Christmas Movie Quiz: 50 Questions and Answers for the Family

A Christmas quiz that survives a mixed room

The hard part of a family Christmas quiz is not writing questions. It is writing questions that a nine-year-old and a sixty-year-old can both answer some of, in the same room, after lunch.

So this one is built in layers. Round one is for everybody. Round two is a deep dive into the film most families have watched twenty times without noticing anything. Round three settles the annual argument about what counts as a Christmas film. Rounds four and five are for the adults still standing.

Fifty questions, answers included, no printing required.

Round 1: The Ones Everybody Knows

1. What is Kevin's surname in Home Alone? McCallister
2. In It's a Wonderful Life, what is the name of the angel sent to help George Bailey? Clarence
3. Who plays Buddy in Elf? Will Ferrell
4. Who plays Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol? Michael Caine
5. What is the name of the Grinch's dog? Max
6. Which town does the Grinch look down on? Whoville
7. In A Christmas Story, what present does Ralphie desperately want? A Red Ryder BB gun
8. Which 2003 British film follows nine or so London love stories in the run-up to Christmas? Love Actually
9. In The Nightmare Before Christmas, what is Jack Skellington king of? Halloween Town — he is the Pumpkin King
10. Buddy the Elf names four main food groups. Name any two. Candy, candy canes, candy corn, syrup

Round 2: The Home Alone Round

Everyone has seen it. Almost nobody has watched it.

1. Which city is the family flying to at the start? Paris
2. Which city does Kevin end up in during the sequel? New York
3. What are the two burglars called? Harry and Marv
4. What do they call themselves in the first film? The Wet Bandits
5. And in the sequel? The Sticky Bandits
6. Who plays Kevin? Macaulay Culkin
7. Who composed the score? John Williams
8. What is the name of the older brother who eats Kevin's pizza? Buzz
9. Which toy shop features in the sequel? Duncan's Toy Chest
10. Who directed the first two films? Chris Columbus

Round 3: Is It Even A Christmas Film?

Run this round and let the argument happen. It is the best twenty minutes of the day.

1. In Die Hard, what is the name of the tower? Nakatomi Plaza
2. Who plays Hans Gruber? Alan Rickman
3. Who plays John McClane? Bruce Willis
4. In what year is Die Hard set at a company Christmas party? It was released in 1988
5. Name any one of the three rules for looking after a mogwai in Gremlins. Keep it out of bright light; do not get it wet; never feed it after midnight
6. What is the name of the well-behaved mogwai? Gizmo
7. Which holiday is Batman Returns set at? Christmas
8. Which holiday frames the plot of Trading Places? Christmas
9. In Edward Scissorhands, what is Edward carving when the snow falls? Ice sculptures
10. Which holiday does Jack Skellington try to take over? Christmas

Round 4: Years and Numbers

Nobody knows these. Everybody guesses confidently. That is the fun.

1. In what year was Home Alone released? 1990
2. In what year was It's a Wonderful Life released? 1946
3. How many spirits visit Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, not counting Marley? Three
4. In what year was Elf released? 2003
5. In how many Home Alone films does Macaulay Culkin play Kevin? Two
6. In what year was The Nightmare Before Christmas released? 1993
7. How old is Kevin in the first film? Eight
8. In what year was Love Actually released? 2003
9. In what year was The Muppet Christmas Carol released? 1992
10. In what year was A Christmas Story released? 1983

Round 5: Tiebreakers

Closest wins. The last one is the best question in this entire quiz.

1. Roughly how long is It's a Wonderful Life, in minutes? About 130
2. In what year was The Polar Express released? 2004
3. How many reindeer pull the sleigh in the traditional poem, not counting Rudolph? Eight
4. How many Academy Award nominations did It's a Wonderful Life receive? Five
5. How many of those did it win? None

Running it with children in the room

• Mixed teams, not children versus adults. Put one child on each team and the whole thing works; separate them and one side has a miserable hour.
• Let the youngest player answer first on rounds one and two. It costs the adults nothing and changes the mood entirely.
• Round three is optional. If your family genuinely cannot discuss Die Hard calmly, skip to round four. You know your family.
• Half points for close. "1991" for Home Alone deserves something.

The single best fact in this quiz: It's a Wonderful Life was nominated for five Academy Awards and won nothing, and was a commercial disappointment on release. It became a Christmas institution decades later, largely because a clerical lapse let it slip into the public domain and television stations could show it for free.

How to referee the argument in round three

Round three is designed to start a fight, so it is worth having a way to end one. The trick is to stop asking whether a film "is" a Christmas film — an unanswerable question — and ask a narrower one instead: would this film still work if you moved it to July?

Die Hard mostly would; the office party could be any party. Gremlins mostly would not; the gift that starts everything is a Christmas present, and the film's whole tone depends on the season it is undermining. Batman Returns sits in between and that is genuinely interesting to argue about, which is the point.

Put it to a vote, one vote per person, and award the round's bonus point to whichever team argued the winning side. It converts an argument that could last all afternoon into a scored round that lasts four minutes, and everybody still gets to have the argument.

The three eras of Christmas film, and why the mix matters

If you write your own version of this quiz, the trap is drawing every question from the films you rewatch. A room spanning three generations has three different canons, and they barely overlap.

The pre-1960 canon is small and universally known by name: It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, White Christmas. Older relatives have seen them repeatedly; younger ones know the titles and possibly one image each. Questions here should be about the broad strokes, never the detail.

The 1980s and 90s canon is the one most people mean by "Christmas films" — Home Alone, Scrooged, The Muppet Christmas Carol, The Nightmare Before Christmas. This is the deepest seam, because these are the films that got watched annually on television by a whole generation. You can safely ask detailed questions.

The post-2000 canon — Elf, Love Actually, The Polar Express, Arthur Christmas — is where the youngest people in the room have the advantage, and it is worth deliberately over-weighting it if there are teenagers present.

A quiz drawing evenly from all three is the only kind where everyone in a family room contributes something. Draw entirely from the middle era and you have written a quiz for people aged thirty-five to fifty-five, which is exactly the quiz most people accidentally write.

Two variations worth trying

• The nominations round. Instead of asking for the answer, read three films and ask which one does not belong — same year, same director, same star. It is gentler than direct recall and works well after lunch, when nobody's brain is fully operational.
• The one-word round. Every answer must be a single word. It sounds like a restriction; in practice it doubles the speed of marking, which is the part of a family quiz that always overruns.

If nobody wants to be the quizmaster

Somebody always has to read a paper quiz, and it is always the same person. If you would rather everyone played, our Classic trivia game asks the questions for you, and a challenge sends everyone the same rounds and works out who won — including the relatives who are not in the room, which is the part a paper quiz cannot do.

FAQ

How many questions should a family Christmas quiz have?

Fifty is about right for an afternoon, split into five rounds of ten with a break for marking. Thirty if there are small children involved.

Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?

It is set on Christmas Eve at a Christmas party, and its plot depends on both. Whether that settles it has never once been settled at any table, anywhere.

What is a good Christmas quiz score?

Out of fifty, a family team usually lands in the high twenties. Round two is where the gap opens up — repeated viewing is not the same as attention.

How do I make it work for younger children?

Use rounds one and two only, allow team answers, and let the youngest answer first. The animated films in round one carry most of the load.

Can I mix in other films?

Yes — the round structure is the useful part. Keep the layering (everyone, one deep dive, one argument, one numbers round) and swap the titles for whatever your family actually watches.