Rain Man Trivia
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41 free Rain Man trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Rain Man trivia quiz covers the 1988 Best Picture winner from the top: the plot (Charlie's Lamborghinis, the $3 million estate, the rosebushes and the Buick, why Raymond refuses to fly, blackjack at Caesars Palace), the cast (who was first pictured as Raymond, which actors turned it down, which director walked away to make an Indiana Jones film), and the making of it (nine weeks in Cincinnati, a shoot during the writers' strike, Hans Zimmer's score). It then looks at the man who inspired Raymond, Kim Peek, and how Barry Morrow's Oscar became 'the most loved statuette', at the four Academy Awards and Golden Bear the film won, at its box-office record for 1988, and at the legacy: airline edits, the card-counting myth, the West End stage version, and the sale of Hoffman's Buick. Questions run from easy (who plays Charlie) to expert (the auction price of the Buick). Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 41 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who plays Charlie Babbitt?
Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise plays Charlie Babbitt, the hustling younger brother; he was attached by 1986 and stayed on while three directors came and went before the cameras finally rolled in May 1988.
Q 02Who plays Raymond Babbitt?
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Hoffman plays Raymond Babbitt after about a year of research: he met autistic people and their families and consulted specialists in San Diego and Los Angeles before filming.
Q 03Who directed Rain Man?
Barry Levinson
Barry Levinson directed Rain Man after three other directors had left the project, and he put himself on screen, uncredited, as the doctor who questions Raymond at the closing custody meeting.
Q 04Whose comedy routine does Raymond recite whenever he gets anxious?
Abbott and Costello
Abbott and Costello's 'Who's on First?' is Raymond's refuge: he recites it flatly, like a puzzle to be solved, until Charlie tells him it is a joke, not a riddle, and that seeing so might help him.
Q 05What is Charlie Babbitt's business at the start of Rain Man?
Importing grey-market Lamborghinis
Charlie runs a business importing grey-market Lamborghinis into Los Angeles; the film opens with his cars held by the EPA over emissions while his buyers demand their deposits back.
Q 06To which city does Charlie travel to settle his father's estate?
Cincinnati
Cincinnati is the hometown Charlie left as a teenager without ever speaking to his father again; back for the funeral, he expects a fortune and instead hears the lawyer read out a bitter letter.
Q 07What does Charlie inherit from his father, apart from some rosebushes?
A 1949 Buick Roadmaster convertible
A 1949 Buick Roadmaster convertible is all Charlie gets besides the rosebushes. One of the two cars used for filming stayed with one of the film's stars for 34 years, then sold at auction in 2022 for $335,000.
Q 08Sanford Babbitt's will leaves his $3 million to whom?
Secret heir
A secret heir: the lawyer will not say who benefits, so Charlie goes to his father's bank, learns where the money is going and drives out to find a brother he never knew he had.
Q 09Who plays Charlie's girlfriend Susanna?
Valeria Golino
Valeria Golino plays Susanna, Charlie's girlfriend and employee, who walks out over his treatment of Raymond and then turns up again in Las Vegas.
Q 10What is the name of the doctor in charge of Raymond at Wallbrook?
Dr. Bruner
Dr. Bruner has known the Babbitts since Charlie was two. The film's co-producer Gerald R. Molen stepped in front of the camera to play him, and later won a Best Picture Oscar for Schindler's List.
Q 11Why do the brothers cross the country by car instead of by plane?
Raymond refuses to fly
Raymond refuses to fly: at the airport he recites the dates and death tolls of past airline crashes and screams when Charlie tries to board, so the brothers set off west by car.
Q 12Which TV show must Raymond watch every day?
The People's Court
Raymond must watch The People's Court every afternoon, counting down 'ten minutes to Wapner'; on the road Charlie talks a farm family into letting Raymond watch it in their living room.
Q 13Where does the name 'Rain Man' come from?
Charlie's childhood way of saying 'Raymond'
Q 21Which store does Raymond insist is the only place to buy his boxer shorts?
Kmart
Kmart, and one particular branch at that, is the only shop Raymond will accept, which drives Charlie to a roadside meltdown. By the film's end, dressed in a new suit, Raymond's verdict is 'Kmart sucks'.
