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146 free Pop Culture trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free pop culture trivia questions with answers. From the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Barbenheimer to TikTok dances and K-pop, the 2000s through 2020s gave us an explosion of pop culture moments. This quiz covers everything from the biggest blockbusters and binge-worthy TV shows to chart-topping albums, viral memes, and the social media revolution. Whether you're a casual fan or a pop culture encyclopedia, these 146 questions will put your knowledge to the test.
30 of 146 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In January 2010, which movie surpassed Titanic to become the highest-grossing film of all time worldwide?
Avatar
Avatar passed Titanic's worldwide gross on January 25, 2010; since 2019 it has traded the record back and forth with Avengers: Endgame, each film reclaiming the top spot through re-releases.
Q 02Stranger Things is set in which fictional Indiana town?
Hawkins
Hawkins replaced the Duffer Brothers' first choice, the real Montauk, New York; an invented town let them do things, such as putting it under quarantine, that felt wrong for a real place.
Q 03Taylor Swift's album '1989' is named after what?
The year she was born
The year she was born: Swift chose 1989 as the title to mark a rebirth as she left country for pop, on an album that borrows its sound from the synth-pop of that decade.
Q 04Which social media platform introduced the 'Stories' feature first?
Snapchat
Snapchat's 'My Story' arrived in October 2013, stitching snaps into a 24-hour reel; Instagram cloned the format in 2016.
Q 05In the MCU, what is the name of Thor's hammer?
Mjolnir
Mjolnir is Thor's hammer in both Norse mythology and the Marvel Cinematic Universe; Hela shatters it in Thor: Ragnarok, forcing him to take up Stormbreaker.
Q 06Which playground game, overseen by a giant doll, is the first deadly contest in Squid Game?
Red Light, Green Light
Red Light, Green Light kills more than half the players; creator Hwang Dong-hyuk said he picked it because it could produce a lot of losers in one go.
Q 07What was the name of Beyoncé's visual album released in 2016?
Lemonade
Lemonade echoes a speech by Jay-Z's grandmother Hattie White at her 90th birthday, heard on the album itself: 'I was served lemons, but I made lemonade.'
Q 08Which character does Steve Carell play in 'The Office' (US)?
Michael Scott
Michael Scott was nearly Bob Odenkirk's role: Steve Carell was tied to another NBC sitcom, Come to Papa, until its quick cancellation freed him to take the part.
Q 09Which video app closed in August 2018, moving its users to TikTok?
Musical.ly
Musical.ly was bought by TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance in 2017 for a reported sum of up to $1 billion; nine months later the app was closed and its users were migrated to TikTok.
Q 10In 'Harry Potter,' what position does Harry play on the Quidditch team?
Seeker
Seeker is the job Harry lands at his very first flying lesson, when Professor McGonagall sees how he flies and puts him straight onto the Gryffindor team.
Q 11Which film was the highest-grossing release of 2023 worldwide?
Barbie
Barbie took about $1.45 billion, ahead of The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Oppenheimer; its sets used up paint maker Rosco's entire remaining stock of fluorescent pink.
Q 12Which K-pop group released the hit single 'Dynamite' in 2020?
BTS
BTS made 'Dynamite', their first song entirely in English, to lift listeners' spirits during the pandemic; it made them the first all-South Korean act to top the Billboard Hot 100.
Q 13What is Walter White's alias in 'Breaking Bad'?
Heisenberg
Heisenberg, borrowed from physicist Werner Heisenberg, is the name Walt first gives drug boss Tuco, moments before blowing out his office windows with a lump of fulminated mercury.
Q 21Which celebrity couple is commonly referred to as 'Bennifer'?
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez postponed their 2003 wedding with four days to go and split in 2004, then reunited in 2021 and married in 2022; Lopez filed for divorce two years later.
Q 22In 'Game of Thrones', legend says the Iron Throne was made from what?
