Oscars 2015
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50 free Oscars 2015 trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The 2015 Oscars, the 87th Academy Awards, honoured the films of 2014, a year when small, strange and personal projects crowded out the blockbusters. Two films tied for the most nominations, every Best Picture nominee went home with at least one award, and the acting line-up set off an argument about diversity that still shapes the ceremony. This quiz covers the nominated movies and the people who made them: the Best Picture field, the acting and directing races, the documentaries, foreign-language entries and animated films, the nominated songs and who performed them, plus the honorary awards and the biggest snubs. It is written for film fans, awards-party hosts and anyone settling an argument about who won what that year. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play straight through or print it for a group.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which film, shot a few weeks a year for 12 years, was a Best Picture nominee at the 2015 Oscars?
Boyhood
Boyhood was nearly called 12 Years, until 12 Years a Slave came out a year earlier and forced director Richard Linklater to rename it.
Q 02Eddie Redmayne won Best Actor at the 2015 Oscars for playing which physicist in The Theory of Everything?
Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking liked the finished film enough to let its makers use his own synthesised voice, after their attempts to recreate it fell short.
Q 03Which animated hit was left out of Best Animated Feature at the 2015 Oscars, though one of its songs was nominated?
The Lego Movie
The Lego Movie's absence was widely called a snub, and the ceremony's host joked about it on air just before the animation award was handed out.
Q 04Which Broadway star presented an award at the 2015 Oscars with John Travolta, a year after he mangled her name on air?
Idina Menzel
Idina Menzel got her own back by introducing him under a nonsense name, and later called his slip one of the best things to happen to her career.
Q 05Which dark comedy about a faded superhero actor staging a Broadway play won Best Picture at the 2015 Oscars?
Birdman
Birdman is staged to look like one continuous take, an idea its director had from the start because, as he saw it, people live their lives with no editing.
Q 06Citizenfour, Best Documentary Feature winner at the 2015 Oscars, was filmed in Hong Kong with which whistleblower?
Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden was filmed there over eight days in 2013, and the title is the codename he used when he first emailed the director.
Q 07Which pop star marked The Sound of Music's 50th anniversary at the 2015 Oscars with a medley of its songs?
Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga sang four of the musical's numbers as a tribute to Julie Andrews, who then took the stage herself to present Best Original Score.
Q 08Which actress won Best Actress at the 2015 Oscars as a linguistics professor with early-onset Alzheimer's?
Julianne Moore
Julianne Moore researched the disease for months to play the lead in Still Alice, a film based on a novel written by a neuroscientist.
Q 09Which actor hosted the 2015 Oscars, having already fronted the Tony Awards four times?
Neil Patrick Harris
Neil Patrick Harris had also hosted the Emmys twice, and ran a gag all night about his Oscar predictions sitting in a locked box on the stage.
Q 10John Legend and Common won Best Original Song at the 2015 Oscars for a song from which civil rights drama?
Selma
Selma's song Glory was performed at the ceremony on a set built to resemble the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and it also won a Golden Globe and a Grammy.
Q 11Which actor won Best Supporting Actor at the 2015 Oscars as an abusive jazz bandleader in Whiplash?
J. K. Simmons
J. K. Simmons had already played the bandleader in an 18-minute short version, shot to win over investors for the full film.
Q 12Benedict Cumberbatch was a Best Actor nominee at the 2015 Oscars as which mathematician in The Imitation Game?
Alan Turing
Alan Turing devised ways to decrypt German military messages during the Second World War, and received a posthumous royal pardon in 2013.
Q 13Which Clint Eastwood war film, starring Bradley Cooper, out-earned every other Best Picture nominee at the 2015 Oscars?
American Sniper
Q 21Which actress won Best Supporting Actress at the 2015 Oscars for playing a single mother across twelve years of filming?
Patricia Arquette
Patricia Arquette shot the part in yearly instalments from 2002, fitting it around her Emmy-winning lead in the television drama Medium.
Q 22Which star of The Office earned a Best Actor nomination at the 2015 Oscars as millionaire murderer John du Pont?
