Willow (1988 Film)
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50 free Willow (1988 Film) trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Willow arrived in 1988 as a big fantasy gamble: a sword-and-sorcery adventure with an unlikely hero, a farmer who dreams of sorcery and ends up guarding a baby that an evil queen wants gone. It was not the runaway hit its makers hoped for, but home video and television turned it into a favourite that a generation grew up with, and its effects work changed what cinema could do. This quiz covers the whole film: the quest and its twists, the villagers, warriors, sorceresses and creatures met along the way, the actors behind them, and the story of how the production came together, from the first idea to the locations, the score and the reviews. A few questions follow the story into its books, games and later sequel series. It is pitched for anyone who has seen the film, with a few harder questions for fans who know Bavmorda's spells by heart. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick up the behind-the-scenes stories as you play.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actor, already famous as Iceman in Top Gun, played the boastful swordsman Madmartigan in Willow (1988)?
Val Kilmer
Val Kilmer took the part two years after Top Gun made him a star. He worked with Willow's director again in 2003 on The Missing.
Q 02The animal transformation scene in Willow (1988) pioneered which digital effects technique, later used in Terminator 2?
Morphing
Morphing let a computer blend footage of one filmed animal smoothly into the next. The effects team wrote the software for this scene, then reused it on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Q 03Warwick Davis, the title star of Willow (1988), later played which Hogwarts teacher in the Harry Potter films?
Professor Flitwick
Professor Flitwick was one of two Potter roles for Davis, who also played the goblin Griphook. The talent agency he co-founded supplied more than forty goblins for the final film.
Q 04In the tavern scene of Willow (1988), Madmartigan hides from a jealous husband by disguising himself as what?
A woman
A woman is the disguise Madmartigan wears until the husband, Llug, sees through it. The brawl Llug then starts gives the heroes cover to escape Bavmorda's troops with the baby.
Q 05The two-headed dragon conjured by accident in Willow (1988) was named after which pair of film critics?
Siskel and Ebert
Siskel and Ebert had the last word: on their television show, both critics gave the film a thumbs down. The monster appears when one of Willow's spells goes wrong and hits a troll.
Q 06Which director did George Lucas approach in 1985 to make his fantasy adventure Willow (1988)?
Ron Howard
Ron Howard was in post-production on Cocoon when Lucas approached him. He was already looking for a fantasy to direct, so the offer arrived at the right moment.
Q 07In Willow (1988), Queen Bavmorda casts a spell that turns the army outside her castle into which animals?
Pigs
Pigs are all that is left of the army, apart from Willow, who shields himself with the wand. He then restores the sorceress Fin Raziel, and she undoes the curse.
Q 08Which composer, who later won two Oscars for Titanic, wrote the orchestral score for Willow (1988)?
James Horner
James Horner conducted the score himself, with the London Symphony Orchestra playing. He had first written music for Willow's director three years earlier, on Cocoon.
Q 09A sequel series to Willow (1988), with Warwick Davis back in the lead, premiered in 2022 on which streaming service?
Disney+
Disney+ launched the series in November 2022, then cancelled it after a single season. By May 2023 it had been pulled from the service altogether.
Q 10George Lucas first approached Warwick Davis about Willow (1988) while Davis was filming which earlier movie?
Return of the Jedi
Return of the Jedi was in production in 1982 when Lucas raised the idea, but five years passed before Davis was cast. The part was written with him in mind.
Q 11In Willow (1988), what is the name of the baby prophesied to bring about the downfall of Queen Bavmorda?
Elora Danan
Elora Danan was played on screen by three different babies. The sequel novels and the later television series pick up her story once she has grown up.
Q 12Which British actress played Queen Bavmorda's warrior daughter in Willow (1988) and married her co-star that year?
Joanne Whalley
Joanne Whalley met her co-star on the set in 1987 and married him the following March, two months before the film opened. She took up the role again in the 2022 sequel series.
Q 13Which co-creator and star of Upstairs, Downstairs played the evil sorceress Queen Bavmorda in Willow (1988)?
Jean Marsh
Q 21What is the name of Willow Ufgood's race, the small farming folk whose village opens Willow (1988)?
Nelwyn
Nelwyn heroes suited George Lucas, who said many of his films are about a small guy up against the system. This one, he said, simply made the idea literal.
