Quentin Tarantino Trivia
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100 free Quentin Tarantino trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Quentin Tarantino trivia for people who can quote the Royale with Cheese speech but want something harder. This quiz walks through the whole career: the video-store years in Manhattan Beach, the scripts he sold to pay for Reservoir Dogs, the Palme d'Or for Pulp Fiction, and every feature up to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, plus the novel and the film-history book that followed. Expect questions on the films themselves (why the Crazy 88 fight is in black and white, what Dr. King Schultz did before bounty hunting, which score won Ennio Morricone his only Oscar), on Tarantino's acting cameos from The Golden Girls to From Dusk till Dawn, and on the running jokes and collaborators that tie his universe together: Red Apple cigarettes, Sally Menke, Uma Thurman, Christoph Waltz's two Oscars. Every answer is checked against the Wikipedia article for the film or for Tarantino himself, with the supporting sentence saved alongside the question. Difficulty ranges from easy warm-ups to a handful only serious fans will get, so play it solo or use it for a movie-night round.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city was Quentin Tarantino born in 1963?
Knoxville, Tennessee
Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on March 27, 1963; his mother moved with him to the Los Angeles area in 1966, and he grew up in the South Bay.
Q 02Tarantino was named in part after Quint Asper, a character played by Burt Reynolds in which TV Western?
Gunsmoke
Quint Asper was the half-Comanche blacksmith Burt Reynolds played on Gunsmoke from 1962 to 1965; Tarantino's mother Connie was a fan of the character.
Q 03Tarantino spent five years working at the Video Archives store in which California city?
Manhattan Beach
Video Archives was a rental shop in Manhattan Beach, California, where Tarantino clerked for about five years in the 1980s; he liked to say that instead of film school, 'I went to films'.
Q 04As a 15-year-old, Tarantino was grounded for shoplifting a novel by which author from a Kmart?
Elmore Leonard
At 15 Tarantino was caught shoplifting Elmore Leonard's 1978 novel The Switch from a Kmart; nearly two decades later he adapted another Leonard crime novel as Jackie Brown.
Q 05In 1988 Tarantino played an Elvis impersonator on an episode of which sitcom?
The Golden Girls
In the 1988 episode 'Sophia's Wedding', Tarantino was one of a troupe of Elvis impersonators on The Golden Girls; he said the rerun residuals helped support him while he prepared Reservoir Dogs.
Q 06Tarantino's first Hollywood job in 1986 was on an exercise video fronted by which action star?
Dolph Lundgren
Tarantino's first industry job, in 1986, was as a production assistant on Maximum Potential, a workout video fronted by Dolph Lundgren.
Q 07What was the title of the low-budget 1987 film Tarantino co-wrote and directed before Reservoir Dogs?
My Best Friend's Birthday
My Best Friend's Birthday, co-written with Craig Hamann and shot in black and white on a tiny budget, was never completed; only about 36 minutes of footage survive.
Q 08Which of Tarantino's scripts was sold to finance Reservoir Dogs and directed by Tony Scott in 1993?
True Romance
True Romance was sold for about $50,000, money Tarantino meant to put toward Reservoir Dogs; Tony Scott straightened out its non-linear timeline and changed the ending so Clarence and Alabama survive.
Q 09Which director's rewrite of Natural Born Killers left Tarantino with only a story credit?
Oliver Stone
Oliver Stone directed Natural Born Killers (1994) after heavily rewriting Tarantino's script; Tarantino disowned the film and took only a 'story by' credit.
Q 10Reservoir Dogs' title reportedly came from a customer mishearing Tarantino recommend which French film?
Au revoir les enfants
The story goes that a Video Archives customer mangled Tarantino's recommendation of Louis Malle's Au revoir les enfants into 'reservoir dogs'; he also liked that the phrase sounded like a Jean-Pierre Melville title.
Q 11Which colour-coded alias does Tarantino himself play in Reservoir Dogs?
Mr. Brown
Tarantino cast himself as Mr. Brown, the crook who delivers the opening 'Like a Virgin' monologue; he had originally planned to shoot the film for about $30,000 with friends before Harvey Keitel came aboard.
Q 12Which 1970s song plays as Mr. Blonde tortures the captured cop in Reservoir Dogs?
Stuck in the Middle with You
Stealers Wheel's 1973 hit 'Stuck in the Middle with You' plays from K-Billy's Super Sounds of the Seventies as Mr. Blonde dances around and slices off the cop's ear.
Q 13Reservoir Dogs was accused of borrowing heavily from City on Fire, a 1987 heist film from which country?
Hong Kong
Q 21Which Jackie Brown actor earned an Academy Award nomination for playing bail bondsman Max Cherry?
Robert Forster
Robert Forster's turn as bail bondsman Max Cherry earned him a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the 1998 Oscars; the part revived a career that had drifted into B-movies since the 1970s.
