The Big Lebowski Trivia
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100 free The Big Lebowski trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
40 free The Big Lebowski trivia questions with answers. The Big Lebowski flopped in 1998, then became a religion. Literally. This quiz covers the whole strange arc: the real people the Dude, Walter and Maude were based on, the Chandler plot about a rug and a fake kidnapping, the ringer, the nihilists, the homework in the car, the coffee can of ashes, and the afterlife of Lebowski Fest, Dudeism, the National Film Registry and The Jesus Rolls. It opens with questions any casual viewer can handle (what the Dude drinks, what he bowls with) and works up to production trivia for achievers: why the Dude drives a Torino instead of a LeBaron, who was first considered for the role, whose swing Maude was modelled on, and how one Dude line got the Coens a Townes Van Zandt song for free. Free to use for a movie night or a bowling-alley pub quiz. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the film, its soundtrack, its cast and its fandom, and each question carries its source. No recycled listicle errors, man.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which pair of filmmakers wrote, directed and produced The Big Lebowski?
Joel and Ethan Coen
Joel and Ethan Coen wrote, directed and produced The Big Lebowski, their follow-up to Fargo, with Joel credited as director and Ethan as producer.
Q 02In what year is the film set, when the Dude is attacked in his Los Angeles home?
1991
The film is set in 1991: the Dude's 69-cent check at Ralphs is dated September 11, 1991, and Gulf War coverage plays on the store television.
Q 03What do the enforcers do to the Dude's rug before realising they have the wrong Lebowski?
Urinate on it
Urinate on it — that is what one enforcer does to the Dude's rug, the rug that 'really tied the room together', before the pair realise they have the wrong Lebowski.
Q 04Which real-life film producer and Seattle Seven member was the main inspiration for the Dude?
Jeff Dowd
Jeff Dowd, a film producer and promoter who belonged to the Seattle Seven, styled himself 'The Dude' and drank White Russians; the Coens met him while he was helping to distribute Blood Simple.
Q 05Whose love of guns and the military did the Coens fold into Walter Sobchak?
Filmmaker John Milius
Filmmaker John Milius, the gun-loving co-writer of Apocalypse Now and director of Red Dawn, befriended the Coens in Los Angeles, and Walter's militarism and firearms obsession came from him.
Q 06Which two women did the actress playing Maude say the character was based on?
Carolee Schneemann and Yoko Ono
Carolee Schneemann and Yoko Ono: the actress said Maude drew on Schneemann, a performance artist who 'worked naked from a swing', and on Ono's avant-garde art.
Q 07Which actor did the Coens originally consider for the role of the Dude?
Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson was considered for the Dude before Jeff Bridges took the part; Bridges himself hesitated, worried that playing a pot-smoking slacker would set a bad example for his daughters.
Q 08Where did most of the Dude's wardrobe come from?
Jeff Bridges' own closet
Jeff Bridges' own closet supplied most of the Dude's wardrobe: Bridges picked out clothes he thought the character would wear, so the Dude's look is largely the actor's own.
Q 09The Dude was originally scripted to drive a smaller car. Why did it become a Ford Torino?
The first choice was too small for John Goodman
The script had a Chrysler LeBaron, which the Dude's real-life inspiration really had owned.
Q 10Which actor plays Walter Sobchak?
John Goodman
John Goodman plays Walter Sobchak, the Dude's hot-headed bowling partner and Vietnam veteran; Goodman had already worked with the Coens on Raising Arizona.
Q 11Why does Walter say he cannot bowl on Saturdays?
He is shomer Shabbos
He is shomer Shabbos: Walter converted to Judaism for his ex-wife Cynthia and keeps the Sabbath, so he will not drive, handle money or roll from Friday sundown to Saturday night.
Q 12Which actor plays Donny, the bowling partner Walter keeps telling to shut up?
Steve Buscemi
Steve Buscemi plays Theodore Donald 'Donny' Kerabatsos, the gentle third member of the bowling team; the Coens cast the usually motor-mouthed Buscemi as a character who is constantly told to shut up.
Q 13How does Donny die?
A heart attack during the nihilist fight
Q 21Walter attacks a Corvette outside Larry's house with a crowbar. Whose car is it really?
A Mexican-American neighbour's
The neighbour retaliates on the Dude's Torino, and the nihilists later set what is left of it on fire.
