Psycho Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
110 free Psycho trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
51 free Psycho trivia questions with answers. Psycho changed what a Hollywood thriller was allowed to do: it killed its star before the halfway mark, put a flushing toilet on screen for the first time and made a generation nervous about motel showers. This quiz covers the whole story of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film, from Robert Bloch's novel and the Ed Gein case that loosely inspired it, through the shoestring black-and-white shoot, the chocolate-syrup blood and Bernard Herrmann's all-strings score, to the box-office records, the ratings fights and the sequels, the 1998 remake and the Bates Motel TV series. It starts with easy questions any casual viewer can answer and works up to production details only real Hitchcock obsessives will know. Every answer has been checked against the film's documented production history and primary references, so you can trust the answers when you settle an argument. Good for a movie night, a Halloween party or a film-club warm-up. No signup, no cost — just 110 questions and the answers.
30 of 110 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which author wrote the 1959 novel that Psycho was adapted from?
Robert Bloch
Robert Bloch sold the screen rights to an anonymous bidder and learned only after the deal had closed that the buyer was Alfred Hitchcock.
Q 02The character of Norman Bates was loosely inspired by which real Wisconsin murderer?
Ed Gein
Ed Gein was arrested in 1957 not far from where Psycho's novelist was living; the author said what struck him most was that a killer could go unnoticed in a small town.
Q 03In Hitchcock's 1960 Psycho, how much cash does Marion Crane steal from her employer?
$40,000
$40,000 in cash, which Marion hides in a folded newspaper; after the murder Norman tosses the paper unopened into her car trunk and never learns what he has thrown away.
Q 04In which city does Psycho open?
Phoenix
Phoenix was to be introduced in one unbroken helicopter shot gliding down to a hotel window, but the aerial shots came out too shaky, so the opening was pieced together from separate shots.
Q 05In Psycho, the Bates Motel sits a short drive from which fictional California town?
Fairvale
Fairvale is where Marion's boyfriend Sam keeps his hardware store; she is only about fifteen miles short of it when the rain drives her off the highway and into the motel.
Q 06What hobby does Norman describe to Marion over dinner in the motel parlor?
Taxidermy
Taxidermy fills the parlor with stuffed birds; Norman, who has just told Marion that she eats like one, says he sticks to birds because he hates the look of stuffed beasts.
Q 07In Psycho, what is the surname of the private investigator hired to recover the stolen money?
Arbogast
Arbogast is attacked on the Bates staircase in a shot filmed from directly overhead, a high angle that keeps the killer's face hidden; the crew also built a pulley rig to carry the camera.
Q 08Where in the Bates house does Lila discover the mummified body of Norman's mother?
The fruit cellar
The fruit cellar is a hiding place: after the detective's visit Norman carries Mother down from her bedroom, while her voice protests that she will not be moved.
Q 09In Psycho, how does the local sheriff say Norman's mother died ten years earlier?
Strychnine poisoning
Strychnine poisoning, in the sheriff's telling, was a murder-suicide: Mrs. Bates poisoned her lover and then herself, which is why the woman seen in the window cannot be her.
Q 10Besides saving money, why did Hitchcock shoot Psycho in black and white?
To make the shower scene less gory
To make the shower scene less gory, Hitchcock said, he gave up color; even so, Hollywood's censors refused to approve the finished film until the sequence had been revised.
Q 11Roughly how much did Psycho cost to make?
$800,000
$800,000 was roughly the bill, low even for 1960: Hitchcock financed the film largely himself and kept costs down by shooting fast with the crew of his television series.
Q 12What did Hitchcock accept instead of a director's salary for making Psycho?
A 60% stake in the negative
A 60% stake in the negative replaced his salary and kept the budget down; when the cheap thriller became the biggest hit of his career, that share earned him millions.
Q 13Who wrote the screenplay for Hitchcock's Psycho?
Joseph Stefano
Q 21Psycho's shower murder runs under a minute, but took roughly how long to shoot?
