Telugu Cinema Trivia
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100 free Telugu Cinema trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Telugu cinema sold 233 million tickets in 2022, more than any other film industry in India, and it owns the country's biggest records: the first ₹1,000 crore film (Baahubali 2), the first Indian feature to win an Oscar (RRR) and the most expensive Indian film ever made (Kalki 2898 AD). It also holds the Guinness record for the largest film studio complex on Earth. These 100 questions run from the 1921 silent Bhishma Pratigna and the 1957 classic Mayabazar to NTR's Telugu Desam Party, Chiranjeevi's 150th film, Rajamouli's housefly, Kattappa's betrayal, Pushpa's red sandalwood, Allu Arjun's National Award, Naatu Naatu's Kyiv shoot, Salaar's Khansaar and the Deputy Chief Minister who used to be called Power Star. Every answer is cited to a page we checked. Play in sets of ten or print the list.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01By what nickname is the Telugu film industry commonly known?
Tollywood
Tollywood was first coined in 1932 for the Tollygunge studio district of Kolkata's Bengali cinema, and the name later helped inspire Bollywood.
Q 02In which city's Film Nagar district is the Telugu film industry based today?
Hyderabad
Hyderabad became the permanent home only in the 1990s, after producers spent decades reluctant to leave Madras, where Telugu cinema was born.
Q 03Who is regarded as the 'Father of Telugu cinema'?
Raghupathi Venkaiah Naidu
Raghupathi Venkaiah Naidu built the Gaiety cinema in Madras in 1912, and Andhra Pradesh later named its lifetime award for Telugu cinema after him.
Q 04Which 1921 silent film is generally considered the first Telugu feature?
Bhishma Pratigna
Bhishma Pratigna came from a father-and-son team who, with local actresses unwilling or unavailable, often cast Anglo-Indian women in their films.
Q 05Which 1932 film is traditionally called the first Telugu talkie?
Bhakta Prahlada
Bhakta Prahlada was shot in under three weeks, and a researcher later proved from a January 1932 censor date that it opened on 6 February 1932, not in 1931 as long believed.
Q 06What does the title of the Telugu film RRR stand for in English?
Rise, Roar and Revolt
Rise, Roar and Revolt is the English expansion; RRR began as a working title and stuck because a film that big needed one title across all its languages.
Q 07RRR's two heroes are fictionalised versions of which real revolutionaries?
Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem
Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem never met, so the film imagines what might have happened in unrecorded years of their lives had they become friends.
Q 08In which Academy Award category did 'Naatu Naatu' win at the 2023 Oscars?
Best Original Song
Best Original Song made it the first Indian film song to win an Oscar, and its two singers performed it live at the ceremony to a standing ovation.
Q 09The 'Naatu Naatu' dance sequence was filmed outside a presidential palace in which country?
Ukraine
Ukraine: the song was shot in August 2021 outside Kyiv's Mariinskyi Palace, just months before Russia invaded the country in February 2022.
Q 10Who composed 'Naatu Naatu' and the scores for both Baahubali films?
M. M. Keeravani
M. M. Keeravani accepted the Oscar by singing his thanks to the tune of The Carpenters' Top of the World, a band he said he grew up listening to.
Q 11Who directed Baahubali, its sequel and RRR?
S. S. Rajamouli
S. S. Rajamouli's two-part Baahubali showed a story could be split in two and succeed, and Mani Ratnam credited its success with inspiring his own Ponniyin Selvan.
Q 12In the 2012 Telugu film starring Nani and Samantha, what is the murdered hero reincarnated as?
A housefly
A housefly: the story began as a joke the director's father made about a fly taking revenge on a human, and the film went on to win nine awards at Toronto After Dark.
Q 13In the first Baahubali film's final scene, who confesses to killing Amarendra Baahubali?
Kattappa
Kattappa's confession was the first film's cliffhanger, and the question of why he did it made the sequel one of the most anticipated films of 2017.
Q 21What does Pushpa Raj smuggle in the Pushpa films?
Red sandalwood
Red sandalwood draws smugglers because buyers abroad, above all in China, pay very high prices for the rare wood.
Q 22Pushpa: The Rise made Allu Arjun the first Telugu actor to win which award?
National Film Award for Best Actor
National Film Award for Best Actor went to Allu Arjun for a film whose Hindi dub became a surprise hit that startled the trade.
Q 23Who directed both Pushpa films?
Sukumar
Sukumar first pitched a film to Mahesh Babu, who walked out in 2019 citing creative differences, and the director then signed Allu Arjun.
Q 14What is the name of the kingdom at the centre of the Baahubali films?
Mahishmati
The films' Mahishmati is a fictional kingdom, so with no historical reference to draw on, the team created a bible detailing the era the story is set in.
Q 15Which actor plays the dual role of Amarendra and Mahendra Baahubali?
Prabhas
Prabhas kept two physiques for the dual role, a lean one for the son, Shivudu, and a heavy, bulky one for the father, Amarendra.
Q 16Who plays the tyrant Bhallaladeva in the Baahubali films?
Rana Daggubati
Rana Daggubati later had to shed about 30 kg of that warrior bulk to play a lean jungle dweller in a 2021 film.
Q 17Which 1963 film was the first full-length colour film in Telugu cinema?
Lava Kusa
Lava Kusa was begun in 1958, but the money ran out and it took five years to finish.
Q 18Which actress plays the regent Sivagami in the Baahubali films?
Ramya Krishnan
Ramya Krishnan's Sivagami later became the centre of a prequel novel, The Rise of Sivagami, set decades before the story of the films.
Q 19Which 2024 film's director tweeted Anand Mahindra asking for engineering help with its vehicles?
Kalki 2898 AD
Kalki 2898 AD needed futuristic vehicles, and its director chose to build them for real rather than rely on CGI, so Anand Mahindra's company agreed to help.
Q 20In a 2024 Telugu sci-fi epic, Amitabh Bachchan plays which cursed immortal warrior?
Ashwatthama
Ashwatthama was cursed by Krishna for turning the Brahmastra on Uttara's unborn child, and the film has him seek redemption by protecting a pregnant woman.
Q 24Pushpa 2: The Rule opens with a smuggled consignment arriving at a port in which country?
Japan
Japan is where dock workers at Yokohama open a container to find Pushpa hidden inside, and he comes out fighting the smugglers.
Q 25Which actor is known as 'Megastar' and founded the Praja Rajyam Party in 2008?
Chiranjeevi
Chiranjeevi merged the Praja Rajyam Party into Andhra Pradesh's ruling Congress in 2011, less than three years after launching it.
Q 26Which 2017 film marked the Megastar's return to lead roles after nearly a decade?
Khaidi No. 150
Khaidi No. 150 ended a break he had spent in politics, where he rose to become India's tourism minister.
Q 27Which actor, the Megastar's younger brother, became his state's Deputy Chief Minister in June 2024?
Pawan Kalyan
Pawan Kalyan bounced back from a humiliating 2019 defeat, and in 2024 his party won all 21 assembly seats it contested.
Q 28Which RRR star made his acting debut in the 2007 action film Chirutha?
Ram Charan
Ram Charan played a young man who takes the blame for a rich youth's crime and goes to prison to pay for his mother's operation.
Q 29Which 2009 film follows a street-bike racer linked by reincarnation to a 17th-century warrior?
Magadheera
Magadheera's makers went to court claiming the 2017 Hindi film Raabta copied it, then withdrew the case before its release.
Q 30Which organisation did actor N. T. Rama Rao found in 1982?
Telugu Desam Party
Telugu Desam Party was just nine months old when it routed Congress in January 1983, giving Andhra Pradesh its first non-Congress government.