NYT Connections: Hints, Strategy & Full Breakdown for November 14, 2025 (Game #887)

On November 14, 2025, the New York Times released its daily Connections puzzle — a brain-teasing word game that tests lateral thinking, pattern recognition, and pop culture knowledge. For puzzle lovers, today’s challenge (Game #887) offered a well-balanced mix of familiar terms, thematic connections, and clever misdirections.

In this guide, we’ll explore:

What Connections is and how it works
The specific hints for November 14
The four theme groups and clues
Strategy to solve the puzzle
Common pitfalls
Why this particular puzzle is satisfying to crack
Takeaways and learnings

1. What Is NYT Connections?

NYT Connections is a daily word-association game published by the New York Times. Players are presented with 16 words, arranged in a grid, and must group them into four sets of four words each. Each set shares a common theme. The themes vary daily and can range from very literal connections (synonyms) to pop culture topics.

Each of the four groups has a different difficulty level, often indicated by color:

Yellow: Easy / Most obvious
Green: Medium-easy
Blue: Harder
Purple: Hardest

Players get four guesses — one per color — to try to identify each group. Making a wrong guess counts against you, so strategy and careful deduction are essential.

2. Hints for November 14, 2025 (Game #887)

For this particular puzzle, multiple sources provided group hints that help guide solving without outright giving away the full categories. According to reports from Forbes, TechRadar, Beebom, and Economic Times, the hints and categories for Game #887 are as follows:

Color Group	Hint / Theme
Yellow	Evaluate / Assess
Green	Radio tuning options
Blue	Action film subgenres
Purple	Classic ’90s action films

These hints are both conceptual and precise:

Yellow (“Evaluate”) suggests words about judging or measuring quality.
Green (“Radio tuning options”) points to terms used in broadcasting or radio frequencies.
Blue (“Action film subgenres”) hints that words belong to different types of action movies — but not necessarily specific titles.
Purple (“Classic ’90s action films”) is the trickiest: iconic film titles from the 1990s.

These categories give a solid roadmap for clustering the 16 puzzle words once you see them.

3. The Four Theme Groups — Words and Connections

Based on the hints, today’s solution set for the November 14 puzzle is:

Group 1 (Yellow): Evaluate

Words: GRADE, JUDGE, RATE, REVIEW

GRADE = to assign a level or mark
JUDGE = to form an opinion or make a decision
RATE = to assess or give a value
REVIEW = to consider something critically or give feedback

All four relate to the idea of evaluating or appraising something.

Group 2 (Green): Radio Tuning Options

Words: BAND, CHANNEL, FREQUENCY, STATION

BAND = something like FM or AM band
CHANNEL = a station or frequency path
FREQUENCY = the wave frequency at which radio transmits
STATION = a radio station

These are all terms you might associate with tuning or navigating radio/broadcasting.

Group 3 (Blue): Action Film Subgenres

Words: BUDDY, DISASTER, MARTIAL ARTS, SUPERHERO

BUDDY = buddy-cop / buddy-action movies
DISASTER = disaster-action films (think big catastrophes)
MARTIAL ARTS = films centered on martial arts or fighting
SUPERHERO = action films featuring superheroes

These represent distinct subgenres within the action film category.

Group 4 (Purple): Classic ’90s Action Films

Words: ARMAGEDDON, HARD BOILED, HEAT, SPEED

ARMAGEDDON = the 1998 film about an asteroid threatening Earth
HARD BOILED = the John Woo film (1992) starring Chow Yun-fat
HEAT = the 1995 crime film with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro
SPEED = the 1994 film starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock

These are all iconic action films from the 1990s — one of the more culturally specific and challenging categories for younger or less movie-savvy solvers.

