Annual Cryptic Movie Quiz 2025 Answers

Quizwoz Answers

Okay everybody. Thanks for all who took part in my Annual Cryptic Movie Quiz for the end of 2025. This year’s winners are returning winners from last year with full marks... Chris and Ross from Manchester. Well done lads.

For all you who want to know which ones you got wrong (or indeed right), here are the puntastic and cryptic answers for you all.

1. Egyptian corpse owns technical equipment. 
An Egyptian corpse would be a mummy. If a person owns technical equipment then he/she “has tech”, so aztec. So we get the first film in The Aztec Mummy Trilogy.

2. What you give people for Christmas.
Well, presents so... yeah... Presence.

3. A central stage for spherical objects used in sports.
A spherical object used in a sport could be a ball. A central stage used in sports could be an arena. So we get John Wick spin off Ballerina.

4. The pride of lions’ fierce vocals are just over 19 decibels.
Lions fierce vocal sounds are a roar. One decibel over 19 decibels would be 20 so... The Roaring Twenties.

5. Suffering a disease in which a high temperature is a prominent symptom, on an evening at the weekend.
A disease could be a fever. An evening at the weekend could be a Saturday night. So... Saturday Night Fever.

6. A non X-rated firebird was polished up for the plan.
A firebird could be a phoenix but, non x-rated means you have to take away the x, which leaves phoeni. If you polished something up then it shone. Another term for a plan could be a scheme. So, phoeni-shone scheme... Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme.

7. Burglar belonging to the father of a kind of sack.
A sack could be a bag. The father could be a dad. The burglar is a thief. So we have, The Thief Of Bagdad.

8. A choice between two indefinite articles.
Two indefinite articles are an and a. A choice implies one or another... so an or a, or rather Oscar winning Anora.

9. A dagger of frozen water.
Frozen water is ice. A dagger is a knife. So we have one of have Carrol Baker’s Italian gialli, A Knife Of Ice.

10. A musical composition made out of soup.
Simply unscramble the letters of soup to get a type of musical composition, so O P U S. Recent John Malkovich thriller Opus.

11. The incorrect leg wear.
Trousers but they’re wrong. It’s the second Wallace And Gromit short film The Wrong Trousers.

12. The specific nomenclature of a prickly stemmed flower.
Nomenclature denotes a name. The prickly stemmed flower is a rose. So Sean Connery does Umberto Eco thriller The Name Of The Rose.

13. Bond villain’s tool for accessing his front door.
The Bond villain I was thinking of was Largo (played by Adolfo Celli in Thunderball and Klaus Maria Brandauer in Never Say Never Again). To access his front door he would surely need a front door key. So the Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson movie Key Largo.

14. Equine’s wing plumage.
Equine implies horse. Plumage is traditionally feathers. So we have the classic Marx Brothers movie Horse Feathers.

And that’s it for 2025’s end of year quiz. As always, I hope it gave some of you something to keep you occupied in any Christmas downtime and that you enjoyed having a crack at it. Let me know if you want me to keep coming up with these end of year quizzes. Feedback is always welcome. 

NUTS4R2's Cryptic Movie Quiz - Christmas 2017

Annual Cryptic Movie Quiz

It’s that time of year once more when I post my Cryptic Movie Quiz for the Christmas period.

If you look at the grid above you’ll see spaces for 24 movie titles running horizontally and, below this intro, are the cryptic clues to help you work out what these non-Christmas movie titles are. To help you out, I’ve filled in a line of letters downwards spelling out WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS... so you have a letter in its correct position for each of the titles. Click on the grid to see a larger version of it.

Depending on my finances after Christmas... I’ll probably award a small, strange or possibly customised prize (if I know you from Twitter) to the person with the most correct answers, pulled from a hat in the unlikely event of a draw (that's never happened yet).

Email your answers to me at nuts4r2@hotmail.com and you have until the end of January 5th 2018 to get your entries in. A few days after that, I’ll stick up the name of the winner (or winners, if it’s a tie), along with all the answers, here on my blog.

By way of an example, here’s a question from last year’s quiz, followed by the answer.

