Directing a Single Word Trivia Quiz

'Cocktail' is a 1988 rom-com directed by Roger Donaldson, an antipodean filmmaker who was also in the director's chair for 'Dante's Peak' (1997). 'Cocktail' stars Tom Cruise as Brian Flanagan, an army guy who seeks to transition to a high powered job but instead finds himself making a living in the glamorous world of cocktail bars. Flanagan goes on a voyage of discovery, alongside Jordan Mooney (Elisabeth Shue), ultimately deciding that soul-destroying corporate life is not for him after all.

The image is of my cocktail of choice, the Old Fashioned (Bourbon, Angostura Bitters, Sugar, Water and Orange).

Terry Gilliam is famous for being a member of the absurdly comical 'Monty Python'. Gilliam acted in the troupe's humorous films, 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' (1975), 'Monty Python's Life of Brian' (1979) and 'Monty Python's The Meaning of Life' (1983). Gilliam shared directorial duties with fellow Python Terry Jones in the creation of these three movies.

Two years after 'The Meaning of Life' came Gilliam's 'Brazil' (1985), an unsurprisingly absurdist and satirical take on concepts such as bureaucracy and an overbearing state. The film's central character is Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), a lowly-ranked cog in the extensive government machine. Lowry's adventures begin once he spots an administrative error that led to a wrongful arrest.

In 1999, author Joanne Harris penned her successful novel 'Chocolat' and her work was turned into a 2000 film starring a number of talented actors such as Juliet Binoche, Alfred Molina, Judi Dench and Johnny Depp. Swede Lasse Hallström - who worked on the vast majority of ABBA's music videos - was in the director's chair for this production which is a quaint portrayal of Vianne Rocher's (Juliet Binoche) struggle, as an outsider, to make a success of her new chocolate shop in a French town.

The hugely successful 1997 film 'Titanic' became the second film in history, 'Ben-Hur' (1959) being the first, to win 11 Academy Awards. One of the Oscars awarded to 'Titanic' was in the category of Best Director, acknowledging the work of James Cameron in bringing the famous maritime disaster to life nearly 85 years after Titanic's sinking.

James Cameron is known for his interest in shipwrecks but the film's plot follows the whirlwind romance shared by Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) rather than solely fixate on how such a magnificent vessel ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Alfred Hitchcock is renowned for his experimentation within the field of film-making and the 1948 film 'Rope' (a personal Hitchcock favourite of mine) is one such example whereby the eccentric British director sought to capture the entire film in as few takes as possible. The intended outcome is to make the audience feel as though they are watching the film in real-time with very few cuts. Where Hitchcock could not avoid a cut - often for technical reasons - he would find novel ways (some successful others not) to disguise the cut scene.

Whilst 'Rope' is not one of the more recognisable names in Hitchcock's filmography, it is most definitely worth watching. James Stewart plays the suspicious Rupert Cadell who, when invited to a dinner party at the apartment of two of his former pupils, starts to unravel a "perfect murder" both in the abstract and in reality. The two former pupils, Brandon Shaw (John Dall) and Phillip Morgan (Farley Granger), are also hiding their sexuality in plain sight following a subtextual reading of the film. It is a magnificently tense piece of cinema.

'Milk' is a 2008 film directed by Gus Van Sant that chronicles the life of Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), the first openly gay man to serve on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and first openly gay person to be elected to any public office across the entire state of California. The film celebrates courage but it is ultimately a tragic tale, with Harvey Milk being assassinated by Dan White in November 1978.

American director Gus Van Sant is also known for directing 'My Own Private Idaho' (1987) and 'Good Will Hunting' (1997). In 1998, he directed the remake of Hitchcock's 'Psycho' (1960) that nobody really wanted!

Scary movies are two a penny and in amongst the noise it is hard for individual movies to avoid falling into obscurity just a few short years after their release. An example of a film that has managed to avoid the abyss is the iconic 1978 slasher movie, 'Halloween'. John Carpenter directs a cast led by Donald Pleasance and Jamie Lee Curtis but it is Nick Castle's masked character, The Shape (Michael Myers), that naturally sticks in the memory.

The Shape kills his sister on the Halloween of 1963 but things kick off again when Dr Samuel J Loomis visits the murderer at the sanitarium in which he has been incarcerated for the best part of 15 years.

Steven Spielberg is one of the most famous film directors of all time with his filmography containing well over 30 feature films. Alongside movies such as 'Jaws' (1975), 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial' (1982) and 'Saving Private Ryan' (1998) is the 1991 entry, 'Hook'.

'Hook' is a modern retelling of J. M. Barrie's 'Peter and Wendy' and features a stellar cast consisting of Robin Williams as Peter Pan (Peter Banning), Julia Roberts as Tinkerbell and Dustin Hoffman playing the antagonist, Captain Hook. The film opens with a somewhat overused plot device of a person in a demanding job (a lawyer in this case) attempting - and failing - to keep their career and family life in equilibrium.

'Spotlight' (2015) won the Academy Award for Best Picture but curiously only one other award - Best Original Screenplay. It tends to be the case that the film that wins Best Picture also scoops multiple other awards at the same ceremony but for the first time since 'The Greatest Show on Earth' in 1952, the Best Picture winner could not surpass a total of two Oscars. 'Spotlight' was directed by the New Jersey actor and filmmaker, Tom McCarthy, who has played small parts in movies such as 'Meet the Parents' (2000) and 'Little Fockers' (2010).

'Spotlight' tackled challenging subject matter by dramatising the work of journalists at 'The Boston Globe' as they investigated abuse within the Catholic Church in the capital city of Massachusetts.

'Parasite' (2019) made history when it became the first non-English language film to win the Best Picture Oscar. This Korean language film was directed by Bong Joon-ho of Daegu, South Korea, who is known for exploring the themes of class and wealth. These themes were evident throughout 'Parasite' with the poor Kim family plotting to improve their lot in life by obtaining jobs from the wealthy Park family.

The picture clue given is of mistletoe, a pretty yet parasitic plant. One of the more obscure clues in this set of 12!

There were plenty of candidate one-word film titles in the filmography of Ron Howard including 'Willow' (1988), 'Backdraft' (1991) and 'Inferno' (2016). On this occasion the picture clue hints - not so subtly - at 'Splash', a 1984 release starring Tom Hanks and Darryl Hannah.

'Splash' is a bizarre film that can basically be described as boy falls off boat, meets mermaid in water, is rescued from water and separated from mermaid, boy grows up and falls into water again, mermaid finds man's wallet and goes to New York... can we stop there, please!?

Woody Allen is a director that certainly divides the crowd and the fact his 1977 film 'Annie Hall' won the Academy Award for Best Picture has been neither forgotten nor forgiven by fans of the 'Star Wars' franchise (I personally thought 'Annie Hall' was a worthy winner).

A few years after the success of 'Annie Hall' came 'Manhattan' (1979). Woody Allen plays Isaac Davis, a quirky middle-aged man going through a crisis (it is a Woody Allen film after all). Amongst other plot points, 'Manhattan' follows Isaac's faltering efforts to form a new life after his marriage breaks down (his wife Jill left him for another woman).