Christmas Movie Trivia Questions50 Answers, 1 Themed Rounds

Kevin McCallister — Macaulay Culkin was nine when filming began and ten by the premiere, becoming the biggest child star of the era. The screenplay was written by John Hughes, reportedly inspired by his own vacation-packing panic.

Paris — The family jets to Paris for Christmas; the sequel inverts the joke by putting Kevin on the wrong plane to New York while everyone else heads to Miami.

The Wet Bandits — Marv insists on leaving the water running in every house they rob — the calling card that gets them caught. In the sequel they rebrand as the Sticky Bandits. Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern took the slapstick like champions.

John Hughes — Hughes wrote the script between Ferris Bueller and Curly Sue. It became the highest-grossing live-action comedy of its time — and held the record for decades.

Micro Machines toy cars — Kevin's arsenal also includes a blowtorch, a hot doorknob, paint cans on ropes, and his brother Buzz's pet tarantula. Micro Machines got a famous unofficial product placement.

Buddy — Buddy the Elf crawled into Santa's sack as a baby and was raised at the North Pole by Papa Elf, played by Bob Newhart. Ferrell reportedly caused a few minor traffic accidents while filming in the Lincoln Tunnel — drivers were too distracted by a grown man in an elf costume.

Candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup — Buddy applies the doctrine to spaghetti, topping it with syrup, candy, and crumbled Pop-Tarts — a prop dish the crew actually made. The line became one of the most quoted in modern Christmas movies.

James Caan — Caan plays the naughty-list children's book publisher opposite Ferrell's relentless cheer. Ed Asner is in the film too — as Santa. Director Jon Favreau insisted on old-school forced perspective instead of CGI for the elf scale tricks.

Nakatomi Plaza — Hans Gruber crashes the Nakatomi Corporation's Christmas Eve party. The building is really Fox Plaza, the studio's own headquarters. The is-it-a-Christmas-movie debate remains America's favorite December argument.

Bruce Willis — Willis was then known mainly as a TV comedy actor on Moonlighting — the role remade him as an action star. Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber, incredibly, was his first film role.

George Bailey — Fun fact hiding in the credits: George's old friend is named Sam Wainwright — and there really is a Harry in the film, George's brother Harry Bailey. Frank Capra directed what became his own favorite of his films.

An angel gets his wings — Little Zuzu delivers the line that gives guardian angel Clarence Odbody — Angel Second Class — his promotion at last. The film flopped in 1946, then became a classic through endless TV airings after its copyright lapsed in 1974.

Bedford Falls — In the nightmare timeline where George was never born, the town becomes Pottersville — named for the miserly Mr. Potter. The RKO ranch set covered four acres with 75 buildings and a main street of full-grown oaks.

A Red Ryder BB gun — An official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle, to be exact. Every adult in the film replies with the same warning — you'll shoot your eye out — and on Christmas morning he very nearly does.

A woman's leg in a fishnet stocking — The crate reads FRAGILE — which the Old Man reads as an Italian word, fra-GEE-lay. Leg lamp replicas now glow in windows across America every December; the original props were all broken during filming.

A frozen flagpole — He does it on a triple dog dare — a serious breach of playground etiquette, skipping the triple dare entirely. The effect used a hidden suction tube, not actual frozen metal.

Chevy Chase — Clark's quest for a fun old-fashioned family Christmas involves 25,000 imported Italian twinkle lights, a squirrel-infested tree, and cousin Eddie in a bathrobe. John Hughes wrote it based on his own short story.

A one-year membership in the Jelly of the Month Club — As cousin Eddie says, it's the gift that keeps on giving the whole year. Eddie's response — kidnapping Clark's boss in a bow — gets the bonus reinstated with a 20 percent raise.

Santa falls off his roof — Scott Calvin startles Santa off the roof, puts on the suit, and activates the fine print of the Santa Clause — legally becoming the next Santa. The Disney film spawned two sequels and a series.

Macy's — Edmund Gwenn won an Oscar for playing Kris, who scandalizes Macy's by sending shoppers to rival Gimbels when it has better toys — accidental genius marketing. The courtroom climax has the US Mail prove Santa exists.

Danny Kaye — The song-and-dance duo scheme to save their old general's failing Vermont inn with a Christmas show. Fred Astaire declined and Donald O'Connor fell ill; Kaye reportedly took the role for a hefty 200,000-dollar fee plus a share of the gross.

Holiday Inn (1942) — Irving Berlin's song won the Best Original Song Oscar for Holiday Inn, where Crosby first crooned it. The 1954 film was built around the song's phenomenon twelve years later.

Multiple roles, including the Conductor and Santa — Through early motion-capture, Hanks played the Conductor, the Hobo, Santa, the boy's father, and more. The film holds a Guinness record as the first all-digital motion-capture feature.

The British Prime Minister — His doorstep dance through 10 Downing Street is the film's signature scene. Bill Nighy plays the washed-up rocker whose cynical Christmas Is All Around song frames the movie.

