Q 01/05

In The Great Debaters, which Ivy League university do the Wiley College debaters face in the climactic contest?

A) Yale

B) Harvard

C) Cornell

D) Brown

Answer · why

B) Harvard

Harvard was picked by the screenwriters to show the heights the team reached; no record shows the real Wiley squad ever debating there.

Q 02/05

Which reigning champion did the real Wiley team beat in 1935, replaced in The Great Debaters by an Ivy League school?

A) UCLA

B) LSU

C) USC

D) Duke

Answer · why

C) USC

USC was the national champion when Wiley won on its campus before a crowd of about 2,200 in April 1935.

Q 03/05

Which daytime talk-show host was one of the producers of The Great Debaters?

A) Oprah Winfrey

B) Ellen DeGeneres

C) Tyra Banks

D) Wendy Williams

Answer · why

A) Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey shared the producing credit with Todd Black, Kate Forte and Joe Roth, and young star Denzel Whitaker promoted the film on her show.

Q 04/05

Which future Top Gun: Maverick star has an early screen role as Preston Whittington in The Great Debaters?

A) Miles Teller

B) Glen Powell

C) Jay Ellis

D) Lewis Pullman

Answer · why

B) Glen Powell

Glen Powell, an Austin native, was still a teenager when the film reached theaters, 15 years before Top Gun: Maverick made him widely known.

Q 05/05

Which actor, the father in Home Alone, plays the hostile Sheriff Dozier in The Great Debaters?

A) Daniel Stern

B) Joe Pesci

C) John Heard

D) John Candy

Answer · why

C) John Heard

John Heard played Peter McCallister in Home Alone and its sequel, long before he pinned on the badge of a 1930s Texas lawman.