The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
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50 free The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
A disgraced journalist, a hacker who trusts nobody and a girl who vanished from a family gathering decades ago: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo turned a cold case on a snowbound Swedish island into one of the most widely read thrillers of its time. Its author never saw any of that success, which is only one of the strange stories behind the book. This quiz covers the whole phenomenon. There are questions on the plot and its twists, on Lisbeth Salander, Mikael Blomkvist and the Vanger family, and on Stieg Larsson's own unusual life. Film fans get their share too, with the Swedish adaptation and the Hollywood version each covered: who played whom, the music, the awards and the choices made behind the camera. It is written for readers of the trilogy, for anyone who came to the story through either film, and for quiz hosts who need a ready-made round. The opening questions are the most approachable and later ones reward close attention, and every answer comes with a short explanation. Expect spoilers throughout.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was first published in Sweden under a title meaning what in English?
Men Who Hate Women
Men Who Hate Women was the title Stieg Larsson refused to let his Swedish publisher change. The English edition, released after his death, renamed the book anyway.
Q 02Stieg Larsson said he based Lisbeth Salander on which children's book heroine imagined as an adult?
Pippi Longstocking
Pippi Longstocking is hidden on Salander's own front door in the series: the nameplate reads V. Kulla, short for Villa Villekulla, the name of Pippi's house.
Q 03What killed Stieg Larsson at 50, before The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had even been printed?
A heart attack
A heart attack struck after he climbed the stairs to his office, with three finished novels accepted by a publisher but none yet in print. He never saw a single copy sold.
Q 04Which actress earned an Oscar nomination as Lisbeth Salander in the 2011 Hollywood film?
Rooney Mara
Rooney Mara won the part after two and a half months of auditions, then had her brow pierced and her eyebrows bleached to play the hacker. Her nose and lip rings were fake.
Q 05What does Henrik Vanger receive on every birthday in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, convinced a killer sends it?
A pressed flower
A pressed flower in a frame had been his grandniece Harriet's yearly gift, so each new one feels like a taunt from her murderer. Who really sends them is one of the story's last revelations.
Q 06Which actor gained weight and adopted a neutral accent to play Mikael Blomkvist in the 2011 Hollywood film?
Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig was up against George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Viggo Mortensen for the role, and signed only once the studios had worked out a schedule around Skyfall and Cowboys & Aliens.
Q 07Which Led Zeppelin track, sung by Karen O, plays over the opening titles of 2011's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?
Immigrant Song
Immigrant Song was the director's own suggestion, and Led Zeppelin licensed it only for the trailer and the title sequence, where the cover plays over a nightmare of black ooze.
Q 08Which offence is journalist Mikael Blomkvist convicted of at the start of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?
Libel
Libel costs him a three-month prison sentence and his seat on his magazine's board, after his claims about a billionaire financier collapse in court. The disgrace is why he accepts the Vanger job.
Q 09Which American director made the 2011 Hollywood film of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?
David Fincher
David Fincher saw the murder mystery as something of a red herring: the thing that throws the two leads together. Their relationship, he said, is what the story keeps returning to.
Q 10Which actress became an international star as Lisbeth Salander in the 2009 Swedish film trilogy?
Noomi Rapace
Noomi Rapace took her surname on marrying: she and her husband picked a brand-new name that means bird of prey in French and Italian. The role brought her a BAFTA nomination.
Q 11In Stieg Larsson's novel, in which country is the long-missing Harriet Vanger finally found alive?
Australia
Australia is where she runs a sheep-farming company in the book, decades after fleeing the family island as a teenager. The 2011 film moved her hiding place much nearer to Sweden.
Q 12What do the cryptic names and numbers left behind by Harriet Vanger turn out to refer to?
Bible verses
Bible verses on the list match a string of unsolved murders across Sweden, which is how the two investigators realise they are hunting a serial killer.
Q 13Which rare mental gift makes hacker Lisbeth Salander such a formidable investigator?
Photographic memory
Q 21Which billionaire financier beats Mikael Blomkvist in court, only to be ruined by him at the story's end?
Hans-Erik Wennerström
Hans-Erik Wennerström falls when Salander hacks his computer and finds crimes far beyond the original story. Blomkvist's article and book then destroy him and make the magazine nationally famous.
Q 22Under which insect alias is Lisbeth Salander known to fellow hackers in the Millennium novels?
