Tamil Cinema
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50 free Tamil Cinema trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Tamil cinema has been talking, singing and fighting on screen for nearly a century, and its fans treat a big release like a festival. The industry has produced stars who became chief ministers, composers who changed how Indian films sound, and stories that travelled to Hindi cinema, Hollywood and far beyond. This Tamil movie quiz covers the whole run: the early studio classics, the superstar vehicles of the 1990s, the new wave of gritty dramas and the shared-universe thrillers of recent years. Every question has four options, and each answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn the story behind the fact. Several questions follow the connections between films, such as remakes, inspirations, family ties and surprise cameos. It suits anyone who grew up on Kollywood, quiz hosts who need a ready set with answers, and newer viewers who found Tamil films through streaming and want to see how much they have picked up.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Before becoming a film star, Rajinikanth held which job with the Bangalore Transport Service?
Bus conductor
Bus conductor came after several other jobs, including work as a coolie. A co-worker, Raj Bahadur, urged him to enrol at the Madras Film Institute and helped pay his way.
Q 02Rajinikanth's film Muthu became a surprise hit in which country, where it was retitled The Dancing Maharaja?
Japan
Japan got the film after a critic found it in a Singapore video shop and loved it even without subtitles. It stayed the country's highest-grossing Indian film for 24 years.
Q 03Kamal Haasan's Avvai Shanmughi, whose hero disguises himself as a woman, is often likened to which Hollywood comedy?
Mrs. Doubtfire
Mrs. Doubtfire reached cinemas in 1993, but Kamal Haasan said he had the idea six years earlier and guessed that both films had drawn on the same source.
Q 04Tamil cinema's nickname Kollywood blends Hollywood with the name of which studio-filled Chennai neighbourhood?
Kodambakkam
Kodambakkam packed in so many film studios that its name came to stand for the whole Tamil industry, much as one Los Angeles district stands for American film.
Q 05Which viral 'Tanglish' song, written and sung by Dhanush for the 2012 film 3, was composed in about ten minutes?
Why This Kolaveri Di
Why This Kolaveri Di became the first Tamil film song to premiere on MTV India, and its singer was invited to dinner by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Q 06Suriya's 2005 revenge thriller Ghajini borrows its central idea from which Christopher Nolan film?
Memento
Memento gave director A. R. Murugadoss the forgetful hero he wanted: he said he had written half his story when he saw it, and he remade his own film in Hindi in 2008.
Q 07In which film does Rajinikanth play both the scientist Vaseegaran and his creation Chitti, built for the Indian Army?
Enthiran
Enthiran was the most expensive Indian film made up to that point, and it brought the Hollywood make-up and animatronics studio Legacy Effects to Indian cinema.
Q 08Which Bollywood star made his Tamil debut as Pakshi Rajan, the bird-loving villain of Rajinikanth's 2.0?
Akshay Kumar
Akshay Kumar played a dead ornithologist whose spirit turns swarms of mobile phones on their owners, blaming mobile radiation for the deaths of birds.
Q 09Which Mani Ratnam film, about a woman whose husband is kidnapped in Kashmir, marked A. R. Rahman's debut as composer?
Roja
Roja won its first-time composer a National Film Award, and Time magazine later listed the album among the ten best soundtracks of all time.
Q 10Which star of the 1991 hit Chinna Thambi became the first Indian actress to have a temple built for her by fans?
Khushbu
Khushbu also lent her name to the menu: the Kushboo idli, a rice cake, is the best known of the Tamil Nadu dishes and products named after her, from saris to coffee.
Q 11In which 1995 film does Rajinikanth play Manikam, a humble auto-rickshaw driver hiding a dark past from his family?
Baashha
Baashha travelled well: it was remade in Kannada as Kotigobba and in Bengali as Guru, and a digitally restored version returned to cinemas in 2017.
Q 12Which Mani Ratnam film, starring Kamal Haasan as a Bombay crime lord, made Time magazine's list of 100 greatest films?
Nayakan
Nayakan is loosely based on the real Bombay underworld don Varadarajan Mudaliar and on The Godfather, and it was remade in Hindi a year later as Dayavan.
Q 13Which Rajinikanth horror comedy, based on the Malayalam film Manichitrathazhu, ran 890 days at one Chennai theatre?
Chandramukhi
Q 21Which actress played both the vengeful Neelambari in Padayappa and Queen Sivagami in the Baahubali films?
Ramya Krishnan
Ramya Krishnan took Neelambari after a four-year break from Tamil films, and one critic wrote that her villain stays vicious to her dying breath.
