2019 Pop Culture
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50 free 2019 Pop Culture trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The last year of the 2010s was a crowded one. Long-running sagas on the big and small screen reached their endings, new streaming services arrived to fight over what people watched next, and a handful of songs lodged themselves in everybody's head whether they liked it or not. This quiz covers the whole of 2019, from January to the year-end lists: box-office giants and awards-night winners, chart-toppers and festival dramas, the television everyone argued about, viral memes, internet challenges, food crazes, games and the celebrity stories that filled group chats. It works for a year-in-review party, a classroom or high school quiz, or anyone who wants to test how much of 2019 they still remember. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still leaves you with a story to tell.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A stock photo of which food beat Kylie Jenner to become Instagram's most-liked post in January 2019?
An egg
An egg held the record for almost four years, until Lionel Messi's World Cup celebration photo overtook it in December 2022.
Q 02A coffee cup left on a banquet table became a viral 2019 blooper for which HBO fantasy series?
Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones had the cup digitally erased two days after the episode aired; it had come from a local café rather than a big chain.
Q 03Which film's nine-year reign as the highest-grossing movie ever did Avengers: Endgame end in 2019?
Avatar
Avatar took the crown back in March 2021, when a re-release in China pushed its total past the Marvel film again.
Q 04Which rapper's country-trap hit 'Old Town Road' spent 19 straight weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100?
Lil Nas X
Lil Nas X bought the beat online for $30 and recorded the song in a single day, then watched it take off on TikTok.
Q 05Which chain's chicken sandwich sold out nationwide in 2019 after a Twitter spat with Chick-fil-A?
Popeyes
Popeyes ran out nationwide about two weeks after the launch and did not bring the sandwich back until November.
Q 06Which secretive US military site did two million Facebook users jokingly pledge to storm in 2019?
Area 51
Area 51 saw only about 1,500 people actually turn up, most of them for two small music festivals in nearby Nevada towns.
Q 07Which children's song became the Washington Nationals' rally anthem on their 2019 title run?
Baby Shark
Baby Shark arrived as Nationals player Gerardo Parra's walk-up music, picked up from his young daughter, and fans were soon doing the shark clap after every hit.
Q 08Which fruit, duct-taped to a wall by Maurizio Cattelan, sold as art for $120,000 in December 2019?
A banana
A banana was all it took, and performance artist David Datuna then pulled it off the gallery wall and ate it, calling the stunt Hungry Artist.
Q 09Which Sandra Bullock thriller inspired a blindfold 'challenge' that Netflix begged fans to stop in 2019?
Bird Box
Bird Box fans filmed themselves doing chores, and even driving, with their eyes covered, and a Utah teenager crashed a car trying it.
Q 10Which failed 1985 soft drink did Coca-Cola briefly revive in 2019 as a Stranger Things tie-in?
New Coke
New Coke returned because the show's third season is set in 1985, the year the reformulated cola first reached shelves.
Q 11Which singer's 'Bad Guy' made her the first artist born in the 21st century to top the Hot 100?
Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish went on to sweep all four major Grammy categories for her 2019 work, the first woman ever to do so in a single night.
Q 12Which singer's 'Truth Hurts' hit number one in 2019, two years after its original release?
Lizzo
Lizzo owed the late surge to TikTok and to the Netflix film Someone Great, which featured the 2017 song.
Q 13Which band reunited after six years apart in 2019 and scored a first Hot 100 number one with 'Sucker'?
Jonas Brothers
Jonas Brothers cast their real-life partners in the video, among them Priyanka Chopra and Sophie Turner.
Q 21Which comic-book film won Venice's Golden Lion and became the first R-rated movie to gross $1 billion?
Joker
Joker star Joaquin Phoenix lost 52 pounds for the role, and the New York staircase where he dances is now known as the Joker Stairs.
Q 22Which Bong Joon-ho thriller about two Seoul families became the first Korean film to win the Palme d'Or?
Parasite
Parasite won by a unanimous jury vote, then became the first film not in the English language to take the Best Picture Oscar.
Q 23Which Toy Story 4 newcomer, a craft project made by Bonnie, keeps trying to throw himself in the trash?
Forky
Forky is a spork Bonnie decorates at kindergarten orientation, and he suffers an existential crisis, seeing himself as rubbish rather than a toy.
Q 14Which pop star became the first solo artist to hold all of the Hot 100's top three spots, in 2019?
Ariana Grande
Ariana Grande did it with three singles from her album Thank U, Next, matching a feat last managed by the Beatles in 1964.
Q 15Which manager's purchase of Big Machine Records in 2019 began Taylor Swift's fight over her masters?
Scooter Braun
Scooter Braun's deal pushed Swift to announce she would re-record her first six albums and own the new masters herself.
Q 16Which duet did Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper sing at the 2019 Oscars, where it won Best Original Song?
Shallow
Shallow jumped ten places on the UK singles chart after the pair walked hand in hand from their seats to the stage to sing it.
Q 17Which K-pop group became the first Korean act to headline London's Wembley Stadium in June 2019?
BTS
BTS also became the first K-pop act to play Saturday Night Live that spring, and at Wembley singer Jin led the crowd in Freddie Mercury's 'ay-oh' chant.
Q 18Which former Fifth Harmony singer joined Shawn Mendes on the 2019 chart-topping duet 'Señorita'?
Camila Cabello
Camila Cabello had teamed with Mendes once before, on 2015's 'I Know What You Did Last Summer', and the reunion topped charts in dozens of countries.
Q 19Which band's 2019 Super Bowl halftime show included a brief tribute to SpongeBob SquarePants?
Maroon 5
Maroon 5 added the clip after a fan petition asked for the song 'Sweet Victory' to honour the cartoon's late creator, Stephen Hillenburg.
Q 20Which famous music festival's 50th-anniversary revival was cancelled in 2019 after losing its venue?
Woodstock
Woodstock 50 was meant for the Watkins Glen racetrack in New York, shrank from three days to one, and was called off about two weeks before showtime.
Q 24Which star played stunt double Cliff Booth in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood?
Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the part, playing loyal sidekick to a fading Western star named Rick Dalton.
Q 25Which 2019 whodunit introduced Daniel Craig as detective Benoit Blanc, hired after a novelist's death?
Knives Out
Knives Out was written and directed by Rian Johnson, and it proved such a hit that Blanc returned for further mysteries.
Q 26Which director of Netflix's The Irishman said in 2019 that Marvel films were 'not cinema'?
Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese compared the superhero films to theme park rides, then expanded the argument in a New York Times op-ed.
Q 27Which stage musical became a 2019 film that covered stars like Judi Dench and Idris Elba in digital fur?
Cats
Cats reached cinemas with glitches, including a shot of Judi Dench's human hand and wedding ring, so the studio sent out an improved version days later.
Q 28Which comedian gave up hosting the 2019 Oscars over old tweets, leaving the ceremony with no host at all?
Kevin Hart
Kevin Hart's exit made it the first Academy Awards telecast to go without a host since 1989.
Q 29Which Crazy Rich Asians star led The Farewell, a 2019 film about a family hiding a grandmother's illness?
Awkwafina
Awkwafina won a Golden Globe for playing Billi, whose relatives stage an impromptu wedding as an excuse to gather and say goodbye.
Q 30Which director played a boy's imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler, in his own 2019 satire Jojo Rabbit?
Taika Waititi
Taika Waititi won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film, which follows a ten-year-old Hitler Youth member in wartime Germany.