Planet of the Apes
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50 free Planet of the Apes trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Planet of the Apes has been turning the tables on humanity since 1968. One astronaut's crash landing on a world run by talking apes grew into four sequels, a television show, a remake and a modern series that follows the chimpanzee Caesar from a suburban attic to the leadership of a new civilisation. This quiz covers all of it. The recent films get the most attention: Rise, Dawn, War and Kingdom, with the characters, the plots and the performers behind the motion-capture suits. The original film gets a thorough going-over too, from the story and the cast to the makeup and the music, alongside the best of the sequels, the novel that started everything and the versions that were never made. It is written for fans at every level. If you have only seen the newest films you will find plenty you can answer, and if you grew up on the originals the later questions should make you think. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will leave knowing more than when you started.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What ruined landmark does astronaut Taylor find on a beach in the final scene of 1968's Planet of the Apes?
The Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty, half buried in sand, tells Taylor the alien planet is Earth. The shot blends a matte painting with real cliffs at Point Dume in Malibu.
Q 02Which actor performed Caesar through motion capture in Rise, Dawn and War for the Planet of the Apes?
Andy Serkis
Andy Serkis had already played Gollum and King Kong the same way. Fox pushed for an Oscar nomination for his Caesar after the 2011 film, but Academy voters passed him over.
Q 03Which makeup artist behind 1968's Planet of the Apes later helped the CIA with the rescue dramatised in Argo?
John Chambers
John Chambers, played by John Goodman in Argo, won an honorary Oscar for the ape makeup years before a makeup category existed. He also made Spock's pointed ears for Star Trek.
Q 04In Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the drug that makes Caesar intelligent was designed to cure which disease?
Alzheimer's
Alzheimer's is personal for chemist Will Rodman, whose father has it. The drug restores his father's mind for a while, until his immune system fights it off.
Q 05Which animated series turned Planet of the Apes into a stage musical starring a washed-up actor as Taylor?
The Simpsons
The Simpsons staged it in the episode A Fish Called Selma, with Troy McClure in the lead. Its composer, Alf Clausen, had worked as a copyist on the 1968 film.
Q 06Which Harry Potter actor plays Dodge Landon, the cruel shelter guard, in Rise of the Planet of the Apes?
Tom Felton
Tom Felton, the films' Draco Malfoy, plays a bully who ends up electrocuted by his own cattle prod. The character is named for Dodge and Landon, the astronauts who crash with Taylor in the 1968 film.
Q 07Which actor turned down Severus Snape in Harry Potter to play General Thade in 2001's Planet of the Apes?
Tim Roth
Tim Roth chose the chimpanzee warlord, so the Hogwarts part went to Alan Rickman. Roth also rewrote some of his scenes to make Thade more frightening.
Q 08On which landmark do Caesar's apes fight through a police blockade in Rise of the Planet of the Apes?
The Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge is the apes' route to the redwood forest. The gorilla Buck dies bringing down a helicopter there to save Caesar.
Q 09Which actor backed out of Ocean's Eleven to play astronaut Leo Davidson in Tim Burton's 2001 Planet of the Apes?
Mark Wahlberg
Mark Wahlberg said yes after a five-minute meeting with Burton, without waiting to read a script. Matt Damon took the Ocean's Eleven part he left behind.
Q 10Which actor plays the Colonel, ruthless leader of a rogue human battalion, in War for the Planet of the Apes?
Woody Harrelson
Woody Harrelson's Colonel kills his own infected son and orders his troops to do the same to any carrier, which is why the rest of the army is marching to remove him.
Q 11Which actor played the chimpanzee Cornelius in 1968's Planet of the Apes and later his son Caesar in two sequels?
Roddy McDowall
Roddy McDowall missed only the second film, when he was away in Britain directing a picture of his own. He put the ape makeup back on for the 1974 television series.
Q 12In 1968's Planet of the Apes, which orangutan has secretly known all along that humans once ruled?
Dr. Zaius
Dr. Zaius admits it once the cave's relics have been shown, lets Taylor ride away, then seals the cave to destroy the evidence and has Cornelius and Zira charged with heresy.
Q 13Which television writer devised the twist ending of 1968's Planet of the Apes, absent from the original novel?
Rod Serling
Q 21Which Oscar winner for A Streetcar Named Desire played the chimpanzee Zira in three Planet of the Apes films?
