Stand by Me Trivia
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50 free Stand by Me trivia questions with answers. Stand by Me is the rare 80s movie that gets better every time you go back to it, and it rewards close attention. This quiz covers the plot of the boys' Labor Day weekend in 1959, from Chris's stolen pistol and Chopper the dog to the leeches, the body and Ace's switchblade, along with the 1985 framing story and the line about never having friends like the ones you had at twelve. It also goes behind the camera: Stephen King's novella The Body, the title change, Adrian Lyne's departure and Rob Reiner's arrival, Norman Lear's $7.5 million rescue, the Oregon town that played Castle Rock, the trestle in California, the cabbage-leaf cigarettes and the cottage-cheese vomit. Cast questions cover Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, Kiefer Sutherland and Richard Dreyfuss, plus the Ben E. King song that gave the film its name. Every answer was checked against the Wikipedia articles on the film, its cast, the novella and the song, and each question shows the sentence that supports it once you answer. Free, no signup.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed Stand by Me (1986)?
Rob Reiner
He had made only This Is Spinal Tap and The Sure Thing before it.
Q 02Stand by Me is based on a novella by which author?
Stephen King
The 1982 novella The Body appeared in the collection Different Seasons.
Q 03What is the title of the 1982 novella the film adapts?
The Body
Columbia changed the title in March 1986 because The Body sounded like a sex film, a bodybuilding film or another King horror.
Q 04In which fictional town is the film set?
Castle Rock
King's novella placed the town in Maine; the film moved it to Oregon.
Q 05In which year is the boys' journey set?
1959
The framing story takes place in 1985, with the adult Gordie writing his memoir.
Q 06The film's title comes from a 1961 song by which singer?
Ben E. King
The song re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1986 and climbed to number nine.
Q 07Who plays Gordie Lachance?
Wil Wheaton
He went on to play Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation the following year.
Q 08Which character does River Phoenix play?
Chris Chambers
He originally auditioned for the part of Gordie.
Q 09Corey Feldman plays which of the four boys?
Teddy Duchamp
His character's father is a mentally ill war veteran, an insult to whom sends him into a rage at Milo Pressman.
Q 10Which character does Jerry O'Connell play?
Vern Tessio
He landed the part shortly after turning eleven and later starred in Sliders.
Q 11Who plays the town bully Ace Merrill?
Kiefer Sutherland
It was the first film he made in the United States; The Lost Boys came the next year.
Q 12Which Oscar-winning actor plays the adult Gordie who narrates the film?
Richard Dreyfuss
Reiner considered the other three before settling on the star of Jaws and The Goodbye Girl.
Q 13What is the name of the missing boy whose body the four friends set out to find?
Ray Brower
Vern overhears his older brother Billy talking about finding the body near the train tracks.
What does Chris show Gordie that he has stolen from his father?
Q 21How does the adult Chris die, according to the 1985 framing story?
Stabbed in a diner fight
He had become an attorney; Gordie learns of it from a newspaper article.
Q 22Which Oregon town stood in for the film's fictional setting?
Brownsville
About 100 locals were hired as extras, and the town has held a Stand by Me Day every year since 2007.
Q 23Where was the famous train-trestle chase actually filmed?
Northeastern California
The 80-foot trestle scene took a full week and used four small adult female stunt doubles with cropped hair.
A Colt .45 pistol
Gordie later uses it to fire a warning shot and face down Ace's gang.
Q 15What item does Ace steal from Gordie early in the film?
A Yankees cap
Gordie's older brother Denny had recently died.
Q 16What is the name of Milo Pressman's supposedly ferocious junkyard dog?
Chopper
He turns out to be far less fearsome than his reputation.
Q 17What is the name of the boy in Gordie's campfire story about a pie-eating contest?
'Lard-Ass' Hogan
He drinks castor oil beforehand and triggers what Gordie calls a barf-o-rama.
Q 18What was mixed with pie filling to simulate vomit in the barf-o-rama scene?
Cottage cheese
A Brownsville bakery supplied the pies; some contestants got up to five gallons of it.
Q 19Chris admits to stealing what from school, then returning it and being suspended anyway?
The milk money
The teacher he returned it to secretly pocketed the money.
Q 20Gordie faints after pulling what off his body following the shortcut across the pond?
A leech
The boys get covered in them and frantically pull them off.
Q 24What did the child actors' cigarettes actually contain, at the director's insistence?
Cabbage leaves
Reiner insisted on it.
Q 25Which director was originally attached to the project before the eventual director took over?
Adrian Lyne
Lyne was unavailable until spring 1986; Reiner signed on in September 1984.
Q 26Which TV producer put up millions of his own money to finish the film after Columbia bought Embassy?
Norman Lear
He gave $7.5 million; he had created All in the Family, in which the director played Meathead, and cited his faith in the script.
Q 27Which studio finally agreed to distribute the film after Paramount, Universal and Warner Bros. passed?
Columbia Pictures
Studio head Guy McElwaine screened it at home and his daughters' reaction convinced him.
Q 28What was the film's budget?
$8 million
It grossed more than $52 million in North America.
Q 29Roughly how much did Stand by Me gross in North America?
$52 million
It opened in just 16 theaters before going wide on August 22, 1986.
Q 30For which Academy Award was Stand by Me nominated?
Best Adapted Screenplay
Writers Raynold Gideon and Bruce A. Evans got the nod; the film also received two Golden Globe nominations.