Wasp
Wasp is also inked on her neck in the first novel, a small tattoo she later has removed at a clinic in Genoa because it made her too easy to identify.
Q 23Which editor of Millennium magazine is both Mikael Blomkvist's business partner and his long-time lover?
Erika Berger
Photographic memory is only one of her tools: she also keeps passports in several names and uses disguises to travel unnoticed. Blomkvist wonders whether she is on the autism spectrum.
Q 14Which novel is the second book in Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, picking up Lisbeth Salander's story?
The Girl Who Played with Fire
The Girl Who Played with Fire kept its Swedish title in translation, unlike the first book. It won the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award and puts Salander on the run, wrongly suspected of three murders.
Q 15Who traps Mikael Blomkvist in a hidden basement and admits to decades of murders in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?
Martin Vanger
Martin Vanger, chief executive of the family firm, keeps the chamber concealed inside his own house. Yet he swears he had nothing to do with Harriet vanishing.
Q 16Which star of The Crown took over as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl in the Spider's Web?
Claire Foy
Claire Foy led a wholly new cast in the 2018 sequel, adapted from the first novel written after Stieg Larsson's death. It earned less at the box office than it cost to make.
Q 17Which high-street fashion chain sold a Lisbeth Salander-inspired clothing line to promote the 2011 Hollywood film?
H&M
H&M teamed up with the film's costume designer, Trish Summerville, on a collection of leather jackets, faux-leather trousers and studded boots meant to look gritty and lived-in.
Q 18Which actor plays the elderly Henrik Vanger in the 2011 Hollywood film, with Julian Sands as his younger self?
Christopher Plummer
Christopher Plummer called Henrik the nicest old guy in the whole book, in a family where everybody is a bit suspect. He set out to give the old man an irony he found missing on the page.
Q 19Which Enya hit does the killer play while preparing to torture Mikael Blomkvist in the 2011 Hollywood film?
Orinoco Flow
Orinoco Flow was the leading man's idea: he found it on his own iPod when the director wanted the murderer to work to his favourite music, and the crew fell about laughing.
Q 20Which firm, run by Dragan Armansky, employs Lisbeth Salander as a freelance researcher and hacker?
Milton Security
Milton Security hands her the job that starts everything: at Henrik Vanger's request, her boss has her dig into Mikael Blomkvist's life before the old man hires him.
Erika Berger is married, and her husband knows about and accepts the affair. Seeing the pair together at the end is what makes a heartbroken Salander bin her Christmas gift and cut contact.
Q 24Which lawyer becomes Lisbeth Salander's legal guardian after a stroke fells her trusted protector?
Nils Bjurman
Nils Bjurman abuses the power the court gives him over her money and her freedom. Salander secretly films him, then uses the recording to blackmail her way to independence.
Q 25In which country does a disguised Lisbeth Salander empty the villain's secret bank accounts in the 2011 Hollywood film?
Switzerland
Switzerland is where, in disguise, she removes two billion euros from his accounts. The scenes were shot in Zurich, at the Dolder Grand Hotel and the airport.
Q 26Which anti-racist magazine did Stieg Larsson co-found, the model for Millennium in his novels?
Expo
Expo was set up to track Sweden's far right, work that reportedly kept Larsson under death threats for years. Like the fictional Millennium, it leaned left and was often short of money.
Q 27Stieg Larsson spent his youth producing fanzines devoted to which genre, long before he wrote crime novels?
Science fiction
Science fiction was his first love: he put out around 30 fanzine issues in the 1970s and went on to chair Sweden's largest SF fan club. Two of his early stories later surfaced in Sweden's National Library.
Q 28Which Danish director made the 2009 Swedish film of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?
Niels Arden Oplev
Niels Arden Oplev's film took more than 100 million dollars, yet he passed on directing the two sequels for lack of time. He later directed the pilot episode of Mr. Robot.
Q 29Which Academy Award did the 2011 Hollywood version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo win, from five nominations?
Best Film Editing
Best Film Editing went to Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall, the same pair who had taken the Oscar for The Social Network. The film's four other nominations all fell short.
Q 30Which American rock frontman co-wrote the nearly three-hour score for 2011's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?
Trent Reznor
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross spent fourteen months on it, chasing what Reznor called the sound of coldness, emotional as well as physical. The score went on to win a Grammy.