Example question:
None scrambled at the demonstration of the fourteenth letter of the alphabet.

Example answer:
Okay, so the fourteenth letter of the alphabet is ‘n’. A demonstration could be a demo.
So, demon. None unscrambled is neon. So... The Neon Demon.

If you keep checking back at the comments section below, I will probably put the odd clue down there every now and again to help you out.

Full marks are rarely scored so... if you’re feeling a bit stuck, there’s still everything to play for. Send me what you've got anyway.

Hope you enjoy playing and, above all, have fun.

1. You received a new chauffeur for coming first place in that competition.

2. A laboratory test to see if a ringing object can knock you out.

3. I didn’t lose the red back for the lady.

4. You’d be one of these if you were taking the toddler out for a spin.

5. The examination of the religious ending of a British drink is medically assaulted for the thousandth time.

6. Jazz trumpeter wears head gear for the satellite of the apiarist's favourite spread.

7. Your audible, sorrowful breath is covered in hair!

8. Drowned swimming location.

9. Finally, a double consonant for an emasculated Clark Kent.

10. It’s almost a mixed up kangaroo, if you let it defrost.

11. Tab back personified... but not quite a Hobbit.

12. I happen to be a foot.

13. Noah’s 4th vessel comes complete with urban environment.

14. No, I see... this gent is made with the opposite of it’s literal meaning.

15. Cunning but why is it a mix of red and green?

16. A cloned feline.

17. She is the pun!

18. Mutilated drone makes a bad guy.

19. 54A

20. I wish I was dead.

21. A very quiet Lord Of The Rings species makes a hasty retreat.

22. Saw her feller.

23. Journal for you to keep track of the misplaced young lady.

24. Prejudiced against a villanous fantasy race no longer.

Annual Cryptic Movie Quiz Winners & Answers

Click on image to enlarge.

Cryptic Movie Title 

Quiz for Christmas - 

Winners and Answers

Thanks to everyone who took part in this years movie quiz and I'm glad I made it a cryptic one because, from the sounds of it, a fair few of you had good fun puzzling over some of the answers... so that made it all worth doing. 

This year we have two big winners who got all the answers right and they are...

Alex Kittle

and

Miles Donovan

Alex Kittle (the being formerly known as Film Forager) is an amazing artist and one of my all time favourite bloggers. She writes about art and movies and also does some great, often film based, illustrations and designs. You can follow her on Twitter here and check out her blog here.

MIles Donovan is an artist/designer/blogger who does amazing things with robots... among other things. You can follow him on twitter here and see some of his wonderful creations at his alter ego The Daily Robot here.

You should definitely check out their stuff when you get a minute.

One further clarification for Katrin Jenny who got a heck of a lot more right than she initially thought she would... no, the answer to the last question was not "Smart Ass"... but I appreciate the sentiment, I think. And the fact that you carried on with a recently dislocated arm due to ski-related mayhem. Get well soon.

The Answers and how you arrive at them...

Please remember this is a bit of fun so some of the spelling needs to be changed based on the phonetics of the situation. ;-)

1.  One up on stereoscopic sound for your old gun. 18 letters.

Well, to fully appreciate stereo sound you need two ears. One up on that would, presumably, be three ears. An old gun is a musket so... Three Ears and a Musket? The answer must be The Three Musketeers.

2.  You keep banging on about a third of a dog! 10 letters.

Rin Tin Tin was a famous movie star dog. A third of his name could be Tin. Something you can bang on would be a drum so the answer I was looking for was The Tin Drum.

3.  Wolverine beats a hasty retreat. 9 letters.

In most of the comics and certainly the films, Wolverine's real name is Logan. If you're beating a hasty retreat then you're probably running so the answer to this one would be... Logan's Run.

4. An appendage worth its weight. 10 letters.

A well known saying is that something is worth its weight in Gold. An appendage could be a digit like a finger. So the answer is Goldfinger.

5.  It’s just those really passionate about each other that can still lay claim to existence. 19 letters.

Just those = only. People passionate about each other are often lovers. A claim to existence would be if they were alive and if they are still alive then that must mean they've been left alive. So the answer is Only Lovers Left Alive.

