The Oscars Trivia Questions and Answers

Best Picture, the acting categories, and the ceremonies people remember for reasons the Academy would rather they did not. These questions are about the films and the arguments rather than the statuette: the years the wrong film won, the performances that were snubbed, the records for nominations without a win. The envelope mix-up gets its due. The hard tier goes to the technical categories and to the long gaps — actors who waited decades, directors who never won at all — which is where a table that follows films casually starts guessing and a table that follows them closely pulls away.

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  1. 1. Which underdog boxing film won Best Picture in 1977, beating "Taxi Driver" and "Network"?Easy

    • Rocky ✓
    • Raging Bull
    • The Fighter
    • Cinderella Man

  2. 2. Which black-and-white Steven Spielberg film about the Holocaust won Best Picture in 1994?Easy

    • Schindler's List ✓
    • Sophie's Choice
    • The Pianist
    • Life is Beautiful

  3. 3. Which 2018 road-trip drama won Best Picture in 2019, sparking debate over its depiction of race relations?Easy

    • Green Book ✓
    • BlacKkKlansman
    • If Beale Street Could Talk
    • Vice

  4. 4. Which filmmaking duo won Best Director for their 2007 thriller, which also won Best Picture that year?Medium

    • Coen Brothers ✓
    • Wachowski Siblings
    • Safdie Brothers
    • Russo Brothers

  5. 5. Which director's sweeping 1987 Best Picture winner about China's last emperor won all nine of its Oscar nominations?Medium

    • Bernardo Bertolucci ✓
    • David Lean
    • Roland Joffe
    • Louis Malle

  6. 6. Which director's romantic comedy beat "Saving Private Ryan" for Best Picture in 1999?Medium

    • John Madden ✓
    • Steven Spielberg
    • Terrence Malick
    • Peter Weir

  7. 7. Which director's 1991 psychological thriller swept the "Big Five" Oscar categories, including Best Picture?Medium

    • Jonathan Demme ✓
    • David Fincher
    • Ridley Scott
    • Michael Mann

  8. 8. Which 2023 biopic about the "father of the atomic bomb" won Best Picture at the 2024 ceremony?Medium

    • Oppenheimer ✓
    • Killers of the Flower Moon
    • Barbie
    • Poor Things

  9. 9. Which 1932 Best Picture winner remains the only film in Oscar history to win with no other nominations at all?Hard

    • Grand Hotel ✓
    • Cavalcade
    • Cimarron
    • Wings

  10. 10. Which 1931 western was the only one of its genre to win Best Picture for nearly six decades, until "Dances with Wolves"?Hard

    • Cimarron ✓
    • The Big Trail
    • Billy the Kid
    • Cavalcade

  11. 11. In what year did a film beat "Citizen Kane" for Best Picture, in one of the Academy's most debated decisions?Hard

    • 1942 ✓
    • 1940
    • 1941
    • 1943

  12. 12. How many Oscars did the 2026 Best Picture winner "One Battle After Another" take home?Hard

    • 6 ✓
    • 4
    • 5
    • 7

  13. 13. Which actress holds the record for the most Best Actress Oscar wins, with four?Easy

    • Katharine Hepburn ✓
    • Bette Davis
    • Meryl Streep
    • Ingrid Bergman

  14. 14. Which actress became the first Black performer ever to win an Oscar, for playing Mammy in "Gone with the Wind"?Easy

    • Hattie McDaniel ✓
    • Ethel Waters
    • Butterfly McQueen
    • Louise Beavers

  15. 15. Which actress shares the record for most acting nominations without ever winning, with eight?Medium

    • Glenn Close ✓
    • Amy Adams
    • Deborah Kerr
    • Thelma Ritter

  16. 16. Which actress won Best Supporting Actress for playing Queen Elizabeth I despite only about eight minutes of screen time in "Shakespeare in Love"?Medium

    • Judi Dench ✓
    • Maggie Smith
    • Vanessa Redgrave
    • Helen Mirren

  17. 17. Which actor received two posthumous Best Actor nominations in the 1950s but never won?Hard

    • James Dean ✓
    • Montgomery Clift
    • Tyrone Power
    • John Garfield

  18. 18. Which actress, at age 11, became the second-youngest performer ever to win a competitive Oscar, for "The Piano"?Hard

    • Anna Paquin ✓
    • Dakota Fanning
    • Saoirse Ronan
    • Abigail Breslin

  19. 19. Which director became the second woman ever to win Best Director, and the first woman of color, for "Nomadland" in 2021?Easy

