The Outlaw Josey Wales
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50 free The Outlaw Josey Wales trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Outlaw Josey Wales is one of Clint Eastwood's best-loved Westerns: a revenge story that slowly turns into a tale about a hunted man who keeps collecting strays until he has a family again. It arrived in 1976, when the genre was supposed to be finished, and became a hit anyway. These questions cover the whole film: the raid that starts it, the companions Josey picks up on the trail, the men chasing him, and the showdown that ends it. They also go behind the camera, to the casting, the row that rewrote a Hollywood rulebook, the music, the locations, and the strange story of the man who wrote the original novel. Play it whether you have seen the film once or twenty times. The early questions are ones a casual viewer can get; the later ones are for people who know the supporting cast by heart.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In The Outlaw Josey Wales, what does Clint Eastwood's gunfighter habitually spit on animals and the men he has shot?
Tobacco juice
Tobacco juice lands on animals and victims alike, a mannerism the film carried over from the novel along with Josey's frontier diction.
Q 02In which border state does Josey Wales live when pro-Union raiders murder his wife and son in The Outlaw Josey Wales?
Missouri
Missouri is home until the raid, after which he rides with pro-Confederate bushwhackers and ends the fighting as a hunted man.
Q 03Which Oscar nominee for Little Big Man plays Josey Wales's travelling companion Lone Watie in The Outlaw Josey Wales?
Chief Dan George
Chief Dan George really was a chief: he led British Columbia's Tsleil-Waututh Nation from 1951 to 1963.
Q 04Which weapon does Josey Wales turn on Union troops as they massacre his surrendering comrades in The Outlaw Josey Wales?
A Gatling gun
A Gatling gun found in the Union camp lets Josey cut down the ambushers and ride off with the wounded Jamie.
Q 05Which union passed the Eastwood Rule after the star of The Outlaw Josey Wales had its original filmmaker sacked?
The Directors Guild
The Directors Guild fined the production a reported $60,000, and its new rule bars an actor or producer from firing a director and taking over the job.
Q 06Roger Ebert likened Josey Wales to which earlier Clint Eastwood character, the wanderer of the Dollars Trilogy?
The Man with No Name
The Man with No Name was Ebert's reference point, but he noted a twist: this loner ends up the leader and father figure of a makeshift family.
Q 07After riding alone into a hostile camp in The Outlaw Josey Wales, Josey seals peace by becoming Ten Bears's what?
Blood brother
Blood brother is the bond an impressed Ten Bears offers after Josey rides in to bargain for two captured ranch hands, Travis Cobb and Chato.
Q 08Which of Clint Eastwood's children, later a jazz bassist, plays Josey's doomed child in The Outlaw Josey Wales?
Kyle
Kyle is the boy killed in the opening raid; he later acted beside his father in Honkytonk Man before turning to jazz.
Q 09With what does Josey Wales, wounded and out of bullets, finally kill Captain Terrill in The Outlaw Josey Wales?
His enemy's own saber
His enemy's own saber does it: Josey goads the captain into drawing the blade, then grabs the hilt and runs him through.
Q 10The Library of Congress selected The Outlaw Josey Wales for which roll of American films judged worth preserving?
National Film Registry
National Film Registry status means a film was judged culturally, historically or aesthetically significant; this one made the list in 1996, twenty years after release.
Q 11Before Union raiders burn his home in The Outlaw Josey Wales, how does Josey Wales make his living?
Farmer
Farmer is all he is when the story opens, working his land as the house burns in the distance; the gunfighter comes later.
Q 12Lone Watie, the old man who befriends Josey Wales in The Outlaw Josey Wales, belongs to which Native American nation?
Cherokee
Cherokee and a veteran of the losing side, Lone Watie is described as a cousin of Stand Watie, the real Confederate general from that nation.
Q 13To which country does Lone Watie urge Josey Wales to flee, following General Jo Shelby, in The Outlaw Josey Wales?
Mexico
Mexico was a real refuge: in June 1865 Shelby rode south with about 1,000 of his troops rather than surrender.
Q 21The Union irregulars who murder the family of Josey Wales in The Outlaw Josey Wales go by which nickname?