Q 22Which Hollywood strike ran through almost all of Rain Man's filming?
The 1988 Writers Guild strike
The 1988 Writers Guild strike was already under way when filming began that May, so the film was shot with no writer on hand and the director reworked scenes himself as the shoot went along.
Q 23Who composed Rain Man's score?
Hans Zimmer
Charlie's childhood way of saying 'Raymond' came out as 'Rain Man'. He had remembered the name only as an imaginary friend who sang to him when he was scared, until Raymond mutters it in a motel.
Q 14What got Raymond sent to Wallbrook as a young man?
A bath that nearly scalded Charlie
A bath that nearly scalded Charlie: the family believed Raymond had endangered the baby and sent him away in January 1965. Decades later he still panics, crying 'hot water burn baby', when Charlie runs a bath.
Q 15Which Las Vegas casino do the brothers hit for blackjack?
Caesars Palace
The brothers play blackjack at Caesars Palace, where Raymond counts cards through a six-deck shoe, a feat the casino's own staff say nobody can manage; the scenes were shot inside the real casino.
Q 16How does Charlie answer the doctor's $250,000 offer to walk away?
He refuses
He refuses: Charlie tells the doctor he is no longer angry about the will and only wants a place in his brother's life.
Q 17How does Rain Man end?
Raymond boards a train back to the institution
Raymond boards a train back to the institution after Charlie promises to visit in two weeks; as they part he repeats the brothers' blackjack code, 'One for bad, two for good.'
Q 18Which comic actor did talent agents first picture as Raymond Babbitt?
Bill Murray
Bill Murray was the early idea for Raymond when Creative Artists Agency first sent the script around; the project then went through four directors in two years before filming began.
Q 19Which film did Steven Spielberg leave Rain Man to direct?
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was owed to his friend George Lucas, so Spielberg left Rain Man for it. He later called that a mistake and admitted a pang when the film he gave up won Best Picture.
Q 20What falls on a diner floor for Raymond to count at a single glance?
Toothpicks
Toothpicks: a box spills on the floor and Raymond calls out 246 at a glance. The box held 250, which sounds like a near miss until it turns out four were still inside.
Hans Zimmer was scoring British films and television when the director's wife heard his music for the drama A World Apart and bought the CD; the offer to score Rain Man followed.
Q 24Which 1960s hit plays in Rain Man's opening scene, in a cover by the Belle Stars?
Iko Iko
Iko Iko, in a 1982 cover that had stalled at number 35 in Britain, opens the film; seven years after it was recorded, the soundtrack carried it to number 14 on the American chart.
Q 25Which European film festival gave Rain Man its top prize weeks before the 1989 Oscars?
Berlin
Berlin's jury gave Rain Man its Golden Bear in February 1989, choosing it over a rival it would beat again for Best Picture five weeks later.
Q 26Which film lost Best Picture to Rain Man?
Mississippi Burning
Mississippi Burning arrived with seven nominations to Rain Man's eight and lost Best Picture to it, but took Best Cinematography, one of the four categories in which Rain Man went home empty-handed.
Q 27In which Oscar category did Rain Man lose to The Milagro Beanfield War?
Original Score
Best Original Score went to Dave Grusin for The Milagro Beanfield War, a Robert Redford comedy that took under $14 million in American cinemas, about a twelfth of what Rain Man made.
Q 28Which film finished second to Rain Man at the 1988 US box office?
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Who Framed Roger Rabbit ended 1988 on top with $156 million. Rain Man, which had only opened in mid-December, passed it the following spring on its way to $172 million.
Q 29Which film beat Rain Man to number one on its opening weekend?
Twins
Twins, the Schwarzenegger and DeVito comedy, was in its second weekend and took $7.8 million to Rain Man's $7.0 million. By the end of their runs Rain Man had out-grossed it by about $60 million in America.
Q 30Which critic dismissed Rain Man as 'a piece of wet kitsch'?
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael, in The New Yorker, called Rain Man 'a piece of wet kitsch' and mocked its star for 'humping one note on a piano for two hours and eleven minutes'.