Q 22Gavan O'Herlihy, the army leader Airk in Willow (1988), had earlier played Chuck Cunningham on which sitcom?
Happy Days
Happy Days cast him as the older brother of Richie, the character played by the man who went on to direct Willow. Chuck was written out of the show after its early seasons.
Q 23What is the mercenary Madmartigan trapped in when Willow first meets him at a crossroads in Willow (1988)?
A crow's cage
Jean Marsh won an Emmy as the parlourmaid Rose Buck in the drama she helped create. Her turn as Bavmorda brought a Saturn nomination for supporting actress.
Q 14The skull-helmeted general who leads Bavmorda's army in Willow (1988) was named after which New Yorker film critic?
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael spotted the joke and mentioned the villain who shared her surname in her own review of the film. Lucas played the same trick on two more critics when naming the film's dragon.
Q 15Which country's Tongariro National Park supplied the landscapes around Queen Bavmorda's castle in Willow (1988)?
New Zealand
New Zealand got an early fantasy credit here, years before Peter Jackson filmed Mordor in the same park for The Lord of the Rings.
Q 16In Willow (1988), the sorceress Fin Raziel is first found on her island cursed into the shape of which animal?
A possum
A possum is the form Bavmorda trapped her rival in before banishing her to the island. Willow's first tries at undoing the curse make her a bird and then a goat.
Q 17Warwick Davis followed Willow (1988) with the villainous title role in which horror film series launched in 1993?
Leprechaun
Leprechaun ran to six films with Davis as the gold-hoarding monster. He gave up horror after his children were born, saying fatherhood changed how he saw the genre.
Q 18When George Lucas first dreamed up the story of Willow (1988) in the early 1970s, what was it called?
Munchkins
Munchkins was the working title in 1972, sixteen years before the film reached cinemas. Lucas said he had to wait for visual effects to catch up with what he had imagined.
Q 19Willow (1988) lost the Oscar for Visual Effects and the Hugo for dramatic presentation to which Robert Zemeckis film?
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Who Framed Roger Rabbit beat it in both contests, and for best fantasy film at the Saturns too. Willow's one Saturn win came for its costumes.
Q 20In Willow (1988), which warrior daughter of Queen Bavmorda switches sides after falling for Madmartigan?
Sorsha
Sorsha changes sides during the fight at the cursed castle. By the end she and Madmartigan are the ones left to raise the baby.
A crow's cage holds Madmartigan at the crossroads, and he offers to take the baby if he is set free. Willow refuses at first and only later agrees.
Q 24Which effects company created the visual effects and animation sequences for Willow (1988)?
Industrial Light & Magic
Industrial Light & Magic earned an Oscar nomination for the work. Its supervisor Dennis Muren turned down stop-motion for the transformation scene and had new software written instead.
Q 25Location scenes for Willow (1988) were shot in the vast Dinorwic slate quarry, which lies in which country?
Wales
Wales supplied the quarry, a disused slate working near Llanberis that now houses the National Slate Museum. The 2022 sequel series went back to the same country to film.
Q 26At the climax of Willow (1988), whom does Queen Bavmorda accidentally banish by completing her own ritual?
Herself
Herself, as it turns out: Bavmorda lunges at Willow, finishes the rite beside the altar and is swept into oblivion in the baby's place.
Q 27Which comedian and impressionist, later a star of The Usual Suspects, played the tiny Rool in Willow (1988)?
Kevin Pollak
Kevin Pollak played Rool as half of the film's comic-relief double act. His partner Franjean was another comedian, Rick Overton.
Q 28The director of Willow (1988) had starred fifteen years earlier in which coming-of-age film?
American Graffiti
American Graffiti was directed by George Lucas, long before he hired its young star for Willow. Lucas felt the two worked together as easily as he did with Steven Spielberg.
Q 29What gift does the restored sorceress Fin Raziel give Willow Ufgood at the celebration that ends Willow (1988)?
A spellbook
A spellbook is her parting gift to the farmer who set out as only an aspiring sorcerer. He carries it home to his village in triumph.
Q 30Which 1987 film shared its cinematographer, Adrian Biddle, with the fantasy adventure Willow (1988)?
The Princess Bride
The Princess Bride came out the year before, and a Washington Post review used the shared cameraman to argue that it had done more with far less spectacle.