Steve Carell
Steve Carell's turn in Foxcatcher marked his move from comedy into dramatic roles, playing an heir who shot dead an Olympic champion he had hired.
Q 23Foxcatcher, a five-time nominee at the 2015 Oscars, is set in the world of which Olympic sport?
Wrestling
American Sniper passed Saving Private Ryan as the top-grossing war film worldwide, yet its only win from six nominations was for Best Sound Editing.
Q 14Which Disney film about a boy and his inflatable healthcare robot won Best Animated Feature at the 2015 Oscars?
Big Hero 6
Big Hero 6 was the first Disney animated film to feature Marvel Comics characters, made after Disney bought the comics company in 2009.
Q 15Which former Batman star was a Best Actor nominee at the 2015 Oscars for playing a washed-up superhero actor?
Michael Keaton
Michael Keaton won his first Golden Globe for the part, a faded star chasing a comeback much like his own, but Eddie Redmayne took the Oscar.
Q 16Which comedy caper, set in the fictional country of Zubrowka, tied for the most wins at the 2015 Oscars?
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Grand Budapest Hotel won four awards from nine nominations, and Wes Anderson shaped its world from the writings of Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig.
Q 17Which actress was nominated at the 2015 Oscars for Wild, playing a woman hiking the Pacific Crest Trail alone?
Reese Witherspoon
Reese Witherspoon also produced the film, based on Cheryl Strayed's memoir, and it brought her a second nomination after a career downturn.
Q 18Rosamund Pike was a Best Actress nominee at the 2015 Oscars for which thriller directed by David Fincher?
Gone Girl
Gone Girl was adapted by Gillian Flynn from her own 2012 novel, and Pike's nomination was the only one the film received.
Q 19Which actress earned a 2015 Oscar nomination as the Witch in the Disney musical Into the Woods?
Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep holds the record for the most Oscar nominations of any performer, and Rob Marshall's take on the Sondheim show added a singing role to the list.
Q 20Which Christopher Nolan space epic won Best Visual Effects at the 2015 Oscars, its only win from five nominations?
Interstellar
Interstellar's wormhole and black hole were rendered from equations worked out by physicist Kip Thorne, who also conceived the film.
Wrestling gold medallists Mark and Dave Schultz were recruited by a du Pont family heir in the 1980s to help coach American hopefuls.
Q 24Which actress directed Unbroken, a three-time nominee at the 2015 Oscars about Olympic runner Louis Zamperini?
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie worked from a script co-written by the Coen brothers, about a man who survived 47 days on a raft and then prisoner-of-war camps.
Q 25Maleficent, a Best Costume Design nominee at the 2015 Oscars, retells which fairy tale from the villain's side?
Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty reached cinemas as a Disney cartoon in 1959, and the live-action retelling's costumes earned the film its only nomination.
Q 26Which Marvel space adventure was nominated at the 2015 Oscars for both its visual effects and its makeup?
Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy was the biggest North American box-office hit among all the nominated films when the list was announced, but it went home empty-handed.
Q 27Which Japanese animator, the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, received an Honorary Oscar ahead of the 2015 ceremony?
Hayao Miyazaki
Hayao Miyazaki accepted it at the Governors Awards in November 2014, though he had skipped the 2003 ceremony where Spirited Away won, in protest at the Iraq War.
Q 28Which actress earned her first Oscar nomination in 2015 as a faded actor's daughter, fresh out of rehab?
Emma Stone
Emma Stone lost the supporting award that night, but won Best Actress two years later as an aspiring actress in the musical La La Land.
Q 29Which Hollywood Boulevard venue, which carried Kodak's name until 2012, staged the 2015 Oscars ceremony?
Dolby Theatre
The Dolby Theatre sits inside a shopping mall, so its storefronts are hidden behind red drapery whenever the ceremony comes to town.
Q 30Which country star earned a Best Original Song nomination at the 2015 Oscars for the last song he ever recorded?
Glen Campbell
Glen Campbell co-wrote it for a documentary about his Alzheimer's diagnosis and farewell tour, and Tim McGraw sang it at the ceremony.