    • Chloe Zhao ✓
    • Greta Gerwig
    • Sofia Coppola
    • Patty Jenkins

  20. 20. Before Alejandro Inarritu, which director was the only other person to win Best Director in consecutive years, in 1950 and 1951?Hard

    • Joseph Mankiewicz ✓
    • John Ford
    • William Wyler
    • George Stevens

  21. 21. At the very first Academy Awards in 1929, the directing prize was split into two categories; who won for "Two Arabian Knights"?Hard

    • Lewis Milestone ✓
    • Frank Borzage
    • King Vidor
    • Herbert Brenon

  22. 22. Which Studio Ghibli film won Hayao Miyazaki his first Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2003?Easy

    • Spirited Away ✓
    • Princess Mononoke
    • Howl's Moving Castle
    • Ponyo

  23. 23. Which 2018 superhero film became the first Marvel movie nominated for Best Picture, winning Costume Design and Score?Easy

    • Black Panther ✓
    • Wonder Woman
    • Avengers: Infinity War
    • Aquaman

  24. 24. Disney submitted which song, instead of the viral hit "We Don't Talk About Bruno," for "Encanto's" Best Original Song bid in 2022?Easy

    • Dos Oruguitas ✓
    • Surface Pressure
    • Waiting on a Miracle
    • Colombia, Mi Encanto

  25. 25. Which costume designer won a record eight Oscars, more than any other woman in Academy Awards history?Medium

    • Edith Head ✓
    • Colleen Atwood
    • Sandy Powell
    • Milena Canonero

  26. 26. Which 2023 film swept Production Design, Costume Design, and Makeup and Hairstyling at the 2024 Oscars?Medium

    • Poor Things ✓
    • Barbie
    • Killers of the Flower Moon
    • Maestro

  27. 27. In what year did the Academy introduce a competitive award for visual effects?Hard

    • 1939 ✓
    • 1934
    • 1944
    • 1949

  28. 28. Songwriter Randy Newman, of "Monsters, Inc." fame, is the nephew of which nine-time Oscar-winning composer?Hard

    • Alfred Newman ✓
    • Max Steiner
    • Bernard Herrmann
    • Franz Waxman

  29. 29. Which director shouted he was "king of the world" after "Titanic" tied the record for most Oscar wins in 1998?Easy

    • James Cameron ✓
    • Ridley Scott
    • Michael Bay
    • Roland Emmerich

  30. 30. Which television network has broadcast the Academy Awards every year since 1976?Medium

    • ABC ✓
    • NBC
    • CBS
    • Fox

  31. 31. In what year did the first sound "talkie" film, "The Broadway Melody," win Best Picture?Hard

    • 1930 ✓
    • 1929
    • 1931
    • 1932

  32. 32. The very first Academy Awards banquet in 1929 was held at which Hollywood hotel?Hard

    • Hollywood Roosevelt ✓
    • Beverly Hills Hotel
    • Ambassador Hotel
    • Biltmore Hotel

  33. 33. Which 2023 biopic about a physicist won Best Picture at the 2024 Academy Awards?Easy

    • Oppenheimer ✓
    • Barbie
    • Maestro
    • Killers of the Flower Moon

  34. 34. Which song from "RRR" won Best Original Song at the 2023 Oscars, becoming India's first win in the category?Easy

    • Naatu Naatu ✓
    • Jai Ho
    • Chaiyya Chaiyya
    • Kar Har Maidaan Fateh

  35. 35. Which actor won Best Actor at the 2023 Oscars for his comeback role in "The Whale"?Easy

    • Brendan Fraser ✓
    • Bill Nighy
    • Colin Farrell
    • Austin Butler

  36. 36. Which actor won Best Actor at the 2024 Oscars for playing the title role in "Oppenheimer"?Medium

    • Cillian Murphy ✓
    • Bradley Cooper
    • Paul Giamatti
    • Colman Domingo

  37. 37. Which actor won Best Supporting Actor at the 2025 Oscars for "A Real Pain"?Medium

    • Kieran Culkin ✓
    • Guy Pearce
    • Yura Borisov
    • Edward Norton

  38. 38. Which animated film won Best Animated Feature at the 2025 Oscars, becoming the first from Latvia to do so?Medium

    • Flow ✓
    • The Wild Robot
    • Memoir of a Snail
    • Inside Out 2

  39. 39. "All Quiet on the Western Front" won Best International Feature at the 2023 Oscars, submitted by which country?Hard

    • Germany ✓
    • Austria
    • Switzerland
    • Netherlands

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