What's Eating Gilbert Grape
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40 free What's Eating Gilbert Grape trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
What's Eating Gilbert Grape arrived quietly in 1993 and found its audience later, on home video. It is a small story about a young man holding a family together in a nowhere town in Iowa, and it lasts because every character in it is drawn with patience and affection. This quiz walks through the whole film: the Grape household and the neighbours around it, the events that push Gilbert to breaking point, the actors behind each role and where their careers went next, and how the production came together a long way from the Midwest. A handful of questions follow the film into awards season. It suits anyone who has seen the film once and remembers how it felt, and it keeps a few deep cuts for people who know the cast list by heart. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you finish knowing a little more than when you started.
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Q 01Which actor plays the title role in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp read the novel soon after it was published and went back to it once he heard a film was being planned.
Q 02Which actor earned his first Oscar nomination as Arnie in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio was 19 at the time and reckoned that roughly half of his performance was improvised.
Q 03Which landmark does Arnie keep climbing, to his brother's alarm, in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
The water tower
The water tower was a real one in the small town of Manor, whose residents are thanked in the film's closing credits.
Q 04How do the Grape siblings spare Momma's body a public spectacle in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
They burn the house down
They burn the house down after carrying the furniture outside, turning the family home into a funeral pyre for her.
Q 05The Swedish director of What's Eating Gilbert Grape made his name filming which pop group's videos?
ABBA
ABBA had almost every one of their promotional films shot by him between 1974 and 1982, along with their 1977 concert feature.
Q 06Which Cape Fear Oscar nominee plays the stranded traveler Becky in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Juliette Lewis
Juliette Lewis shot it in the same busy year as Kalifornia, in which she played the girlfriend of a serial killer.
Q 07Why are Becky and her grandmother stuck in Gilbert's town in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Their truck breaks down
Their truck breaks down while towing a trailer in a yearly caravan, so the pair wait in town for a spare part to arrive.
Q 08Which TV police drama had made the lead actor of What's Eating Gilbert Grape a teen idol?
21 Jump Street
21 Jump Street starred him from 1987 to 1990, and he grew so tired of teen-idol fame that he went looking for stranger film roles.
Q 09Which future Batman star was up for the part of Arnie in What's Eating Gilbert Grape but lost out?
Christian Bale
Christian Bale was a teenager best known for Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun when he missed out on the part.
Q 10Where does housebound Momma spend her days eating and watching TV in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
On the couch
On the couch is where she sleeps too, and she only climbs the stairs to her old bed on the last night of her life.
Q 11What's Eating Gilbert Grape is set in small-town Iowa, but in which state was it filmed?
Texas
Texas hosted the whole shoot from November 1992, with Austin and the small towns around it standing in for the Midwest.
Q 12What's Eating Gilbert Grape earned its only Oscar nomination in which category?
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actor was the category, and the nomination arrived with a matching Golden Globe nod and a National Board of Review win.
Q 13Which Oscar winner plays Gilbert's married lover Betty Carver in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Mary Steenburgen
Mary Steenburgen had won her Academy Award for Melvin and Howard, and a later generation knows her as the stepmother in Elf.
Q 21Which Swedish director of My Life as a Dog made What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Lasse Hallström
Lasse Hallström was making only his second English-language film, after Once Around, and he later directed The Cider House Rules.
Q 22Which Iowa-born novelist adapted his own 1991 book into the film What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Peter Hedges
Peter Hedges launched a film career with the script, and went on to write and direct Pieces of April and Dan in Real Life.
Q 23Which first-time actress, spotted on a talk show, plays Momma in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Darlene Cates
Darlene Cates beat some sixty other women to the part, and the role was expanded once the director learned she could act.
Q 14Which future Oscar nominee for Chicago plays Gilbert's friend Tucker in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
John C. Reilly
John C. Reilly was four years into his film career, having made his debut in Brian De Palma's Casualties of War.
Q 15Which Back to the Future actor plays the undertaker Bobby McBurney in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Crispin Glover
Crispin Glover, the screen's George McFly, spent the 1990s in eccentric small parts that also took in Wild at Heart and The Doors.
Q 16Momma leaves the house for the first time in seven years in What's Eating Gilbert Grape to go where?
The police station
The police station is holding Arnie, and she shouts at the sheriff until he lets the boy go without any paperwork.
Q 17Where does Gilbert find Arnie shivering after a night out with Becky in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
In the bathtub
In the bathtub is where he had been left to finish washing alone, and the long cold night leaves him refusing to bathe at all.
Q 18Which brand of trailers crosses town in a yearly caravan in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Airstream
Airstream trailers open and close the story: the brothers watch the caravan roll in, and a year later they ride away with it.
Q 19What kind of struggling family business employs Gilbert in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
A grocery store
A grocery store called Lamson's is where he stacks shelves and runs deliveries while a big new supermarket draws its customers away.
Q 20Which milestone for Arnie are his sisters busy planning throughout What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
His 18th birthday
His 18th birthday is a small miracle to the family: Gilbert says Arnie was not supposed to live past the age of ten.
Q 24The woman who plays Momma in What's Eating Gilbert Grape was discovered on which daytime talk show?
Sally
Sally, hosted by Sally Jessy Raphael, featured her in a 1992 episode about people too heavy to leave home, ending five years of seclusion.
Q 25Which star of The Fugitive beat Arnie's actor from What's Eating Gilbert Grape to the Oscar in 1994?
Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones won for playing the U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard, in a field that also held Ralph Fiennes for Schindler's List.
Q 26Which new fast-food restaurant does Tucker dream of working at in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Burger Barn
Burger Barn arrives as a prefabricated building hauled into town, and Arnie's excited screams interrupt a funeral as it passes.
Q 27Where is Betty's husband, Mr. Carver, found dead in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
In a kiddie pool
In a kiddie pool in his own front yard, and while police call it a drowning, the local undertaker suspects a heart attack came first.
Q 28What does Betty's husband try to sell Gilbert at his office in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Insurance
Insurance is his business, and Gilbert turns up braced for an accusation about the affair, only to be given a sales pitch.
Q 29Arnie will not enter which part of the home, where his father died, in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
The basement
The basement is where his father hanged himself years earlier, which Tucker forgets when he asks for Arnie's help down there.
Q 30Which 2000 Judi Dench film reunited the director and leading man of What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Chocolat
Chocolat earned five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and was one of several novel adaptations the director made after leaving Sweden.