Q 22How much was Tarantino paid for From Dusk till Dawn, his first paid writing assignment?
$1,500
Robert Kurtzman of effects house KNB paid Tarantino $1,500 around 1990 to write From Dusk till Dawn from Kurtzman's story, on the understanding that KNB would do the makeup effects on Reservoir Dogs.
Q 23In From Dusk till Dawn, Tarantino plays the deranged brother of a bank robber played by whom?
George Clooney
City on Fire is a 1987 Hong Kong crime thriller directed by Ringo Lam; its undercover-cop plot and climactic Mexican standoff prefigure Reservoir Dogs, and Tarantino has acknowledged the influence.
Q 14At which festival did Reservoir Dogs premiere in January 1992?
Sundance
Reservoir Dogs premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, in January 1992, after Tarantino had workshopped scenes at the Sundance Institute's directors' lab the previous summer.
Q 15Which prize did Pulp Fiction win at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival?
Palme d'Or
Pulp Fiction took the Palme d'Or at Cannes in May 1994 from a jury chaired by Clint Eastwood; it went on to win Tarantino his first Academy Award, for Best Original Screenplay.
Q 16With whom did Tarantino share the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Pulp Fiction?
Roger Avary
Roger Avary shared the 1995 Best Original Screenplay Oscar with Tarantino; the two had met working the counter at Video Archives, and the Butch storyline grew out of an Avary script.
Q 17Which character does Tarantino play in Pulp Fiction?
Jimmie
Tarantino plays Jimmie, Jules's friend in Toluca Lake whose house is where the Marvin mess gets cleaned up in 'The Bonnie Situation' before his wife Bonnie comes home from her shift.
Q 18Tarantino's admiration for which 1981 Brian De Palma film led him to cast John Travolta in Pulp Fiction?
Blow Out
Blow Out (1981) stars Travolta as a sound man who records a political assassination; Tarantino, who ranks it among his favourite films, cast the then-faded star as Vincent Vega, earning Travolta a Best Actor nomination.
Q 19Jackie Brown is an adaptation of which 1992 crime novel?
Rum Punch
Rum Punch, a 1992 crime novel, gave Tarantino the plot of Jackie Brown (1997); he renamed heroine Jackie Burke, cast a Black actress in the role, and moved the story from Florida to Los Angeles' South Bay.
Q 20Jackie Brown pays homage to Coffy and Foxy Brown, both of which starred which actress?
Pam Grier
Pam Grier, the star of Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974), plays Jackie; her opening walk through the airport to Bobby Womack's 'Across 110th Street' is another blaxploitation borrowing.
George Clooney plays Seth Gecko, with Tarantino as his deranged brother Richie; the pair end up trapped in a Mexican border strip club that turns out to be full of vampires.
Q 24Tarantino directed the final segment of which 1995 anthology film with Rodriguez, Anders and Rockwell?
Four Rooms
Four Rooms follows bellhop Ted (Tim Roth) through four hotel suites on New Year's Eve; Tarantino's closing segment, 'The Man from Hollywood', riffs on an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode about a bet over a cigarette lighter.
Q 25Roughly how long was the Kill Bill cut that persuaded the studio to split it into two volumes?
Over four hours
Over four hours long in its first assembly, Kill Bill was split into two volumes at Miramax's suggestion, announced in July 2003; Volume 1 arrived that October and Volume 2 in April 2004.
Q 26For which actor did Tarantino originally write Bill in Kill Bill, before David Carradine?
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty was Tarantino's first choice for Bill and was attached for a time; as the role grew to demand more screen time and martial-arts training, Beatty departed and Kung Fu star David Carradine took over.
Q 27In Kill Bill, the Bride travels to Okinawa to obtain a sword from which legendary swordsmith?
Hattori Hanzō
Hattori Hanzō, played by Sonny Chiba, is the retired Okinawa swordsmith who forges the Bride's blade; the name nods to the real 16th-century samurai and to Chiba's role in the 1980s Japanese series Shadow Warriors.
Q 28Why is the Bride's fight against the Crazy 88 in Kill Bill: Volume 1 shown partly in black and white?
To avoid an NC-17 rating
To avoid an NC-17 rating in the United States, the House of Blue Leaves massacre switches to black and white at its bloodiest; the Japanese release kept the whole sequence in colour.
Q 29What is the name of the deadly move the Bride uses to finally kill Bill in Kill Bill: Volume 2?
Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique
The Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, taught to the Bride by Pai Mei, strikes five pressure points; once the victim takes five steps the heart bursts, which is how Bill dies.
Q 30What is the Bride's real name, finally revealed in Kill Bill: Volume 2?
Beatrix Kiddo
The Bride's name, Beatrix Kiddo, is bleeped out whenever it is spoken in Volume 1; Bill finally says it aloud in Volume 2, and her Deadly Viper codename was Black Mamba.