Kim Hunter
Kim Hunter won it as Stella Kowalski, the role she had created on Broadway. Her Zira appears in the original and two sequels, dying beside Cornelius in the third film.
Q 22At Taylor's hearing in 1968's Planet of the Apes, the orangutan judges strike the pose of which famous trio?
The three wise monkeys
The three wise monkeys, who see, hear and speak no evil, were not in the script. The director improvised the gag on set, and it stayed in because test audiences responded to it.
Q 23Why can't astronaut Taylor speak when the apes first capture him in 1968's Planet of the Apes?
Rod Serling, creator of The Twilight Zone, wrote the early drafts. Michael Wilson then rewrote all the dialogue and made the ape society more primitive to save money, but kept Serling's ending.
Q 14In Beneath the Planet of the Apes, what do the telepathic mutants living under the ruins of New York worship?
A nuclear bomb
A nuclear bomb called the Alpha-Omega sits in the remains of St. Patrick's Cathedral. It can burn the whole planet, and the dying Taylor's hand sets it off at the end of the film.
Q 15In Rise of the Planet of the Apes, how do Caesar and the orangutan Maurice first talk inside the primate shelter?
Sign language
Sign language is something both learned from humans: Caesar at home with Will, Maurice during his years in a circus. Their friendship lasts through all three films.
Q 16In War for the Planet of the Apes, what does the mutated virus take from the humans it infects?
Their speech
Their speech and higher intelligence fade, leaving them like the mute humans of the 1968 film. The Colonel catches it himself after handling an infected girl's doll.
Q 17Which actor plays Dreyfus, leader of the human survivors, in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes?
Gary Oldman
Gary Oldman had nearly joined the series before: he was first cast as General Thade in the 2001 film but dropped out for financial reasons.
Q 18Which actor played Will Rodman, the chemist who raises Caesar at home, in Rise of the Planet of the Apes?
James Franco
James Franco got the part after talks with Tobey Maguire, his Spider-Man co-star, broke down. Unused footage from the film gives Will a brief appearance in the sequel.
Q 19What do the apes of 1968's Planet of the Apes call the desert region where Taylor's ship crashed?
The Forbidden Zone
The Forbidden Zone hides the cave where Cornelius dug up proof of an older human civilisation. The name later served as the working title of the 2024 film Kingdom.
Q 20Which French author wrote the 1963 novel that became Planet of the Apes and counted it among his minor works?
Pierre Boulle
Pierre Boulle wrote it in six months and rejected the science-fiction label, calling the book social fantasy. It still became a bestseller.
A bullet wounds his throat
A bullet wounds his throat during the hunt in the cornfield, so the apes take him for one more mute human. He gets his voice back just as they recapture him after an escape.
Q 24In Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Cornelius and Zira travel back in time to which American city?
Los Angeles
Los Angeles greets the two chimpanzees as celebrities before fear of their unborn child turns the government against them. A present-day setting also saved money on sets and makeup.
Q 25In Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, a plague that kills which animals leads humans to keep apes as pets?
Dogs and cats
Dogs and cats are wiped out by a disease from space, so people adopt apes instead. Within a decade the pets have become a slave workforce, which sets up Caesar's revolt.
Q 26Koba, the lab-tortured ape who turns on Caesar in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, belongs to which species?
Bonobo
A bonobo first seen as a test subject in Rise, Koba hates humans for what laboratories did to him. He shoots Caesar and blames the humans to start a war.
Q 27In Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, what do Malcolm's group need to restart inside the apes' forest territory?
A hydroelectric dam
A hydroelectric dam could bring power back to the survivors' colony in the city. Caesar lets the humans work on it only after they agree to hand over their guns.
Q 28Which actor plays Bad Ape, the hermit chimpanzee caught stealing a horse, in War for the Planet of the Apes?
Steve Zahn
Steve Zahn's Bad Ape grew up in isolation, far from Caesar's tribe, which showed that intelligent apes existed elsewhere. The director said that opened the way to later films.
Q 29In War for the Planet of the Apes, where did Bad Ape live before soldiers drove him into hiding?
A safari zoo
A safari zoo was his home until soldiers blamed its apes for the virus and killed those around him. He had lived alone ever since when Caesar's party found him.
Q 30Which actress played the chimpanzee Ari in Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes and became the director's partner?
Helena Bonham Carter
Helena Bonham Carter met Burton while he was casting the film; he told her she was the first person he had thought of to play a chimpanzee. They stayed together for 13 years.