One week
One week under the shower head went into a murder that lasts about 45 seconds on screen, and the film's star always insisted that Hitchcock stood by the camera for every shot of it.
Q 22The 2017 documentary 78/52 is named for the 78 camera setups and 52 what in Psycho's shower scene?
Cuts
Cuts, in the editor's sense: by the documentary's count, 78 camera setups and 52 splices go into a murder that runs under a minute, and it spends a whole feature dissecting them.
Q 23In Psycho, what does Marion tell Norman she will do in the morning?
Drive back home
Joseph Stefano won the job by opening the story with Marion, where the novel opens with Norman, so that audiences would be on her side long before she reached the motel.
Q 14The Bates house in Psycho is said to be modeled on a painting by which American artist?
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper is said to have based House by the Railroad on a real mansion in Haverstraw, New York; the same canvas is also credited with inspiring the lonely houses of Giant and Days of Heaven.
Q 15What does Hitchcock do for most of Psycho's original theatrical trailer?
Gives a guided tour of the set
Gives a guided tour of the set: a jovial Hitchcock strolls through 'the scene of the crime', starts to give the plot away at each stop, then thinks better of it.
Q 16Who composed the score for Psycho?
Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann wrote music for the shower murder even though Hitchcock had wanted the scene silent; the director was so pleased with the result that he roughly doubled the composer's fee.
Q 17Psycho's score was written for which kind of ensemble?
Strings only
Strings only was the composer's answer to the film's look: one tone color for a black-and-white picture. Hitchcock had asked him for a jazz score.
Q 18On the American Film Institute's 2003 list of screen villains, Norman Bates ranks second behind which character?
Hannibal Lecter
Hannibal Lecter took first place, with Norman Bates second and Darth Vader third; the role that made Bates unforgettable also typecast its actor in unstable parts for years.
Q 19What stood in for blood in Psycho's shower scene?
Chocolate syrup
Chocolate syrup it was, yet many viewers have sworn that the blood circling the drain was bright red, in a film shot entirely in black and white.
Q 20How was the sound of the knife entering flesh created for the shower scene?
Stabbing a melon
The BBFC still required cuts to the stabbing sounds when the film first reached British cinemas.
Drive back home: she tells Norman she stepped into a private trap and wants to pull herself out of it, then tallies what she has spent of the stolen money and steps into the shower.
Q 24Where is Hitchcock's cameo in Psycho?
Standing outside Marion's office in a Stetson hat
Standing outside Marion's office in a Stetson hat, he is glimpsed through the window early in the film; he liked to appear near the start so audiences would stop looking for him.
Q 25In Psycho's original trailer, which actress screams in the shower in place of Janet Leigh?
Vera Miles
Vera Miles, who plays Marion's sister Lila, put on a blonde wig to pass for the star when Hitchcock threw back the shower curtain at the end of his trailer.
Q 26What unusual policy did Hitchcock impose on cinemas showing Psycho in 1960?
No one admitted after the start
No one admitted after the start was a rule theater owners feared would cost them business; instead it drew long lines, with Pinkerton guards hired to turn latecomers away.
Q 27Who played Hitchcock in the 2012 film about the making of Psycho?
Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins played the director under transforming makeup, in a film that is less about how Psycho was shot than about his marriage, with Helen Mirren as the wife who steers him through it.
Q 28Paramount released Psycho, but on which rival studio's lot was the film actually shot?
Universal
Universal's lot was home to Hitchcock's television unit, so he filmed there; the Bates house built on its backlot went on to become a fixture of the studio tour.
Q 29Psycho lost Best Director to which comedy?
The Apartment
The Apartment won it for Billy Wilder; Hitchcock was nominated five times as a director without ever winning, and his only award from the Academy was an honorary one in 1968.
Q 30Which award did Janet Leigh win for playing Marion Crane?
Golden Globe
A Golden Globe went to an actress whose character is dead before the film is half over; the same role brought the only Oscar nomination of her career, which she lost.