What is The Movie Challenge
The Movie Challenge is a variation of the ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon’ game. Instead of trying to link an actor to Kevin Bacon by movies they’ve stared in with other actors until they meet, you link two movies together in the same fashion.
If you aren’t familiar with how exactly to play ‘Six degrees of Kevin Bacon’ this video may help you get the idea.
Why don’t we just play the Kevin Bacon game?
The short answer is because Kevin Bacon sucks.
How to Play
- Think of any movie you want that you can name at least one actor or actress in, and have a friend do the same.
- Link the two movies trailing the actors until they meet.
The Rules
- You can only use movies, no TV shows unless it was a made for TV movie.
- You can only use actors, no directors or producers unless they were physically in the movie.
An Example of how it’s done
- Example 1 (Easy) Ghostbusters (1984) – Natural Born Killers (1994)
Bill Murray from Ghostbusters was in ‘Zombieland‘ with Woody Harrelson which also starred in Natural Born Killers.
- Example 2 (Easy) Stand by Me (1986) – Rain Man (1988)
Dustin Hoffman from Rain man was in ‘Hook‘ (1991) with Julia Roberts who was in ‘Flatliners‘ (1990) with Keifer Sutherland who was the bully in Stand by me.
- Example 3 (Hard) JAWS (1975) - The Notebook (2004)
Richard Dreyfuss from Jaws was also in ‘What about Bob?‘ (1991) with Billy Murray who was in ‘Kingpin‘ (1996) with Woody Harrelson who was in’Semi Pro‘ (2008) with Will Ferrell that starred in ‘Anchorman‘ (2004) with Ben Stiller that was in ‘Tropic Thunder‘ (2008) with Matthew McConaughey who was in ‘Contact‘ (1997) with Jodie Foster who was in ‘Silence of the Lambs‘ (1991) with Anthony Hopkins who was in ‘Fracture‘ (2007) with Ryan Gosling who was in The Notebook.
How the Difficulty is rated
The difficulty is rated by how many ‘linking movies’ there are between the two Movies that start the game.
Easy = 0-3 movies
Medium = 4 – 6 movies
Hard = 7 – 9 movies
Insane = 10 – 14 movies
Holy Grail = 15 + movies
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Tips
Try to get to movies with lots of big name actors. The bigger the actor chances are the more actors and movies they have been in. For instance movies like ‘The Departed’ and ‘Oceans Eleven’ have tons of big name actors that can practically link to any movie.
Whenever possible try to get to a movie with Samuel L. Jackson. The man is in darn near every movie making your game that much easier.