🎬 Film Directors Trivia Questions & Answers
Spielberg, Tarantino, Hitchcock and the visionaries behind the camera. Below are 29 free film directors trivia questions with answers — part of Film trivia on BUZZ. Want a real challenge that adapts to what you know? Play the Film quiz — no signup needed to start.
29 Film Directors trivia questions
Q1. Who directed The Dark Knight (2008)?
Answer: Christopher Nolan
💡 Christopher Nolan shot key sequences in IMAX, a first for a major feature, including the opening bank heist.
Q2. Who directed the record-breaking 2023 blockbuster Barbie?
Answer: Greta Gerwig
💡 Gerwig also directed Lady Bird and Little Women before taking on Barbie.
Q3. Which director won his second Best Director Oscar for 1998's Saving Private Ryan?
Answer: Steven Spielberg
💡 His first Best Director win came five years earlier for Schindler's List.
Q4. Which Mexican director won Best Director for the fairytale The Shape of Water?
Answer: Guillermo del Toro
💡 The film also won Best Picture at the 2018 Academy Awards ceremony.
Q5. Which director followed The Godfather with 1979's war epic Apocalypse Now?
Answer: Francis Ford Coppola
💡 The troubled Philippines shoot ran over a year and nearly bankrupted Coppola.
Q6. Who directed Pulp Fiction?
Answer: Quentin Tarantino
💡 Pulp Fiction was filmed for around $8 million and grossed over $200 million.
Q7. In which country is the film 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' set?
Answer: China
💡 Despite being set in China and spoken entirely in Mandarin, the film was directed by Taiwanese-American Ang Lee and partly funded by Sony Pictures Classics.
Q8. In which film does The Bride seek revenge with a Hattori Hanzo sword?
Answer: Kill Bill: Volume 1
💡 The Crazy 88 fight used a huge amount of fake blood; Tarantino switched to black-and-white partway through to ease the MPAA.
Q9. Which Disney princess has a sidekick named Pascal the chameleon?
Answer: Rapunzel
💡 Pascal was added to Tangled after the directors watched footage of a real chameleon, fell in love with its expressive eyes, and rewrote the script to include him.
Q10. Which Japanese animation house made 'Spirited Away' and 'My Neighbour Totoro'?
Answer: Studio Ghibli
💡 Studio Ghibli was co-founded by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata in 1985. Spirited Away held the record as Japan's highest-grossing film for nearly 20 years before Demon Slayer: Mugen Train overtook it in 2021.
Q11. Which director made Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, and Dune?
Answer: Denis Villeneuve
💡 The French-Canadian filmmaker's Dune won six technical Academy Awards.
Q12. Which director made Gladiator, Thelma & Louise, and The Martian?
Answer: Ridley Scott
💡 Scott has earned directing nominations decades apart but never won the Oscar.
Q13. Before Titanic, which director launched 1984's killer-cyborg hit The Terminator?
Answer: James Cameron
💡 Cameron says the idea came from a fever dream of a chrome skeleton in flames.
Q14. Which director is famed for symmetrical framing in The Grand Budapest Hotel?
Answer: Wes Anderson
💡 His pastel palettes sparked the viral 'Accidentally Wes Anderson' photo trend.
Q15. Which South Korean director made Parasite and the 2006 monster film The Host?
Answer: Bong Joon-ho
💡 Parasite made him the first director to win Best Picture with a non-English film.
Q16. Alfred Hitchcock earned the nickname the 'Master of ___' for his thrillers.
Answer: Suspense
💡 He built the label over decades of thrillers like The 39 Steps and Notorious.
Q17. Who directed the 1994 film 'The Shawshank Redemption'?
Answer: Frank Darabont
💡 Despite its modest box office, Shawshank has topped IMDb's 250 best films list for years.
Q18. Who directed 2001: A Space Odyssey?
Answer: Stanley Kubrick
💡 Kubrick's 2001 (1968) was so accurate technically that conspiracy theorists claimed NASA hired him to fake the moon landing the following year.
Q19. Which director won Best Director for both Gravity and the black-and-white Roma?
Answer: Alfonso Cuarón
💡 With Gravity he became the first Latino filmmaker to win Best Director.
Q20. Which director won Best Director Oscars for Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi?
Answer: Ang Lee
💡 He was the first Asian filmmaker to win the Best Director Oscar.
Q21. Which director made Do the Right Thing and the biopic Malcolm X?
Answer: Spike Lee
💡 He won his first competitive Oscar in 2019 for co-writing BlacKkKlansman.
Q22. Which director helmed Marvel's Black Panther and the Rocky spin-off Creed?
Answer: Ryan Coogler
💡 He first teamed with star Michael B. Jordan on 2013's Fruitvale Station.
Q23. Scorsese finally won his only Best Director Oscar for which 2006 crime remake?
Answer: The Departed
💡 It reworked the Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs and won Best Picture too.
Q24. Kurosawa's Seven Samurai was remade as which 1960 American Western?
Answer: The Magnificent Seven
💡 George Lucas also cited Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress as a key Star Wars influence.
Q25. Which director made Lost in Translation and The Virgin Suicides?
Answer: Sofia Coppola
💡 She won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Lost in Translation.
Q26. Which director made Moonlight, the coming-of-age 2016 Best Picture winner?
Answer: Barry Jenkins
💡 Moonlight won after the notorious Best Picture envelope mix-up with La La Land.
Q27. Which 2023 Miyazaki film won the 2024 Best Animated Feature Oscar, his second?
Answer: The Boy and the Heron
💡 Miyazaki came out of retirement to make it, releasing it at age 82.
Q28. Which Japanese director created Seven Samurai and Rashomon?
Answer: Akira Kurosawa
💡 George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola helped secure US distribution for Kurosawa's Kagemusha in 1980 after he struggled to fund it.
Q29. Which German director made Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo with Kinski?
Answer: Werner Herzog
💡 For Fitzcarraldo he really hauled a 300-ton steamship over a Peruvian hill.
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