50 free War Games trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This war games trivia quiz is built mainly around WarGames, the 1983 techno-thriller in which Matthew Broderick's teenage hacker dials into a NORAD supercomputer and nearly starts World War III. It covers the writers who started out with a script about Stephen Hawking, the director who was fired three weeks in, the Beatle who wanted to play Falken, the meaning of WOPR, the backdoor password, the tic-tac-toe ending, the Oscar nominations, the Reagan briefing that produced America's first computer-security directive, and the terms "wardialing" and "wardriving" that the film left behind. Because the searcher who types "war games" may also mean the real thing, the last section moves to actual war games: the Prussian Kriegsspiel that started military wargaming, the 1983 NATO exercise Able Archer that spooked the Soviet Politburo, the Soviet officer who ignored a false missile alert that same autumn, and the $250 million Millennium Challenge 2002 in which a retired Marine general sank the U.S. fleet with motorcycle couriers and small boats. Roughly a third of the questions are easy for anyone who has seen the film; the rest are for people who know their DEFCON from their NSDD-145. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on the film, its makers and the historical exercises before publication.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who stars as teenage hacker David Lightman in the 1983 film WarGames?
Matthew Broderick
The character was modelled on David Scott Lewis, a real hacking enthusiast the writers had met.
Q 02Who directed WarGames after the first director was fired three weeks into production?
John Badham
He said the two young leads arrived "stiff as boards" and made them race him around the sound stage; he lost and had to sing "The Happy Wanderer" to the crew.
Q 03Which director, later of Beverly Hills Cop, was fired from WarGames early in shooting?
Martin Brest
He had spent a year and a half on the film; several of the scenes he shot remain in the finished picture.
Q 04Who portrays Jennifer Mack, David's classmate, in WarGames?
Ally Sheedy
It was released two years before The Breakfast Club made her a full Brat Pack member.
Q 05Who portrays NORAD systems chief Dr. John McKittrick?
Dabney Coleman
McKittrick is the man who argues that missile launches should be automated after too many crews refuse to turn their keys.
Q 06Which English actor portrays reclusive scientist Stephen Falken and also voices WOPR?
John Wood
The character was inspired by and named after Stephen Hawking; a former Beatle had been interested in the part before his murder.
Q 07Which former Beatle wanted the role of Falken while the WarGames script was in development?
John Lennon
He was murdered in New York in December 1980 while the writers were still working on the story.
Q 08Barry Corbin's General Beringer was based on which real USAF general the writers met at the base?
James V. Hartinger
Hartinger was then commander-in-chief of the real NORAD.
Q 09What does the acronym WOPR stand for in WarGames?
War Operation Plan Response
The director coined it to sound like the Whopper hamburger, thinking NORAD's real Single Integrated Operational Plan sounded boring.
Q 10An early draft's version of the computer was a space-based defensive laser nicknamed what?
Uncle Ollie
OLI stood for Omnipresent Laser Interceptor; the idea was dropped as too speculative.
Q 11The writers' first 1979 script, before hacking entered the story, was called what?
The Genius
It was about a dying scientist and the rebellious kid who alone understands him, inspired by a TV special featuring Stephen Hawking.
Q 12What machine does David use to change his grades and dial into WOPR?
IMSAI 8080
Ironically the WOPR prop itself was run by a crew member hidden inside typing on an Apple II.
Q 13In which California town is David dialling every phone number when he stumbles onto WOPR?
Sunnyvale
He is hunting for a computer-game company; the technique the scene shows became known as "wardialing".
Q 21Which game do Falken and David make WOPR face itself at, to teach it futility?
Tic-tac-toe
After a long string of draws it runs every nuclear scenario, finds them all draws too, and reports "WINNER: NONE".
Q 22WOPR concludes that nuclear war is "a strange game" in which the only winning move is what?
Not to play
It then relinquishes control and asks, "How about a nice game of chess?"
Q 23WarGames grossed about $125M worldwide against a budget of roughly how much?
$12M
It was the fifth-highest-grossing film of 1983 in the U.S. and Canada.
Q 14What is the backdoor password that gets David into WOPR?
Joshua
It is the name of Falken's dead son; two hacker friends had explained the concept of a backdoor to David.
Q 15Which game does David pick from the list, setting off the crisis?
Global Thermonuclear War
He plays as the USSR and targets American cities; the list also offered chess, checkers, backgammon and poker.
Q 16WOPR sits inside which real military installation in Colorado?
Cheyenne Mountain
The film's NORAD set, with its super-bright video wall, was more impressive than the real facility at the time.
Q 17After escaping NORAD, David and Jennifer find Falken living under an assumed name where?
An island off the Oregon coast
He has decided nuclear war is as inevitable and futile as a game between two experts.
Q 18How does David slip out of NORAD after being detained?
By joining a tourist group
He had been held on suspicion of espionage after failing to convince McKittrick that WOPR, not the Soviets, was behind the alerts.
Q 19Which three American bases report back unharmed, proving the Soviet strike is fake?
Elmendorf, Grand Forks and Loring
NORAD had been persuaded to ride out the supposed strike until real impacts were confirmed.
Q 20Why can't NORAD simply unplug WOPR when it starts trying to launch on its own?
A fail-deadly system would fire all the missiles
The computer is brute-forcing the launch codes, and with no humans left in the control centres there is no two-man safeguard.
Q 24WarGames received three Oscar nominations. Which of these was one of them?
Best Original Screenplay
The others were cinematography and sound; it won the BAFTA for Best Sound.
Q 25Which critic gave WarGames four out of four stars and called it "an amazingly entertaining thriller"?
Roger Ebert
Leonard Maltin was cooler, dubbing it "Fail Safe for the Pac-Man Generation".
Q 26Which president watched WarGames, asked the Joint Chiefs whether it could happen, and ordered a security review?
Ronald Reagan
He was a family friend of co-writer Lawrence Lasker; within a week the Joint Chiefs replied that the premise was technically possible.
Q 27The film helped prompt NSDD-145 (1984), the first presidential directive on what?
Computer security
It also helped bring about the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, the first federal law against hacking.
Q 28Which term for scanning phone numbers with a modem, and its later Wi-Fi cousin, did WarGames inspire?
Wardialing
It was previously called demon dialing; "wardriving" for hunting wireless networks followed indirectly.
Q 29Which Milwaukee hacker group's 1983 Los Alamos break-in was dubbed 'the WarGames case'?
The 414s
Bulletin-board operators also reported a jump in traffic in 1984, which one sysop put down to the film introducing people to modems.
Q 30The 2008 direct-to-DVD sequel WarGames: The Dead Code pits a hacker against a supercomputer called what?
RIPLEY
Matt Lanter starred; the original returned to cinemas for one night to mark its 25th anniversary.