Q 22Which Vijay blockbuster, a remake of the Telugu hit Okkadu, casts him as a kabaddi player from Chennai?
Ghilli
Ghilli returned to cinemas in 2024, twenty years on, and became India's highest-grossing re-release until Tumbbad passed it months later.
Q 23In which 2005 film does Vikram play a meek lawyer whose other identities are a fashion model and a murderous vigilante?
Anniyan
Anniyan's vigilante punishes the corrupt with methods taken from the Garuda Purana, an ancient Hindu scripture that details the punishments of hell.
Chandramukhi overtook Haridas, the 1944 hit that played through three consecutive Diwalis at a theatre in Broadway, also in Chennai.
Q 14Which Rajinikanth gangster film was promoted with an AirAsia jet wrapped in its title and an image of its star?
Kabali
Kabali was filmed mostly in Malaysia, and its teaser drew 10 million views in three days, the most for any Indian film teaser at the time.
Q 15Which Kalki Krishnamurthy novel about a Chola prince did Mani Ratnam adapt into a two-part film epic?
Ponniyin Selvan
Ponniyin Selvan, a 1955 novel, follows Arulmozhi Varman, the prince who became the emperor Rajaraja I. The first film won the National Award for Best Tamil Feature.
Q 16Which film stars Suriya as a lawyer, modelled on Justice K. Chandru, fighting for a woman of the Irular tribe?
Jai Bhim
Jai Bhim draws on a 1993 case from Cuddalore, in which a tribal man disappeared from a police station after his arrest and his wife went to court to find him.
Q 17Which Suriya film is inspired by Simply Fly, the memoir of low-cost airline founder G. R. Gopinath?
Soorarai Pottru
Soorarai Pottru took director Sudha Kongara more than ten years of research, and its hero sells plane tickets at railway stations and petrol pumps.
Q 18Which Lokesh Kanagaraj thriller, told over a single night, has no songs and no female lead?
Kaithi
Kaithi follows a newly released prisoner who drives poisoned policemen to hospital while dodging criminals, all in exchange for a first meeting with his daughter.
Q 19Suriya's surprise cameo in Kamal Haasan's Vikram (2022) introduced which ruthless drug kingpin?
Rolex
Rolex is the boss the film's villain answers to, a buyer who threatens him and his family with death if the missing drug containers are not delivered.
Q 20Which director gave Rajinikanth his stage name, borrowed from a character in the earlier film Major Chandrakanth?
K. Balachander
K. Balachander picked the new name to avoid confusion with the established star Sivaji Ganesan, then launched his discovery in Apoorva Raagangal (1975).
Q 24Which Atlee film casts Vijay in three roles, as a village wrestler, a doctor and a magician?
Mersal
Mersal was the hundredth production of Thenandal Studio. Its doctor charges patients only a token fee, while his brother, the magician, takes revenge for crimes in medicine.
Q 25Lokesh Kanagaraj called Leo, his Vijay thriller about a café owner with a hidden past, a tribute to which film?
A History of Violence
A History of Violence is David Cronenberg's 2005 thriller. The Tamil film it inspired became the third instalment of the Lokesh Cinematic Universe.
Q 26Dhanush made his Hollywood debut as a mercenary code-named Lone Wolf in which Netflix action thriller?
The Gray Man
The Gray Man was produced by the Russo brothers' company AGBO and adapts Mark Greaney's 2009 novel as the first film of a planned franchise.
Q 27Which Rajinikanth film retells the Mahabharata friendship of Karna and Duryodhana as a modern gangster story?
Thalapathi
Thalapathi came about because Mani Ratnam wanted a story its star could not refuse. At its release it was the most expensive South Indian film yet made.
Q 28Dhanush won the National Film Award for Best Actor for which drama about rooster fighting in Madurai?
Aadukalam
Aadukalam won six National Film Awards in all, matching Kannathil Muthamittal for the most any Tamil film had won up to then.
Q 29Which Vetrimaaran film, an Oscar entry for India, is based on a novel by an auto-rickshaw driver from Coimbatore?
Visaranai
Visaranai adapts the novel Lock Up by M. Chandrakumar, and it was produced by the actor Dhanush through his banner Wunderbar Films.
Q 30Which film follows two brothers from a Chennai slum who are desperate to taste the pizza sold at a new shop?
Kaaka Muttai
Kaaka Muttai began when Vetrimaaran saw one of M. Manikandan's short films at a festival and asked him to develop a feature script.