Trivia · Free questions
50 pub quiz questions you can use tonight
A complete five-round pub quiz with a full answer key and a tiebreaker — free, printable, and built with a real difficulty ramp so the same team doesn't win every week.
This is a whole quiz, not a list. Five rounds of ten, a difficulty ramp from "anyone who came for dinner" to "genuinely hard", a tiebreaker at the end, and a full answer key. It is enough for a two-hour night and you can run it from your phone or print this page.
Take it. There is nothing to sign up for.
How to actually run it
- Read every question twice. Once for the room, once for the person who was ordering a drink.
- One point per answer, no half points. Announce running standings after each round — a team in fourth with one round to go is a team that orders again.
- Swap and mark. At the end of each round, teams pass their sheet to the next table and mark each other's while you read the answers out. Four minutes instead of twenty, and the arguing is the fun bit.
- Break after round three, ten minutes, and push a drink special from the microphone while you have everyone's attention.
- Accept close spellings. You are running a bar, not an exam. Say so at the start.
- The answer key is at the bottom. Do not print that page for the tables.
Rounds one and two are the warm-up and should feel generous. Round five is meant to hurt — if a team gets more than four of it, they have earned the tab.
Round 1 — Warm-up
- What is the capital of Russia?
- Which sea animal has eight arms?
- Which coffee chain has a green mermaid in its logo?
- In Charlotte's Web, what kind of animal is Charlotte?
- Bob Marley popularised which genre of music worldwide?
- The Grand Canyon is in which US state?
- How many players from one soccer team are on the field at a time?
- Which structure inside a cell is known as "the powerhouse of the cell"?
- Who was the first President of the United States?
- Which 1972 crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola won Best Picture?
Round 2 — Food and drink
- Tequila is distilled primarily from which plant?
- A Bloody Mary is typically made with which spirit?
- Rum is distilled primarily from which crop?
- Cognac is a type of which spirit?
- Which cheese traditionally tops a Margherita pizza?
- Hummus is made primarily from which legume?
- Buffalo wings originated in which US city?
- Deep-dish pizza is most associated with which US city?
- Which cocktail is made with gin, Campari and sweet vermouth?
- Under its rules of origin, tequila can only be produced in which country?
Round 3 — Music and screen
- Which singer released the album 1989?
- Who sang the 1983 hit "Girls Just Want to Have Fun"?
- Bruce Springsteen's longtime backing group is the ______ Band?
- Which band released the 1979 concept album The Wall?
- Which 1997 film became the first to gross over $1 billion worldwide?
- Which Christopher Nolan film involves entering people's dreams to steal secrets?
- In Breaking Bad, which fast-food chain does Gus Fring use as a front?
- Which actor played the raincoat-wearing detective in Columbo?
- Who composed the film scores for Star Wars, Jaws and Indiana Jones?
- Which 1980 comedy is set at a golf country club and features a troublesome gopher?
Round 4 — Geography and history
- What is the capital of Morocco?
- Which of the Great Lakes lies entirely within the United States?
- The Aegean Sea lies between Greece and which country?
- Which African nation was once the British colony called the Gold Coast?
- Which country has the largest Muslim population in the world?
- Alexander the Great was tutored as a youth by which philosopher?
- The Punic Wars were fought between Rome and which city?
- In which city was Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated in 1914?
- Who became the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom?
- Which country launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, in 1957?
Round 5 — The hard ten
- What is the chemical symbol for tungsten?
- What is the largest moon of Saturn?
- Which scientist is credited with discovering the electron?
- Which gymnast scored the first perfect 10 in Olympic history, at the 1976 Games?
- Heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano retired with how many career losses?
- Who wrote the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God?
- In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh is king of which ancient city?
- Which composer is nicknamed the "Father of the Symphony" for writing over 100 of them?
- Which country produces more cocoa beans than any other?
- What is the name of the hopping desk lamp in Pixar's studio logo?
Tiebreaker — closest wins
In 1941, Joe DiMaggio set a Major League Baseball record with a hitting streak. How many consecutive games long was it?
Answer key
Do not hand this to the tables.
Round 1 — Warm-up
- Moscow
- The octopus
- Starbucks
- A spider
- Reggae
- Arizona
- Eleven
- The mitochondria
- George Washington
- The Godfather
Round 2 — Food and drink
- Agave
- Vodka
- Sugarcane
- Brandy
- Mozzarella
- Chickpeas
- Buffalo, New York
- Chicago
- The Negroni
- Mexico
Round 3 — Music and screen
- Taylor Swift
- Cyndi Lauper
- The E Street Band
- Pink Floyd
- Titanic
- Inception
- Los Pollos Hermanos
- Peter Falk
- John Williams
- Caddyshack
Round 4 — Geography and history
- Rabat — not Casablanca, which is the largest city
- Lake Michigan — the other four are shared with Canada
- Turkey
- Ghana
- Indonesia
- Aristotle
- Carthage
- Sarajevo
- Margaret Thatcher
- The Soviet Union
Round 5 — The hard ten
- W — from wolfram, its other name
- Titan
- J. J. Thomson
- Nadia Comăneci — at the 1976 Montreal Games
- None — he retired undefeated at 49–0
- Zora Neale Hurston
- Uruk
- Joseph Haydn
- Ivory Coast — also accept Côte d'Ivoire
- Luxo Jr.
Tiebreaker: 56 games.
Where the disputes will be
Four of these get argued every single time. Rule on them before someone gets loud:
- 8 — mitochondria. Someone will say "mitochondrion" and someone else will say "nucleus". Accept either singular or plural; do not accept the nucleus.
- 17 — Buffalo wings. Accept "Buffalo" on its own. Every year one table writes "Anchor Bar", which is the bar that invented them and not a city. That is a nice piece of trivia and still zero points.
- 31 — Rabat. Half the room writes Casablanca. It is the biggest city; Rabat is the capital.
- 45 — Marciano. "Zero", "none" and "he never lost" are all the same answer. Take all three.
And set the rule that ends everything else at the start of the night: the host's decision is final. Say it out loud before question one and you will never spend ten minutes adjudicating a spelling.
Making the next one
The catch with a free quiz pack is the same catch every bar hits in about week five: you need another fifty next Tuesday, and another fifty the Tuesday after, and your regulars will notice the moment a question comes back round.
That is the treadmill First Round is built for — a fresh set every week from a tiered question bank, scored automatically, standings on the TV, so nobody on your staff is writing trivia on a Sunday night. The quiz above is drawn from the same bank, which is why it has a real difficulty curve instead of fifty questions of the same weight.
But for tonight you do not need any of that. Print this, buy some pens, and start at seven.