50 free The Graduate trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you? The Graduate was the biggest film of 1967, launched Dustin Hoffman, gave Simon & Garfunkel a number one, and ended with the most parodied wedding in movie history. This quiz has 50 questions on the film and everything around it: Benjamin Braddock's summer in the pool, the Taft Hotel and Mr. Gladstone, the drive to Santa Barbara, the cross in the church door, and that ambivalent final shot on the bus. It also digs into how it got made: the actors who turned down or lost the leads (Redford, Grodin, Doris Day, a young Harrison Ford), the star who was fired as Mr. Robinson, the song that started life as Mrs. Roosevelt, the silent-film ending that inspired the finale, what Mike Nichols won at the Oscars and what the film didn't, and the strange, penniless later life of the novelist Charles Webb, who gave away almost everything the book earned him. Easy questions open it; the hard ones will test even people who can recite Plastics. Every answer has been checked against a source, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you answer.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed The Graduate?
Mike Nichols
He was a Broadway star director but a Hollywood unknown, and every studio turned the project down before Joseph E. Levine financed it.
Q 02Who plays Benjamin Braddock?
Dustin Hoffman
He was just short of 30 when he auditioned to play a 21-year-old, and was paid $20,000 for the role.
Q 03Which actress plays Mrs. Robinson?
Anne Bancroft
She was only six years older than Hoffman and eight years older than Katharine Ross, who played her daughter.
Q 04Who plays Elaine Robinson?
Katharine Ross
Simone Signoret recommended her to Nichols after they made the thriller Games together.
Q 05The Graduate is adapted from a 1963 novella by which author?
Charles Webb
He wrote it shortly after graduating from Williams College and later gave away almost every dollar it earned him.
Q 06Which folk-rock duo recorded the film's soundtrack?
Simon & Garfunkel
Nichols originally used their existing songs only as a temp track for editing, then decided nothing new could beat them.
Q 07In which California city do Benjamin's parents live?
Pasadena
Novelist Charles Webb grew up there himself, and Benjamin later drives from Berkeley to Pasadena and back searching for Elaine.
Q 08Under what false surname does Benjamin register at the Taft Hotel?
Gladstone
When the staff later greet him as Mr. Gladstone in front of Elaine, she works out that he has been having an affair.
Q 09How does Benjamin spend his summer days while meeting Mrs. Robinson at night?
Floating idly in his parents' swimming pool
The pool sequences, cut against the hotel trysts, are one of the film's most imitated montages.
Q 10What is Mr. Robinson's professional relationship to Benjamin's father?
His law partner
That is why both families push Benjamin to take Elaine out, over Mrs. Robinson's furious objection.
Q 11Why, according to Mrs. Robinson, did she marry her husband?
She accidentally became pregnant with Elaine
She dropped out of college to avoid scandal in the 1940s, which is the root of her contempt for the life she ended up in.
Q 12How does Benjamin try to sabotage his first date with Elaine?
He ignores her, drives recklessly and takes her to a strip club
She flees in tears, he chases and kisses her, and they end up bonding at a drive-in over their shared uncertainty about the future.
Q 13Which university is Elaine attending?
Q 21Which French actress was Nichols's first choice for Mrs. Robinson?
Jeanne Moreau
The idea drew on the cliché of French older women 'training' younger men; Doris Day turned the part down over the nudity.
Q 22Which actor screen-tested for Benjamin but was rejected because he lacked an underdog quality?
Robert Redford
He tested opposite Candice Bergen as Elaine; Charles Grodin turned the role down over a $500-a-week salary.
Q 23Which future Star Wars actor auditioned for Benjamin and was turned down?
Harrison Ford
Burt Ward was also informally offered the part but was already playing Robin on TV's Batman.
UC Berkeley
Many of the campus exteriors were actually shot on the brick campus of USC in Los Angeles.
Q 14What lie does Mrs. Robinson tell Elaine about the affair?
That Benjamin raped her
When Elaine realises the truth she reconciles with Benjamin, who then pushes her to marry him.
Q 15What is the name and profession of the man Elaine is set to marry instead?
Carl, a medical student
Mr. Robinson forces her to leave Berkeley for the wedding, which turns out to be in Santa Barbara that same day.
Q 16What happens to Benjamin's car as he races to the wedding in Santa Barbara?
It runs out of gas just short of the church
He runs the rest of the way and arrives just as the ceremony is ending.
Q 17What does Benjamin use to bar the church doors so he and Elaine can escape?
A large cross
He swings it at the guests first, then jams it through the door handles.
Q 18How do Benjamin and Elaine leave the church?
On a city bus
The camera holds on them as their ecstatic smiles fade into uncertain, ambivalent expressions.
Q 19What car does Benjamin drive in the film?
An Alfa Romeo Spider
Alfa Romeo later sold a US model from 1985 to 1990 called the Spider Graduate in tribute.
Q 20What single word of career advice does Mr. McGuire give Benjamin at the party?
Plastics
The line sits at number 42 on the AFI's list of the 100 greatest movie quotes.
Q 24Which actor was cast as Mr. Robinson but fired after a few days of rehearsal?
Gene Hackman
Murray Hamilton replaced him; Hackman said years later that the firing still hurt.
Q 25Which future US president was considered for the role of Benjamin's father, Mr. Braddock?
Ronald Reagan
William Daniels got the part instead.
Q 26Which Mel Brooks film had cast Hoffman before he begged to be released to audition for The Graduate?
The Producers
He was to play the Nazi playwright Liebkind; Kenneth Mars took the part.
Q 27How much was the film's young lead paid for The Graduate?
$20,000
After taxes and lodging he netted about $4,000, then went on New York unemployment benefits at $55 a week.
Q 28Which improv comedian with no screenwriting experience did Nichols pick to write the script?
Buck Henry
He shared an Oscar nomination with Calder Willingham and appears in the film as the hotel desk clerk.
Q 29Which future star has two lines about calling 'the cops' as a boarding-house tenant?
Richard Dreyfuss
It was only his second film role; Elaine May and Mike Farrell also appear uncredited.
Q 30The church wedding scene was heavily influenced by the ending of which 1924 silent comedy?
Girl Shy
Its star Harold Lloyd, who races to stop a wedding in that film, served as an advisor for the scene.