6.  It’s a bit of a wreck. 3 letters.

Yes it is. The three letters sandwiched between the W and K for instance, give you the answer of the Spanish horror movie REC.

7.  Plasma made fit for a king. 13 letters.

Plasma can be a substitute for Blood. Something made fit for a king could be a piece of furniture, for instance, like maybe his Throne. So the answer is Kurosawa's famous Macbeth adaptation Throne Of Blood.

8.  One thousand quid for rooms to rent for that annoying, enlightened soul. 21 letters.

One thousand pounds is also known as "a grand". An enlightened soul could be Buddha but, if he's annoying, then he could be a bit of a Pest. If he's renting a room then it could well be in a hotel. Hence we have The Grand Budapest Hotel.

9.  The masculine French takes the applause... and then it’s all downhill in the snow. Just make sure you do it large.  14 letters.

French masculine for "the" is Le. If you take applause then you take a bow. If you travel downhill in the snow then you might well decide to ski. If you do it large then you do it big. Hence The Big Lebowski.

10. Sometimes you need to get away from filing down all that cheese. 14 letters.

If you file down on cheese you are probably using a cheese grater to grate it down. If you need to get away from it you need to Escape. So the answer here is The Great Escape.

11. Common sense replaced by a beer holder in one of three wise men’s gifts. 12 letters.

Frankincense was a gift allegedly given to the baby Jesus by one of three wise men in biblical times. A special tankard for beer is called a Stein. If you remove the sense from Frankincense and replace it with stein you get... Frankenstein.

12. Tripping Homo Sapien reaches Terra Firma. 20 letters.

A Homo Sapien is a man. If he tripped he fell. Terra Firma refers to the Earth. Therefore the title I was looking for was The Man Who Fell To Earth.

13. Legal payments for bed and board in Western Asia. 16 letters.

If something is done legally then it is done to the letter of the law. Payments for bed and board is rent or, rents because there's more than one implied in the wording. A country in Western Asia could be Arabia. LawRents of Arabia... oh, Lawrence Of Arabia.

14. Arrived at a correct conjecture about this person without any real evidence. 8 letters.

This one foxed everyone except the two winners. If you arrive at the correct conjecture about a person but you didn't have any evidence as to why you arrived at it, then you almost certainly guessed. The Guessed? Oh yeah... The Guest.

And that's it. The cryptic form of quiz proved pretty popular so I'll probably use the same kind of format next year... but please do come back and read some of my other posts and reviews in the meantime.

All the best to all my readers and I hope you all had fun.

Quizwoz 2

The Bride Of Quizwoz

Hi all.

It’s that time of year again. This year’s Christmas Quizwoz continues the tradition of having absolutely no prizes and being just for fun. The overall winner (or winners, if it’s a tie) will be shouted out on the answers page when I post it. You have up to and including December 31st to get your answers in to me at nuts4r2@hotmail.com so... good luck! I’ll start on a relatively easy one...

Q1. 
Which franchise, the first movie of which was based on an original novel, has had eight movies, a TV show and even a cartoon series made as part of it?

Q2.
What is remarkable about the Jessie Royce Landis character in Hichcock's North By Northwest? 

Q3. 
What is James Bond’s family motto and which is the first of the EON James Bond films in which this information is disclosed?

Q4.
Akira Kurosawa’s movies Seven Samurai, Yojimbo and Rashomon have what interesting post-release fact in common?

Q5. 
In A Good Day To Die Hard, the Russian taxi driver near the start of the movie sings New York, New York in Frank Sinatra fashion to Bruce Willis. Why is this especially appropriate to the Die Hard franchise?

Q6. 
Which biblical epic features footage from the sequel in it, as the sequel was already being shot while the first film was still being edited?

Q7. 
Which 90s action thriller featured three prior James Bond super-villain actors in the film... who never meet in any scene together. Also, who are the actors and which Bond films were they the main villains in?

Q8.
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

Q9. 
Which two famous characters were teamed up this year in a novel celebrating their 80th anniversarys?