A thousand swords
A thousand swords, taken from Aegon the Conqueror's beaten enemies and fused by dragonfire; legend adds that he kept the blades sharp so that no ruler could ever sit comfortably.
Q 23Where did Billie Eilish and her producer record most of her 2019 debut album?
Q 14Which Pixar movie features the emotion characters Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust?
Inside Out
Inside Out began when director Pete Docter watched his daughter turn quiet and serious at 11 and wondered what was going on inside her head.
Q 15Whose wife founded a company named Greatest of All Time in 1992, long before 'GOAT' became everyday sports slang?
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali had long called himself the greatest; Lonnie Ali's Greatest of All Time, Inc. managed his name and image, and LL Cool J, an Ali admirer, titled a 2000 album G.O.A.T.
Q 16Which actor played the lead role in Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer' (2023)?
Cillian Murphy
Cillian Murphy had taken supporting parts in five earlier Christopher Nolan films, starting as Scarecrow in Batman Begins, before Nolan phoned to offer him this first lead.
Q 17What football team does Ted Lasso coach in the Apple TV+ series?
AFC Richmond
AFC Richmond's coach began as a joke: Jason Sudeikis first played Ted Lasso in 2013 in comic NBC Sports promos for its Premier League coverage, years before the series.
Q 18Which rapper's 'God's Plan' spent 11 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in 2018?
Drake
Drake's 'God's Plan' led the Hot 100 for 11 weeks; its video opens by announcing that the whole budget, nearly $1 million, was given away to people around Miami.
Q 19What is the name of the fictional land in 'The Lord of the Rings'?
Middle-earth
Middle-earth is not another planet: Tolkien imagined it as our own Earth in a distant, invented past, with the hobbits' north-west standing in for Europe.
Q 20What was the viral 2018 dance craze set to the song 'In My Feelings' called?
The Kiki Challenge
The Kiki Challenge grew from a dance clip by comedian Shiggy; once people began hopping out of moving cars to copy it, US transport safety officials warned it was foolish and dangerous.
Her brother's bedroom
Her brother's bedroom at the family home in Highland Park, Los Angeles: Finneas preferred its intimate sound to a professional studio, which he found costly and short of daylight.
Q 24Which duo from a 1998 Nintendo 64 platformer joined the Super Smash Bros. roster as downloadable fighters in 2019?
Banjo & Kazooie
Banjo & Kazooie had seemed out of Nintendo's reach since 2002, when their maker, Rare, was sold to the company behind the rival Xbox; Xbox chief Phil Spencer later called lending them out an easy deal.
Q 25Who became the first person to reach 600 million followers on Instagram, in 2023?
Cristiano Ronaldo
Cristiano Ronaldo passed 600 million in August 2023, days before he scored both goals in the final that won Al-Nassr its first Arab Club Champions Cup.
Q 26Which film became the first not in the English language to win Best Picture, at the Oscars in February 2020?
Parasite
Parasite's director Bong Joon-ho had urged audiences to get over what he called the 'one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles' that kept them from films like his.
Q 27What is the name of the fictional paper company in 'The Office' (US)?
Dunder Mifflin
Dunder Mifflin began as pure fiction, but from 2011 the name appeared on real copy paper sold by Staples; its counterpart in the British original is Wernham Hogg.
Q 28Which Disney+ show was the first live-action Star Wars series?
The Mandalorian
The Mandalorian succeeded where George Lucas's own live-action series, Underworld, had stalled: its 50 or so scripts were judged too expensive to film.
Q 29Which podcast became a Spotify exclusive in 2020 under a licensing deal later reported to be worth about $200 million?
The Joe Rogan Experience
The Joe Rogan Experience went Spotify-only by December 2020; a new contract in 2024, reported at $250 million, ended the exclusivity and put the show back on other platforms.
Q 30Which 2019 single set the record of 19 consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100?
Old Town Road
'Old Town Road' by Lil Nas X, boosted by a Billy Ray Cyrus remix, logged 19 weeks at number one before Billie Eilish's 'Bad Guy' unseated it in August 2019.