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On August 22, 2025, NYT Connections weaves history, pop culture, and gaming into its categories.
From US presidents to actors with verb surnames, these groups stretch both logic and cultural knowledge.
They balance common-sense categories with some cunning wordplay to hit just about the right level of difficulty.
Hints and full answers lead the solver through tricky connections and up the solver's game.
It’s a new day as Friday ushers in the beginning of the weekend. NYT Connections today challenges with lively categories encompassing pop culture, poker, and historical references. Today, you find categories that exercise your mind, from US presidents to actors who also practically use verbs as surnames. The combinations make for a good laugh or two and keep you thinking; it's an excellent puzzle, either for a logic buff or for the casual solver.
NYT Connections is a daily word game hosted on the New York Times website and the Games app. Each puzzle is formed by a 4x4 grid of 16 words. The object is to sort those sets of words into four groups of 4, with the groups all having something in common. Each group is assigned a color, yellow usually being the easiest, blue/green intermediate, and purple being the one that challenges your lateral thinking or wordplay.
Players submit a group and receive feedback, losing a life if they submit an incorrect group. Hints or full answers are sometimes available to assist players who are stuck on harder puzzles.
LAS VEGAS
STRIP
AMY
ADAMS
TOM CRUISE
WASHINGTON
PRIVATE RYAN
CHRISTOPH WALTZ
JOHN MALKOVICH
STUD
GEOFFREY RUSH
FORD
OMAHA
GRANT
DRAW
CHEVY CHASE
Yellow group - former commanders-in-chief
One-word hint: GRANT
Green group - actors whose last names are also verbs
One-word hint: TOM CRUISE
Blue group - kinds of poker
One-word hint: OMAHA
Purple group - proper nouns after gerunds in '90s movie titles
One-word hint: AMY
Yellow group - US presidents: ADAMS, FORD, GRANT, WASHINGTON
Green group - actors whose last names are also verbs: CHEVY CHASE, CHRISTOPH WALTZ, GEOFFREY RUSH, TOM CRUISE
Blue group - kinds of poker: DRAW, OMAHA, STRIP, STUD
Purple group - proper nouns after gerunds in '90s movie titles: AMY, JOHN MALKOVICH, LAS VEGAS, PRIVATE RYAN
Today’s historically aligned puzzle was made for the solvers. The US presidents and poker variants were straightforward for more experienced solvers, while the purple group required recognition of famous ‘90s movies.
The green group used surnames and action verbs to be a small yet gratifying perpendicular challenge. It's enjoyable and helpful to have clever misdirection containing recognized pop culture names in this game for some lateral thinking exercises.
Friday's NYT Connections unleashes a balance of easy and tricky categories at once. Pop culture references mingle with wordplay and partially overlapping themes to make the grid enjoyable to complete yet mentally stimulating. The regulars will appreciate the mixture of historical, cinematic, and gaming knowledge, while the newer players can get by with hints to the more difficult connections. Today's challenge is the right way to end the week with fun and real brain exercise.
Hence, this puzzle accentuates a few strategies: identifying patterns, bringing cultural knowledge into play, and looking out for punny answers. NYT Connections keeps the mind engaged to sharpen and entertain each day.