Jim Carrey — Carrey's makeup took hours daily and was so maddening he was coached in techniques used to endure discomfort. Ron Howard directed; the film won the makeup Oscar.

Michael Caine — Caine famously vowed to play it dead straight, as if with the Royal Shakespeare Company — opposite Kermit as Bob Cratchit and Gonzo narrating as Charles Dickens. Many fans call it the best Christmas Carol on film.

Bill Murray — Murray's Frank Cross is haunted mid-broadcast of his own live Scrooge special. Carol Kane's Ghost of Christmas Present beats him up with a toaster — reportedly with genuine enthusiasm.

Halloween Town — Jack discovers Christmas Town and decides to run Christmas himself, kidnapping Sandy Claws. Tim Burton conceived it, but the stop-motion marvel was directed by Henry Selick — a perennial trivia trap.

A Turbo-Man action figure — The plot spoofed real holiday toy frenzies like Cabbage Patch Kids mania. Sinbad co-stars as the rival dad — a postal worker, naturally.

Never feed it after midnight — No bright light, no water, and no food after midnight. Gizmo's offspring break all three, turning small-town Christmas into chaos — the film's dark humor helped inspire the PG-13 rating.

The Plaza — Kevin funds the stay with his dad's credit card and outwits the concierge played by Tim Curry. The Plaza leaned into the fame for decades with Home Alone packages.

Netflix — Sergio Pablos' hand-drawn-styled film gave Santa's legend an origin story and was nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar — many critics called it an instant classic.

A safecracking thief — Willie robs a mall each Christmas Eve with his elf-costumed partner. The gleefully filthy comedy became a cult holiday alternative — the anti-Elf, released the same year as Elf.

Swapping homes across the Atlantic — An LA mansion for a Surrey cottage, sight unseen. Jack Black and Jude Law complete the swap's romantic collateral, and the cottage remains a Pinterest fantasy every December.

George Michael and Wham! — Emma Thompson co-wrote the film, which takes its title and its central twist from the Wham! song — listen to the opening line of the chorus very literally.

Ryan Reynolds — Ferrell plays the Ghost of Christmas Present as a full-time professional haunter; Reynolds is the unredeemable target. The Apple TV+ musical winks constantly at Ferrell's Elf legacy.

Santa! I know him! — The store Santa, alas, is a fake — an impostor Buddy publicly unmasks for smelling like beef and cheese. Both lines escaped the movie into year-round meme service.

A silver bell from Santa's sleigh — He asks for a bell cut from Santa's sleigh — and only true believers can hear it ring. In the closing narration, the bell still rings for him though friends and even his sister eventually stop hearing it.

Believe in Santa Claus — Raised by her practical mother to reject fairy tales, Susan tests Kris by asking for a house — and the ending suggests he delivered. Natalie Wood was eight during filming and reportedly believed Edmund Gwenn really was Santa.

Miracle on 34th Street — John Hughes wrote and produced the remake; Macy's declined to participate, so the film invented the fictional Cole's department store instead.

A squirrel — The tree Clark dug up from the frozen wilderness came with a stowaway. Combined with Aunt Bethany's cat and the sewer-gas explosion, the Griswold Christmas achieves total holiday entropy.

You've Got Mail — Ernst Lubitsch's Budapest-set classic starring James Stewart became the Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan email romance six decades later — the bookshop in You've Got Mail is even called The Shop Around the Corner.

It's a Wonderful Life — It lost money in 1946 and helped sink Capra's Liberty Films. A 1974 copyright lapse let TV stations air it endlessly for free, until Republic Pictures reasserted control in the 1990s and NBC's limited annual airings became the new tradition.

If something happens to Santa, whoever puts on the suit becomes Santa — The clause in the fine print — put on the suit, accept the job. Scott spends the next year gaining weight and white hair against his will as the magic takes hold.

Smeerensburg — The town's two clans have feuded so long that fighting is their only tradition. Jesper's letter-delivery scheme with the reclusive toymaker Klaus accidentally invents the Santa legend piece by piece.

Elf — Buddy's motto saves Christmas in the finale, when belief-powered singing lifts Santa's sleigh over Central Park. Zooey Deschanel's Jovie leads the crowd — her singing voice was a genuine surprise to audiences.

Moose — The Walley World moose mugs are a callback to the original Vacation film. Replicas remain a best-selling piece of Christmas-movie merchandise every year.

Live-action comedy — It earned over 470 million dollars worldwide in 1990 and sat atop the US box office for 12 straight weekends. The Guinness record for highest-grossing live-action comedy stood into the 2010s.

Andrew Lincoln — Long before The Walking Dead, Lincoln's Mark tells Keira Knightley's Juliet that to me, you are perfect via cue cards — a scene endlessly parodied and hotly debated every December.

Benedict Cumberbatch — Illumination's version became the highest-grossing Christmas-themed film of all time worldwide, with Cumberbatch using an American accent — to some fans' lasting surprise.