Red Legs
Red Legs is the name given to the renegade band, and Terrill, the man who led the raid, goes on to hunt Josey for the rest of the story.
Q 22Which real Confederate guerrilla leader, played by John Russell, does Josey Wales ride with in The Outlaw Josey Wales?
Bloody Bill Anderson
Bloody Bill Anderson was the bushwhacker whose band pulled about two dozen unarmed Union soldiers from a train at Centralia in 1864 and shot them.
Q 23How does Josey Wales strand Fletcher and Terrill's posse in the middle of a river in The Outlaw Josey Wales?
Shoots the ferry's ropes
Q 14How is Laura Lee related to Sarah Turner, the widow Josey Wales rescues from raiders in The Outlaw Josey Wales?
Granddaughter
Granddaughter and grandmother are rescued together, and Laura Lee later gives Josey a watch chain she braided from her own hair.
Q 15What does Fletcher do on finally meeting Josey Wales in the saloon ending of The Outlaw Josey Wales?
Feigns not knowing him
Feigns not knowing him: Fletcher lets the lawmen believe the outlaw is dead and says he will keep looking elsewhere, to tell him the war is over.
Q 16Which actress began a six-film screen partnership with Clint Eastwood by playing Laura Lee in The Outlaw Josey Wales?
Sondra Locke
Sondra Locke was cast by Eastwood over the objections of the man first hired to direct, and she already had an Oscar nomination to her credit.
Q 17Which director, later of The Right Stuff, was fired from The Outlaw Josey Wales only weeks into the shoot?
Philip Kaufman
Philip Kaufman had also written the script and finished the pre-production, so his star took over a shoot that was already planned in detail.
Q 18Which novelist, later exposed as a former Klan organizer, wrote the book behind The Outlaw Josey Wales?
Forrest Carter
Forrest Carter was the pseudonym of Asa Earl Carter, and it was partly the success of the film that led to his past being uncovered.
Q 19Which studio, where Clint Eastwood settled after falling out with Universal, released The Outlaw Josey Wales?
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. became Eastwood's home after he grew unhappy with how Universal handled and promoted his films, and he stayed with the studio for decades.
Q 20Ten Bears, the war leader who makes peace with Josey Wales in The Outlaw Josey Wales, belongs to which nation?
Comanche
Comanche leader Ten Bears was a real figure: he headed the Yamparika division of that nation from about 1860 until his death in 1872.
Shoots the ferry's ropes: instead of running, he watches from the far bank until his pursuers are midstream, then sends the boat drifting downriver.
Q 24What does the travelling salesman who exposes Josey Wales to Union soldiers peddle in The Outlaw Josey Wales?
Medicinal elixir
Medicinal elixir is his trade; having met Josey once on the road, he later recognises the outlaw in a frontier town and shouts for all to hear.
Q 25What does Josey Wales send riding into a Union camp as a distraction in The Outlaw Josey Wales?
His dead friend's body
His dead friend's body draws the soldiers' eyes: young Jamie had died of his wound, and even in death he covers Josey's escape.
Q 26In The Outlaw Josey Wales, which skill is the ageing Lone Watie humiliated to find he has lost?
Sneaking up on people
Sneaking up on people is beyond him now, one of the touches Roger Ebert singled out in a performance he called funny and dignified at once.
Q 27Josey Wales first visits a trading post in The Outlaw Josey Wales to get Lone Watie what?
A horse
A horse is the errand, but he leaves with two, plus a new travelling companion, after shooting the two men who were assaulting her.
Q 28What are Fletcher's surrendered guerrillas doing when hidden Union gunners open fire on them in The Outlaw Josey Wales?
Swearing a loyalty oath
Swearing a loyalty oath to the United States, they are cut down by soldiers hidden in tents, despite a senator's promise of amnesty.
Q 29Sarah Turner, the talkative widow who joins Josey Wales's band in The Outlaw Josey Wales, hails from which state?
Kansas
Kansas is where her family set out from; most were wiped out on the trail west, leaving Sarah and one relative to reach the ranch.
Q 30The abandoned ranch where the band settles in The Outlaw Josey Wales had belonged to which relative of Sarah Turner?
Her son
Her son Tom had died, and two of his old ranch hands, Travis Cobb and Chato, join the newcomers when they move in.