Rushmore
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50 free Rushmore trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Rushmore is the 1998 comedy that turned Wes Anderson from a promising newcomer into a filmmaker with a style all his own. Its hero, Max Fischer, is a scholarship kid who signs up for everything at his prep school, struggles in class, and falls hard for a teacher while befriending a weary industrialist played by Bill Murray. This quiz covers the whole film: the plot and its escalating feud, the characters and the actors who play them, the British Invasion soundtrack, the stories from the set, and the awards and honors that followed. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick up the story behind the fact as you play. It is written for fans who know Max's blazer on sight, for film-night hosts who need a ready round, and for anyone working through Wes Anderson's films one at a time.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01When Disney refused to pay for a Rushmore helicopter shot, what did Bill Murray give Wes Anderson?
A personal check
A personal check from Murray was meant to pay for a shot of Max and Blume riding in a helicopter, but the scene was never filmed and Anderson kept the check uncashed.
Q 02What does Max Fischer start building on Rushmore Academy's baseball field to impress Miss Cross?
An aquarium
An aquarium was Max's grand gesture, but he never sought the school's approval, and the ground-breaking ceremony got him expelled.
Q 03What does Max Fischer release into Herman Blume's hotel room during their feud in Rushmore?
Bees
Bees swarm the hotel where Blume has been living since Max told Blume's wife about her husband's affair.
Q 04Which son of Rocky actress Talia Shire made his film debut as Max Fischer in Rushmore?
Jason Schwartzman
Jason Schwartzman was 17 and had never acted on screen when the casting team found him, about a month before filming began.
Q 05Which singer-songwriter let Rushmore use his songs Here Comes My Baby and The Wind?
Cat Stevens
Cat Stevens wrote Here Comes My Baby as a sad song, then watched the Tremeloes turn it into an upbeat top-ten hit in 1967 before his own version came out.
Q 06Wes Anderson and his co-writer wanted Rushmore to feel like a children's book by which author?
Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl was the model for the slightly heightened reality the writers wanted, and Anderson later adapted Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox.
Q 07Rushmore borrows a carol recording from which 1965 animated television special as a homage?
A Charlie Brown Christmas
A Charlie Brown Christmas supplied the recording of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing heard in one scene, a nod to the Peanuts specials of Charles Schulz and Bill Melendez.
Q 08Which former child star says he was sent the Rushmore script for Max Fischer while retired from acting?
Macaulay Culkin
Macaulay Culkin, the Home Alone star, stepped away from films between 1994 and 2003, and has since called Rushmore a perfect movie.
Q 09Which Rushmore co-writer was, like Max Fischer, expelled from his own prep school as a teenager?
Owen Wilson
Owen Wilson shared more than the expulsion with Max: he had the same ambition, the same lack of academic motivation and a crush on an older woman.
Q 10Rushmore was shot in and around which Texas city where Wes Anderson himself grew up?
Houston
Houston won out after Anderson dropped an early idea of filming the private school in England and the public school in a distant American city.
Q 11Max Fischer petitions Rushmore Academy to keep teaching which language in a bid to impress Miss Cross?
Latin
Latin stays on the timetable thanks to Max's petition, an early sign of the tenacity that impresses Miss Cross and irritates his fellow students.
Q 12During their feud in Rushmore, Herman Blume retaliates against Max Fischer by driving his car over what?
Max's bicycle
Max's bicycle is flattened as the feud between the former friends escalates, and Max answers with sabotage that gets him arrested.
Q 13In Rushmore, what does Bert, the kind-hearted father of Max Fischer, do for a living?
Barber
Barber Bert Fischer runs the shop where a heartbroken Max skips school to work after giving up on Miss Cross.
Q 21After Rushmore Academy expels him, Max Fischer enrolls at a public high school named after which president?
Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland High was filmed at Lamar High School, which stands across the street from the campus that played Rushmore Academy.
Q 22Max Fischer is arrested in Rushmore after doing what to Herman Blume's car?
Cutting the brake lines
Cutting the brake lines marks the low point of a feud that began when Max learned his older friend was secretly seeing Miss Cross.
Q 23Rosemary Cross, the widowed teacher Max Fischer falls for in Rushmore, teaches which class?
First grade
Q 14Max Fischer's final stage production at the end of Rushmore is set during which war?
The Vietnam War
The Vietnam War play moves Herman Blume, himself a veteran of that conflict, and he and Miss Cross appear to reconcile afterwards.
Q 15Wes Anderson first planned to fill the whole Rushmore soundtrack with songs by which English band?
The Kinks
The Kinks suited Max's loud, angry nature, Anderson felt, but other British Invasion songs crept in until a single Kinks track remained.
Q 16Rushmore was Wes Anderson's second feature film, following which 1996 crime comedy, his debut?
Bottle Rocket
Bottle Rocket was a commercial flop in its limited release, yet Martin Scorsese later named it one of his favorite films of the 1990s.
Q 17Rushmore was selected in 2016 for which list of culturally, historically or aesthetically significant American films?
National Film Registry
National Film Registry titles are chosen by the Library of Congress for preservation, and only 25 films are added each year.
Q 18Which Scottish actor, later Logan Roy in Succession, plays the headmaster of Rushmore Academy?
Brian Cox
Brian Cox had already been the screen's first Hannibal Lecter, in 1986's Manhunter, before he ran the school that keeps threatening to expel Max.
Q 19In Rushmore, a note in a library book by which ocean explorer leads Max Fischer to Miss Cross?
Jacques Cousteau
Jacques Cousteau's book carried a handwritten message that intrigued Max, who traced the previous borrower and promptly became obsessed with her.
Q 20Rushmore's score is by Mark Mothersbaugh, co-founder and lead singer of which new wave band?
Devo
Devo made Mothersbaugh famous with the 1980 hit Whip It, and he went on to score Wes Anderson's first four feature films.
First grade is Miss Cross's class at Rushmore Academy, where she chose to teach after the death of her husband, a former student there.
Q 24Which filmmaker cousin of Rushmore's lead actor brought him to the casting team's notice at a party?
Sofia Coppola
Sofia Coppola made the introduction in October 1997, only about a month before filming, after 1,800 teenagers had been considered for Max.
Q 25What sends the headmaster of Rushmore Academy to hospital, where Max Fischer and Herman Blume meet again?
A stroke
A stroke puts him in a hospital bed, and Max's young friend urges a visit, knowing that Blume will be there too.
Q 26Which prize did Wes Anderson win for Rushmore at the 1999 Independent Spirit Awards?
Best Director
Best Director went to Anderson on a night when Bill Murray also won the supporting actor prize for playing Herman Blume.
Q 27On the first day of filming Rushmore, how did Wes Anderson give his directions to Bill Murray?
In a whisper
In a whisper, so that nobody would see him embarrassed if the star shot him down; instead Murray publicly deferred to him and hauled equipment.
Q 28Bill Murray liked the Rushmore script so much that he agreed to act in it for what?
Union scale pay
Union scale pay, which Anderson put at about $9,000, was all Murray asked for after his agent urged him to read the script.
Q 29Which English actress plays Rosemary Cross in Rushmore, a year before co-starring in The Sixth Sense?
Olivia Williams
Olivia Williams had made her film debut only a year earlier, in The Postman, after a screen test for Kevin Costner.
Q 30Rushmore's Max Fischer was played by the teenage drummer of which Los Angeles rock band?
Phantom Planet
Phantom Planet later recorded California, the theme song of The O.C., and their drummer stayed until 2003 before leaving to act full time.