Cut to Black: Movie Deaths in 2025 Quiz

Answer: "Lost Highway"

David Lynch was inimitable. Originally a painter, his surrealistic first feature film, "Eraserhead" (1977), took five years to produce. Seemingly all who worked with him loved him, and wished to work with him again: his entourage of repeat players included Kyle MacLachlan, Laura Dern, Jack Nance, and Naomi Watts. In a 2011 interview with Lynch, he said that, when securing funding for "The Elephant Man" (1980) from Brooksfilms, the film was privately screened to Mel Brooks. Bursting out of the theater, Brooks had only these words for Lynch: "You're a madman. I love you. You're in."

After the rocky production of "Dune" (1984), Lynch came to loathe blockbuster film making. For the rest of his career he focused on smaller, neo-noir, auteur films, including "Blue Velvet" (1986), "Mulholland Drive" (2001), and "Inland Empire" (2006). "Lost Highway" (1997) was another in this vein, focusing on a distraught couple who are sent mysterious video tapes shot from inside their home.

A detour ended up becoming his most famous work - "Twin Peaks," a soap opera-mystery that ran for two seasons in 1990-91. It then returned for a third, helmed by Lynch, twenty-five years later - exactly as Laura Palmer promised in the original finale.

Answer: "The Godfather"

Diane Keaton could seemingly act in any part she so chose. The New York Times puts her as a feature of more than 100 films, "an almost equal balance of them in comedies [...] and dramas." Her career took off in 1972 playing Michael Corleone's girlfriend Kay in "The Godfather" (1972). Over the next year she shared the screen with director-costar Woody Allen in "Play It Again Sam" (1972) and "Sleeper" (1973).

Allen wrote the title part of "Annie Hall" (1977) for Keaton, and it became the work both he and she were best associated with. The movie was the story of two exceptionally neurotic people in love, awkwardly attempting to reconcile. Allen and Keaton would work on a total of seven films together.

Keaton also had singing chops (singing was her original dream); in several films, "Annie Hall" among them, she belted out a number or two. She also authored many books on paintings, interior design, and fashion.

Answer: "Quiz Show"

Robert Redford had no shortage of eternal starring roles: "Downhill Racer" (1969), "The Great Gatsby" (1974), "Three Days of the Condor" (1975), "All the President's Men" (1976). The Guardian described his on-screen presence as "an alluring, dispassionate, handsome icon." He only worked with Paul Newman twice, but they may be his two greatest turns: "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969) and "The Sting" (1973).

However, I've opted to recognize Redford's underappreciated directing career. Besides the Best Picture-winning "Ordinary People" (1980), Redford also directed one of my favorite movies, "Quiz Show" (1994), which I expect will appeal to many FunTrivia players. The movie is based on the real-life Charles Van Doren's appearances on the show "Twenty-One" - I don't want to give away more than that, but you may remember how that went. Redford loved small and independent filmmaking; he helped found the Sundance Film Festival, which bears the name of his best-known role.

Answer: "The Leopard"

Claudia Cardinale was an extraordinary person. She began her career early when she was raped by a stranger. Nine months later, she gave birth to a son; she introduced him to cast mates as her "younger brother." Her cinematic ambitions were rooted in her desire to provide for him.

She became one of Italy's most beloved and beautiful actresses. She starred in many of Italy's greatest movies of the 1960s, among them Visconti's "Rocco and His Brothers" (1960), where she was paired with Alain Delon, and Fellini's "8 1/2" (1963). "The Leopard" (1962), a revered period drama about a royal house caught in Giuseppe Garibaldi's invasion of Sicily, was another Visconti production, which again paired her with Delon.

That same year, she made it to Hollywood. She starred in another felid flick, "The Pink Panther" (1963) and the American-Italian production of "Once upon a Time in the West" (1968). But the American film industry wasn't for her: "I don't like the star system. I'm a normal person." She returned to Europe to work on small and indie productions, eschewing celebrity for integrity and authenticity.

Answer: "Tombstone"

Long-term, Val Kilmer's legacy, I think, will be his uncanny ability to stand next to some of the towering icons of cinema and hold his own. In "Top Gun" (1986) he played Iceman next to Tom Cruise's Maverick. In "Heat" (1995) he perfectly played a critical supporting role next to Al Pacino and Robert de Niro. "Tombstone" (1993) again featured him on a star-studded cast that included Kurt Russell, Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton, and more. Kilmer was Doc Holliday, the right-hand man and "huckleberry" to Wyatt Earp in his fateful adventure at the O.K. Corral.

That's not to imply Kilmer could not stand on his own. He played a Brian Wilson parody in the underrated "Top Secret!" (1984), and later Jim Morrison in "The Doors" (1991). Kilmer's turn as the Caped Crusader for "Batman Forever" (1995) was also the favorite of Batman's creator, Bob Kane. His memoir, "I'm Your Huckleberry" (2021), touched on his difficult diagnosis with throat cancer.

