Shutter Island Trivia
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47 free Shutter Island trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Shutter Island trivia quiz covers Martin Scorsese's 2010 film and the Dennis Lehane novel it came from: the plot (the missing patient, Ward C, the woman in the cave, the lighthouse), the twist and the two anagrams that give it away, the cast (Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley) and the making of it: the Massachusetts hospital and islands that stood in for Ashecliffe, the all-classical soundtrack Robbie Robertson assembled, and the argument between Scorsese's psychiatrist and Lehane over what the last line means. Roughly a third of the questions are easy for anyone who has seen the film, a third are medium, and the rest dig into the box office, the locations, the music and the differences between book and film. Play it solo, or use it as a thriller round for movie night. Every answer was checked against a primary or encyclopaedic source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actor plays Teddy Daniels, the lead investigator in Shutter Island?
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio. He signed on with his director in 2007, and his being unavailable to promote the film abroad was later reported as one reason its release was held back.
Q 02Which Clint Eastwood film was also adapted from a novel by Shutter Island's author, Dennis Lehane?
Mystic River
Mystic River. Lehane says that when that novel was praised as literature, his contrary side made him write Shutter Island next as a homage to gothic tales, B movies and pulp.
Q 03Teddy Daniels arrives on Shutter Island believing he works for which agency?
The US Marshals
The US Marshals. He hands over his gun on arrival like a real lawman, but the badge is part of his delusion: he had been a federal marshal before he became a patient.
Q 04Shutter Island lies in the harbor of which city?
Boston
Boston. The island on screen is the harbor's real Peddocks Island, and Lehane modelled the setting on another, Long Island, which he visited as a boy during the blizzard of 1978.
Q 05What is the name of the missing patient Teddy is sent to find on Shutter Island?
Rachel Solando
Rachel Solando. She is said to have vanished from a locked cell, leaving her shoes behind; Cawley later admits that she never existed and that the whole search was staged.
Q 06In Shutter Island, the missing patient was committed for killing her three children by what method?
Drowning
Drowning. Teddy dreams of the woman and three dead children long before the finale shows why the case grips him: it is a disguised version of what happened to his own family.
Q 07Who plays Teddy's partner Chuck Aule in Shutter Island?
Mark Ruffalo
Mark Ruffalo. A patient warns Teddy not to trust him, and with reason: Chuck is no lawman but a member of the hospital's staff, playing along to keep Teddy safe.
Q 08Which Oscar winner plays Dr. John Cawley, the man running the hospital in Shutter Island?
Ben Kingsley
Ben Kingsley. His Cawley looks like the villain but is the reformer: he stages the entire investigation in the hope of curing his patient with a role-play instead of the era's harsher methods.
Q 09Which Swedish screen legend plays Dr. Naehring, the German-accented doctor who tries to sedate Teddy in Shutter Island?
Max von Sydow
Max von Sydow. Teddy, a veteran haunted by what he saw in the war, takes the doctor for a former Nazi and taunts him for being German.
Q 10Who plays Teddy's late wife, who appears in his dreams in Shutter Island?
Michelle Williams
Michelle Williams. In his dreams she insists the missing patient is still on the island and urges him on, long before the film reveals what really passed between them.
Q 11Two actresses play versions of the missing patient in Shutter Island: Emily Mortimer and which other?
Patricia Clarkson
Patricia Clarkson. Her version, a knife-wielding woman hiding in a sea cave, confirms every one of Teddy's suspicions, which is the clue that he has imagined her.
Q 12Which actor plays George Noyce, the scarred patient who warns Teddy not to trust his partner in Shutter Island?
Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley. His Noyce says the whole investigation is a game staged for Teddy, and blames Teddy for the scars on his own face.
Q 13In Shutter Island, Teddy's wartime flashbacks are to the liberation of which concentration camp?
Dachau
Q 21Shutter Island's final line asks whether it is worse to live as a monster or to do what?
Die as a good man
Die as a good man. The line is not in the novel: the film's medical adviser read it as a sane man choosing his fate, while Lehane heard only one moment of sanity among the delusions.
