As someone whose commute to and from the office every day is under half an hour, I am always looking for something short and sweet to do while riding the subway. Sure, there’s the New York Times Games app and its offerings like Wordle and the more recent Connections. But as of February 26, there is a new addition to the usual rotation of games—and it might just be my favorite one yet. Let me introduce you to Cinematrix.
From Vulture, the entertainment focused news site from New York Magazine, Cinematrix is a wonderful piece of film-focused trivia fun. I was first introduced to the game by my partner, who is an avid reader of Vulture’s theater coverage and a fellow commuting gamer. She saw the announcement of Cinematrix on Monday and immediately shared it with me as the new thing to do on my commute. After only three days of existence, we are already obsessed. Cinematrix is played out on a 3×3 grid of nine squares. Along the top and side of the grid are clues that could be an actor or director’s name, release year, box office, and Oscar-winning status to name a few options.
The goal is to choose a movie that fits the two clues for any given square. For example, today’s Cinematrix has a square with the clues “Tilda Swinton” and “Release Year: 2000-2009”. So there are a lot of possible answers. Each correct answer you give will also have a percentage that represents the number of players who guessed the same movie. More obscure movies get higher points. Though be careful because you only get nine guesses, so make one mistake and you won’t finish the grid. It’s an exciting test of your film knowledge that I’ve really gotten hooked on because of the game’s wiggle room. Different players give different answers and comparing notes with my partner leads to fun conversations about what movies we each thought of first.
Some might find this game familiar to Movie Grid, which started in 2023. Well, that’s because it was created in partnership with the Movie Grid team. But as someone who had never heard of Movie Grid before playing Cinematrix, Vulture’s version is sure to bring new players into the fold. New puzzles go live every weekday at 5 a.m. ET, so it’s always there when I commute. If you too are looking for something to add to your collection of games or are just frustrated by Connections, then give Cinematrix a shot.