expo
D23 Expo, Disney's own fan convention. Pixar chief John Lasseter introduced the still-untitled film on stage, but he had left the company by the time it came out.
Q 30In Onward, what goes wrong when Ian tries a growth spell on a petrol can?
His brother shrinks
His brother shrinks. A pocket-sized Barley can't reach the pedals, which is how nervous Ian ends up driving the getaway from an angry biker gang.