Q 22In Shutter Island's finale, Teddy grabs his gun from Cawley's desk and fires; what does it turn out to be?
A harmless toy
A harmless toy. Nothing in the case is real: Cawley reveals that the whole investigation was a role-play, staged in the hope of breaking through his delusion.
Q 23In Shutter Island, a note hidden in the missing patient's cell asks 'Who is' which number?
67
Dachau. An abandoned textile mill at Taunton was dressed as the camp, where Teddy remembers his unit shooting the remaining guards along the wire.
Q 14Which name, an anagram of Edward Daniels, belongs to the man Teddy blames for his wife's death?
Andrew Laeddis
Andrew Laeddis. Cawley sets the two names side by side in the finale to show they share the same 13 letters: the man Teddy is hunting is himself.
Q 15In Shutter Island, the missing patient's name is an anagram of Teddy's wife's full name, which is what?
Dolores Chanal
Dolores Chanal. Both of the story's anagrams come from Lehane's novel, and Cawley spells them out in the finale as proof that Teddy made the missing woman up.
Q 16In Shutter Island, which restricted block does Teddy break into?
Ward C
Ward C. It holds the most dangerous patients and is off limits without the doctors' permission, so Teddy slips in during the chaos of the storm.
Q 17Where on Shutter Island does Teddy believe the hospital carries out its secret experiments?
The lighthouse
The lighthouse. When he finally fights his way in, he finds no laboratory, only Cawley at a desk, waiting to tell him who he really is.
Q 18In Shutter Island, the woman Teddy meets in a sea cave claims to be a former what?
Psychiatrist
Psychiatrist. She says she was locked up for uncovering the hospital's mind-control experiments, which is exactly what Teddy wants to hear; Cawley later calls her a delusion.
Q 19In Shutter Island's finale, Cawley says Teddy's symptoms are withdrawal from which drug he has taken for two years?
Chlorpromazine
Chlorpromazine. Teddy believes the hospital has been drugging his food and cigarettes; Cawley's answer is the opposite, that he is suffering because his usual medication was stopped.
Q 20In Shutter Island, what awaits Teddy if Cawley's role-play fails?
A lobotomy
A lobotomy. The hospital's board ordered it after his attack on another patient, and Cawley warns that an earlier breakthrough, nine months before, did not last.
67. The hospital admits to only 66 patients, so Teddy assumes a 67th is being hidden from him; the finale gives the number a very different owner.
Q 24Which composer's piano quartet is playing when Teddy first meets Dr. Naehring in Shutter Island?
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler. Teddy takes the German doctor for a former Nazi, though Mahler's music was banned under the Nazis.
Q 25Besides writing the novel, what credit did Dennis Lehane take on the film of Shutter Island?
Executive producer
Executive producer. Laeta Kalogridis wrote the screenplay and Lehane says he stayed out of the scripting, which is how the film came by a last line that is not in his book.
Q 26When Teddy asks where his partner has gone, what does Cawley tell him in Shutter Island?
That he came alone
That he came alone. Teddy answers 'What partner?' and plays along, but the claim is half true: there never was a second lawman, only a member of staff in a borrowed role.
Q 27Where was most of Shutter Island actually filmed?
A disused state hospital
A disused state hospital. Medfield State Hospital, about 20 miles inland from the film's harbor setting, plays the asylum's main building and its first two wards.
Q 28At the start of Shutter Island, how does Teddy say his wife died?
In an apartment fire
In an apartment fire. He blames a firebug he believes is hidden on the island; the finale reveals that he invented the man and that his wife's death was his own doing.
Q 29Where does the family tragedy revealed in Shutter Island's finale take place?
A lakeside cabin
A lakeside cabin. The family had moved out of the city to it; the scene was shot at a stone lodge beside Leach Pond in Borderland State Park.
Q 30Whose recording of 'This Bitter Earth' is blended with Max Richter's strings on the Shutter Island soundtrack?
Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington. The blend of her 1960 vocal with modern strings outlived the film: Christopher Wheeldon set a ballet duet to it, which New York City Ballet took into its repertory in 2012.