Q10. 
Which actor played a character in a series of films in this century, who is the father of a character he first played in 1981? And what are the two roles in question.

Q11.
In which two movies does a character being played by Mark Hamill get his hand cut off by a light sabre?

Q12. 
Which Dario Argento movie was originally supposed to be a sequel to his earlier film, The Stendahl Syndrome?

Q13. 
Which Doctor Who monsters first appeared in a single story opposite Patrick Troughton in 1967 and then took 40 years to return to the series when one of their hands was glimpsed in a David Tennant episode?

Q14.
In Captain America: The First Avenger, there is an oblique reference to another Marvel Comics hero of that era. Who is the character and why is that kinda ironic in the case of this specific movie?

Q15.
Which famous director, who died in 1986, is alleged to have died from a specific type of cancer, along with a couple of other people, caused by the location in which he shot a movie released seven years earlier? And what was the film which held the deadly location?

Q16. 
Which often controversial director, mostly famous for the films he shot in the 1960s and 1970s, turns up playing a small role in a famous 1950s sci-fi paranoia classic... and what is the name of that movie?

Q17.
Alfred Hitchcock’s remake of his own The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Bryan Forbes’ Deadfall (1968) and Peter Jackson’s remake of King Kong (2005) all have something very specific and unusual in common. What is that specific thing and, once you’ve figured that one out, which of these is the odd one out and why?

Q18. 
Who is the only “Avengers girl”, from the various British TV shows featuring the adventures of John Steed and his companions, who has not turned up in a James Bond movie?

Q19.
Which actor played a professor suffering from a sped up version of the disease “acromegaly” in a Clint Eastwood film and, which iconic character actor of the 30s and 40s suffered from and was killed by a side effect of this same disease in real life?

Q20. 
Which incredibly famous actor was fired by (or left the employment of, depending on who tells the story) Akira Kurosawa after less than one day working on a film. Also, what was the title of the film and who replaced the lead actor after this incident had occurred?

And there you have it. Hope this one wasn’t too tricksy for you but I wanted to make it relatively internet proof... at least to a degree. Again, answers to the email address at the top (which I only really use for these quizzes) and good luck.

Quizwoz Answers - Christmas 2012

Christmas Quizwoz: 
The Answers

Hi there.

Thanks to all of you who played. Had some very impressive answers back but nobody got a full house of correct answers on their first entry. However, very special shout out and congratulations to... drumroll please...

Leilani Holmes aka @momentsoffilm

I was very happy she had a go at this because she’s a good writer/director and I’ve reviewed her work before, here and here. So loads of respect to her for being the winner of this year's Christmas Quizwoz by getting the most right with a whopping 17 out of 20! Power to her.

Right then... here are those questions with the answers in full...

Q1. 
Which two directing K’s made contemporary movie versions of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and what were the two films called?
Well the K’s who I was looking for were the directors Kurosawa and Kaurismäki, who both made their own versions of Hamlet in a contemporary setting. Akira Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well (1960) and Aki Kaurismäki's Hamlet Goes Business (1987).

Q2. 
What is a common factor, which is fairly unique in films, of the 1952 version of The Prisoner Of Zenda, the 1991 version of Cape Fear and the 1998 version of Psycho?
Only one person got this question right in their original entry. People quite rightly pointed out that all of these films were remakes... but that in itself is not really unique to these three films. We’re at a stage right now in movie history where we have remakes coming out our ears. 

These three movies are quite special in that, for each of these, the original musical score from the previous version was reused for the remake. 

So for the 1952 version of The Prisoner Of Zenda, Alfred Newman reused his own musical score from the 1937 version. For the 1991 version of Cape Fear, Elmer Bernstein was called in to re-record/adapt Bernard Herrmanns famous score for the 1962 version (along with a cue or two from his rejected score to Torn Curtain I believe) and for the1998 version of Psycho, Danny Elfman was called in to adapt Bernard Harrmann’s (once again) iconic score to Hitchcock’s 1960 original.