Q 22Which of these musicians plays one of the German nihilists?
Flea
Peter Stormare and Torsten Voges are the others; Aimee Mann plays the nihilist girlfriend who supplies the toe.
Q 23Who plays Jesus Quintana, the purple-clad rival bowler?
John Turturro
John Turturro plays Jesus Quintana; the Coens built the character around a flamboyant role Turturro had played in Mi Puta Vida at New York's Public Theater in 1988.
A heart attack during the nihilist fight: while Walter bites off a nihilist's ear in the bowling-alley parking lot, Donny clutches his chest, collapses and dies.
Q 14What do the Dude and Walter put Donny's ashes in, rather than pay for an urn?
A coffee can
A coffee can — a Folgers can — because the funeral home wanted $180 for its cheapest urn; when Walter scatters the ashes from a cliff, the wind blows them back over the Dude.
Q 15Which actress plays Maude Lebowski?
Julianne Moore
Julianne Moore plays Maude Lebowski, the Big Lebowski's feminist-artist daughter, delivering her lines in a clipped mid-Atlantic accent and painting while swinging naked overhead in a harness.
Q 16Why does Maude sleep with the Dude?
She wants a child by a father she can ignore
She wants a child by a father she can ignore: Maude tells the Dude she chose him because she has no wish to see the father socially or to let him have any say in raising the baby.
Q 17Who plays Brandt, the Big Lebowski's obsequious assistant?
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Brandt, the fawning, giggling aide who walks the Dude past the millionaire's wall of photographs, a year after Boogie Nights made Hoffman's name.
Q 18Which actress plays Bunny Lebowski, the millionaire's young wife who is 'apparently kidnapped'?
Tara Reid
Tara Reid plays Bunny Lebowski, the trophy wife who greets the Dude while painting her toenails by the pool and turns out to have simply driven to Palm Springs without telling anyone.
Q 19What does the envelope from the kidnappers contain, supposedly from Bunny?
A severed toe
A severed toe with green nail polish arrives as proof the kidnappers mean business; Walter is unimpressed, insisting he can get you a toe by three o'clock this afternoon, with nail polish.
Q 20What does the Dude find in his recovered car that leads him to a teenager's house?
A sheet of homework
It is signed by Larry Sellers, whose father wrote for Branded.
Q 24Which cover of 'Hotel California' accompanies Jesus Quintana's entrance?
The Gipsy Kings
The Gipsy Kings' Spanish-language rumba cover of 'Hotel California' plays as Jesus Quintana licks his bowling ball and struts down the lane in purple.
Q 25Who plays the Stranger, the cowboy narrator who chats with the Dude at the bar?
Sam Elliott
Sam Elliott plays the Stranger, the drawling cowboy narrator introduced over 'Tumbling Tumbleweeds', who shares a sarsaparilla with the Dude at the bowling-alley bar.
Q 26Which pornographer, played by Ben Gazzara, drugs the Dude's drink?
Jackie Treehorn
Jackie Treehorn, the Malibu pornographer played by Ben Gazzara, spikes the Dude's White Russian at his beach house, sending him into the bowling dream sequence.
Q 27The Dude's drugged dream sequences are staged in the style of which Hollywood choreographer?
Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley's kaleidoscopic 1930s musical numbers are the model: the 'Gutterballs' dream has chorus girls in bowling-pin headdresses and the Dude gliding between their legs down the lane.
Q 28Which Bob Dylan song plays over the opening titles?
The Man in Me
'The Man in Me', from Bob Dylan's 1970 album New Morning, plays over the opening credits as bowlers roll, and returns during the Dude's first dream sequence.
Q 29Which Dude line reportedly persuaded Allen Klein to let the film use 'Dead Flowers'?
'I hate the fuckin' Eagles, man!'
When the Dude said 'I hate the fuckin' Eagles, man!' at a screening, Allen Klein, who controlled the Rolling Stones' 'Dead Flowers' and had wanted $150,000, stood up and said 'That's it, you can have the song'.
Q 30What kind of music accompanies the German nihilists on the soundtrack?
Techno-pop
Techno-pop in the Kraftwerk manner accompanies the German nihilists — their old band is even called Autobahn, after Kraftwerk's 1974 album — while the Dude gets Creedence.