Answer: "Pale Flower"

Director Masahiro Shinoda's short but exquisite run of masterpieces during the 1960s and early 70s is a highlight of Japan's "New Wave." He is probably best-known today for a yakuza movie, "Pale Flower" (1964), about a hit man who falls in with a gambling-addicted woman. But Shinoda spanned the quintessential genres of Japanese cinema: the samurai movies, social satires, melodramas, and adaptations of traditional Japanese theater - the acclaimed "Double Suicide" (1969) was adapted from a puppet show. He also adapted some of Japan's greatest novelists, among them Shusaku Endo and Yasunari Kawabata, who won the Nobel Prize.

Although Shinoda's work continued for decades, he soon sloughed off many of the early trappings that made his work unforgettable. His adaptation of "Silence" (1971) - more familiar to Westerners from Martin Scorsese's adaptation - is the punishing story of Portuguese missionaries imprisoned and forced to renounce their faith. (It happens to be one of this author's favorite movies.)

Answer: "Stand By Me"

The son of comedian Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner's directorial turns could move from comedy to drama and even horror at a stroke. For "This Is Spinal Tap" (1984), considered the pioneer of the "mockumentary" genre, he both directed and pretended to be a director (playing the barely-concealed pastiche Marty DiBergi). More comedy hits followed with "The Princess Bride" (1987) and "When Harry Met Sally" (1989). Two of his films were Stephen King adaptations: "Misery" (1990) and "Stand By Me" (1986), the perfect coming-of-age movie about a group of four kids taking a long hike to see a real-life dead body. (More exciting than it sounds!)

He also co-founded the production company Castle Rock Entertainment (which shares its name with a Maine town King used in stories like "Cujo"). That company produced "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994), "The Green Mile" (1999), and a mildly successful situation comedy called "Seinfeld." In 2025, he returned as both actual and acted director in his final role, "Spinal Tap II: The End Continues."

Answer: "Rocky III"

Hulk Hogan (real name Terry Bollea) was one of professional wrestling's stars during the '80s and '90s. He took the viewership of the World Wrestling Federation into the millions of viewers, headlining eight of the first nine WrestleMania events. Outside of the ring, Hogan made regular appearances in movies. In "Rocky III" (1982), he fought Rocky as Thunderlips, a charity side-gig while the hero trained to rematch Clubber Lang. He later starred in many films for children, including "Surburban Commando" (1991), "Santa with Muscles" (1996), and the final installment of the "3 Ninjas" series (1998).

He may have never been up for an Oscar, but he stayed a beloved figure. According to the Make-a-Wish Foundation, "Hulk was at one point our most requested celebrity, and he never said no when he could possibly make it." He made over 200 appearances with that charity alone, in addition to much other philanthropy.

Answer: "The Conversation"

Gene Hackman's huge filmography, encompassing more than 80 appearances, is remarkable given a number of breaks in his career. His first big role, as Clyde's brother in "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967), came when he was 37. Shortly thereafter, he had the two roles that, more than any other, defined his career. First, as Popeye Doyle in "The French Connection" (1971), one of the meanest good guys in movie history, a brazen, signature role that netted an Oscar. Then, on the opposite side of the spectrum, he played the mild-mannered Harry Caul in "The Conversation" (1974), filmed by Francis Ford Coppola in between the first two "Godfather" films. "The Conversation" was an thriller in which Caul secretly tape-records a mysterious couple - it inadvertently predicted some details of the Watergate case.

He also had his share of blockbuster successes, as part of the ensemble in "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972) and, lest we forget, as Lex Luthor for "Superman" (1978). He took a lengthy hiatus, which could only be interrupted by checks to do more "Superman" movies. Decades later, he earned his second Oscar playing the bad guy in "Unforgiven" (1992).

Answer: "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore"

A talented actress in her own right, Diane Ladd was the mother of Laura Dern, who called her mom "my amazing hero." One of those actresses remembered from a litany of supporting parts (in "Chinatown" (1974), "The Wild Anels" (1966), and "Christmas Vacation" (1989) as Clark Griswald's mom), Diane Ladd is probably best known as a waitress in Martin Scorsese's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More" (1974). Ladd's character helps the wayfaring Alice adjust to her new job at Mel's Diner. That movie became the basis for "Alice," a seminal TV sitcom of the 1970s and 80s; Ladd reprised her role and won a Golden Globe for the part.

Of Ladd's three Oscar-nominated parts, two of them were opposite Laura. In "Rambling Rose" (1991), Dern is Rose, a promiscuous orphan, and Ladd is the matron of a manor house; Ladd's character hires and becomes a mother figure to the unlucky girl. In "Wild at Heart" (1990), Ladd played Dern's controlling mother, earning that divisive film's only Oscar nom. Taking us full circle, "Wild at Heart" was directed by David Lynch.