Q3. 
What do Bob Holness, Barry Nelson and Daniel Craig all have in common?
Well, they’ve all played James Bond. Barry Nelson played him first in the original TV version of Casino Royale in 1955 then, two years later, Bob (Blockbusters) Holness played him on the radio in an adaptation of Moonraker. Then, of course, Daniel Craig started playing Bond from the third version of Casino Royale onwards.

Q4. 
Mechanismo and Dangerous Days were both early working titles for which movie?
They were both early working titles, at various script stages, of the film that was finally called Blade Runner.

Q5.
What do Robert Siodmak, Don Siegel and Andrey Tarkovsky have in common?
They all made film adaptations of Ernest Hemingway’s The Killers (Tarkovsky’s was a short). All three are still available, I believe, on a 2 disc DVD set from Criterion.

Q6.
In which movie did Keira Knightley and Natalie Portman first appear together?
They both appeared together in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Portman played Queen Amidala/Padme and Knightley played her loyal decoy/impersonator.

Q7. 
The two Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie were named after characters from which seasonal film favourite?
Named after the cop and the taxi driver in Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life.


Q8. 
Keye Luke took over the role of which oriental detective in the last of a running series of films about the character, and which actor did he replace?
Another one which really seemed to fox people. While it’s true that Keye Luke played Lee Chan (Number One Son) in many of the Chan films (and even played the voice of the great detective himself  in the Hannah Barbara cartoon, years later), he also played the Lee Chan character once in a Mr. Moto film too. However, the actual answer is that he took over the role of Mr. Wong, previously played by Boris Karloff in a short series of films, but then replaced by Keye Luke for the last one in a very different interpretation of the role.

Q9. 
Philip K. Dick’s short story Second Variety was adapted into which film?
This was Screamers, one of the more faithful adaptations of Dick’s work to appear on screen. This is not to be confused with the film Island Of The Fishmen, which was also known as Screamers in some territories.

Q10. 
To date, in Doctor Who, which of The Doctor’s companions has appeared, at one time or another, with the most incarnations of The Doctor?
Sarah Jane Smith as played by Elisabeth Sladen. She has appeared with seven of the Doctors, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 10th and 11th Doctors.

She was a regular companion to both the 3rd and 4th Doctors, then met the 1st (played by Richard Hurndale covering for a dead William Hartnell), 2nd and 5th also, in the anniversary show The Five Doctors. She also appeared with the 10th Doctor a number of times and, most recently before her death, with the 11th Doctor (alongside Katy Manning reprising her role as Jo Grant). 

Q11. 
In television, perceived competition from Davy Jones in The Monkees at a similar time slot lead to the creation of which character for the second series and onwards of the original Star Trek?
Ensign Chekov, as played by Walter Koenig, was brought in from the second series onwards to compete with the popularity of the Davy Jones character in The Monkees. He was a much younger cast member and he even had the same kind of face and was given the same haircut.

Q12. 
The two main protagonists from Linklater’s Before Sunrise and Before Sunset make an ambiguous cameo appearance in which animated movie?
The two characters pop up in Linklaters animated movie, Waking Life.

Q13. 
Which two Peter Cushing movies also feature the talented Caroline Munro?
The two stars both appeared in Hammer’s Dracula AD 1972 (um... 1972) and Amicus’ At The Earth’s Core (1976).

Q14.
Ron Moody appeared as a character in the pilot episode of a TV show, but was replaced by Roddy McDowell in the actual series of what?
Tales Of The Gold Monkey. Ron Moody played Bon Chance Louie in the original pilot episode but Roddy McDowell took over the role from the next episode.

Q15. 
In the Toho classic that had an alternate US title in one of its early releases as Godzilla VS The Thing... who/what was revealed to be The Thing?
Mothra. Indeed, in many countries the film is known as Mothra VS Godzilla.

Q16. 
“Man Is The Warmest Place To Hide.” Which 80s movie had this tagline on the poster?
And talking about “things”... “Man Is The Warmest Place To Hide” was the poster tagline to John Carpenter’s The Thing.

Q17. 
Which of Roger Corman’s famous Edgar Allan Poe “adaptations” for AIP was actually an uncredited adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward?
Edgar Allan Poe’s The Haunted Palace... which so wasn’t Edgar Allan Poe’s, save for a few lines quoted from a poem at the end.

