NYT Strands today — hints, spangram and answers for game #138 (Friday, July 19 2024)

1. Today's hints

2. Today's answer

3. Yesterday's answer

Need a bit of help with NYT Strands today? Today's puzzle theme — "And the Oscar goes to..." — isn't exactly cryptic, but may still trip you up if you don't have the requisite knowledge.

Below, we've compiled some useful hints for Strands #138, as well as the answers, should it come to that. We'll start off with some clues, before building up to the full answer for Strands #138, so read on if you need a little help.

Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for Strands #138.

Today's NYT Strands answer — Today's theme and hints

The official theme for NYT Strands #138 is... "And the Oscar goes to...".

And here's an unofficial hint from me: "Silver screen heroes".

If you're still in the dark, here are some useful words to give you those valuable clue tokens:

• POETS
• SIDES
• WANES
• DIES
• LIED
• LIKES

Still struggling? The spangram will give you a hint about the connection word. Today, it starts with 'B' and ends with 'G'.

Scroll down to find out what it is...

It's BESTACTING.

Today's Strands answers

So, what are today's Strands answers for game #138?

Drumroll, please...

• BERRY
• SWANK
• FIELD
• BRIDGES
• PHOENIX
• HUNT
• STONE

...and the spangram was BESTACTING.

Strands #138

“And the Oscar goes to ...”

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Hi Strands fans. This puzzle should be a breeze if you're a movie buff. Unfortunately, I am not a movie buff.

Thankfully, the theme was obvious enough that I was able to instantly divide the board in two. Following the letters 'B', 'E', 'S' and 'T' across the middle of the board, I connected the spangram of BESTACTING to split the grid in two.

That makes everything a lot easier, and it was then a case of connecting words of actors I'd heard of. BERRY was the first to go near the top-right corner, followed by SWANK just above it. That left just FIELD to complete the top half of the grid.

The second segment was tougher, but getting BRIDGES in the bottom right first certainly helped, as it revealed one of the words ended "nix". It didn't take a genius to work backwards from there and spell PHOENIX.

Two were left. Funnily enough, I saw an episode of the quiz show Pointless yesterday where someone got a good answer for Oscar winners called Helen with "Helen Hunt", so I was primed to spot HUNT on the left-hand side.

That left only one word left: I connected STONE and completed the puzzle surprisingly quickly given my limited grasp on the subject matter.

Yesterday's Strands answers

Reading this in a later time zone? You can find the full article on yesterday's Strands answers for game #137 right here .