Q18. 
The title of which Michael Crichton novel (and subsequent film adaptation) is an homage to a famous story by Arther Conan Doyle?
The Lost World (later known as The Lost World: Jurassic Park 2) after the first of the Sherlock Holmes creator’s Professor Challenger stories, which features dinosaurs.

Q19. 
Which Spaghetti Western is a remake of one of the Zatoichi (The Blind Swordsmen) films?
Blindman (1971)... which also featured Ringo Starr as a Mexican villain.

Q20. 
Noel Neill replaced another actress from the second season onwards (1953 - 1958) on a TV show playing the same role which she’d formerly played in two Columbia serials in 1947 and 1950. What was the role?
Lois Lane! Noel Neill took over the role from Phyllis Coates in the famous George Reeves show The Adventures Of Superman. Coates had played her for the first series but ducked out for the other five. Noel Neill was already familiar with playing Lois Lane as she had played her twice before in the two Kirk Alyn Superman chapter serials... Superman (1947) and Atom Man Vs Superman (1950 - the Atom Man was Lex Luthor).

Movie Quizwoz - Christmas 2012

Christmas Quizwoz

Just for fun.

My “hopefully” fiendish Christmas Quizwoz (aka The Quizard Of Woz). Mostly film and TV questions but some books and stuff thrown in for good measure too. Absolutely no prizes, but if you send your answers here... nuts4r2@hotmail.com... I’ll list the people who got the most answers right... along with the actual answers very soon after the closing date (please remember to say how you want to be named in case you are a high scorer).

If you're gonna have a go, please get your answers to me before noon on New Years Eve, UK time.

Good luck.

Q1. 
Which two directing K’s made contemporary movie versions of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and what were the two films called?

Q2. 
What is a common factor, which is fairly unique in films, of the 1952 version of The Prisoner Of Zenda, the 1991 version of Cape Fear and the 1998 version of Psycho?

Q3. 
What do Bob Holness, Barry Nelson and Daniel Craig all have in common?

Q4. 
Mechanismo and Dangerous Days were both early working titles for which movie?

Q5.
What do Robert Siodmak, Don Siegel and Andrey Tarkovsky have in common?

Q6.
In which movie did Keira Knightley and Natalie Portman first appear together?

Q7. 
The two Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie were named after characters from which seasonal film favourite?

Q8. 
Keye Luke took over the role of which oriental detective in the last of a running series of films about the character, and which actor did he replace?

Q9. 
Philip K. Dick’s short story Second Variety was adapted into which film?

Q10. 
To date, in Doctor Who, which of The Doctor’s companions has appeared, at one time or another, with the most incarnations of The Doctor?

Q11. 
In television, perceived competition from Davy Jones in The Monkees at a similar time slot lead to the creation of which character for the second series and onwards of the original Star Trek?

Q12. 
The two main protagonists from Linklater’s Before Sunrise and Before Sunset make an ambiguous cameo appearance in which animated movie?

Q13.
Which two Peter Cushing movies also feature the talented Caroline Munro?

Q14. 
Ron Moody appeared as a character in the pilot episode of a TV show, but was replaced by Roddy McDowell in the actual series of what?

Q15. 
In the Toho classic that had an alternate US title in one of its early releases as Godzilla VS The Thing... who/what was revealed to be The Thing?

Q16. 
“Man Is The Warmest Place To Hide.” Which 80s movie had this tagline on the poster?

Q17. 
Which of Roger Corman’s famous Edgar Allan Poe “adaptations” for AIP was actually an uncredited adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward?

Q18. 
The title of which Michael Crichton novel (and subsequent film adaptation) is an homage to a famous story by Arther Conan Doyle?

Q19. 
Which Spaghetti Western is a remake of one of the Zatoichi (The Blind Swordsmen) films?

Q20. 
Noel Neill replaced another actress from the second season onwards (1953 - 1958) on a TV show playing the same role which she’d formerly played in two Columbia serials in 1947 and 1950. What was the role?