4. Strategy to Solve Today’s Puzzle

Here’s a step-by-step approach to tackling this Connections puzzle effectively:

Scan the 16 Words
When you first open the game, don’t rush. Read all 16 words slowly. Try to spot obvious synonyms, pop-culture references, or word-group clusters.
Start with the Easiest Group (Yellow)
Because yellow tends to be more literal and easier, try to spot evaluation words: Rate, Judge, Review, Grade. Lock them in first if you're confident.
Use the Shuffle Button
If words seem disconnected, shuffle them. Rearranging can surface patterns visually and help you see connections you missed.
Eliminate Once You Confirm a Group
Once you lock in a group (e.g., the four “evaluate” words), remove them and focus on the remaining words. This reduction gives more clarity for the harder groups.
Look for Cultural Recognition (Blue / Purple)
For blue (subgenres) and purple (films), think of action movies and their sub-types. If you see Action plus Buddy, Disaster, Martial Arts, or Superhero, that’s your blue. When you see Armageddon, Speed, Hard Boiled, or Heat, that’s your purple.
Be Careful with Red Herrings
Connections often includes distractor words that seem like they belong somewhere but don’t quite fit any group. For example, a word like BUDDY might suggest “friendship,” but here it’s about action-movie subgenres.
Limit Your Guesses Strategically
Since you only get four guesses, don’t spend them all early. Confirm the easy categories first, then use cautious logic for the hardest ones.
Use a Final Check
Before you submit your final guess for the purple group (or any tricky one), double-check that each word makes sense in its category — especially for film titles.

5. Common Pitfalls & Mistakes for This Puzzle

Misclassifying Words by Surface Meaning
Some words may have multiple meanings. For example, BAND could refer to a music band, but here it’s about radio.
Overthinking Film Titles
When recognizing 90s action films, some solvers may overthink less mainstream titles. Remember: Connections tends to use fairly well-known movies in these puzzles.
Ignoring the Difficulty Order
Because groups are color-coded by difficulty, ignoring that order (e.g., going for purple first) can waste guesses.
Relying Too Much on First Impressions
The game’s designers often include red herrings. A word that feels like it belongs in one group might actually belong somewhere else entirely.

6. Why This Puzzle (Nov 14) Feels Especially Good to Solve

Balanced Difficulty: This puzzle has a good mix. The “evaluate” and “radio” categories are more straightforward, while the action-film categories tap into pop-culture knowledge but are still accessible.
Cultural Depth: The purple category rewards both cinephiles and casual movie watchers. Recognizing Hard Boiled or Heat involves some classic movie knowledge.
Mental Workout: It’s not just about synonyms. You need to think thematically (subgenres, tuning), which makes the game more satisfying.
Relevance & Variety: The words span different domains — judgment, radio, movie subgenres, specific films — which keeps the puzzle fresh and engaging.

7. Learnings & Takeaways for Players

From solving (or reading) this puzzle, you can gain a few general lessons:

Broaden Your Knowledge: Pop culture (especially films) helps a lot in these puzzles. Watching or reading about ‘90s action movies gives you an edge.
Think in Themes, Not Just Words: Connections is about grouping by concept, not just synonyms.
Use Strategic Guessing: Start with easier groups, then move to the trickier ones. Don’t waste all your guesses on the hardest category.
Be Comfortable with Ambiguity: Some words will seem ambiguous. Don’t worry about perfect clarity at first — use elimination and cross-checking.
Practice Helps: The more you play Connections, the better you’ll become at spotting subtle patterns, especially for tricky themes like “radio tuning” or “film subgenres.”

8. Beyond the Game: Why Connections Matters

Connections isn’t just a daily puzzle — it’s also:

A mental warm-up: Many players use it to sharpen their thinking first thing in the morning.
A learning tool: It builds pattern recognition, vocabulary, and conceptual links.
A social experience: People discuss their strategies, favorite categories, and movie references on forums and Reddit. (Indeed, on r/NYTConnections there are ongoing discussions about tough puzzles like today’s.) (Reddit)
A bridge between culture and language: By referencing classic films or technical terms (like “frequency”), it merges pop-culture knowledge with wordplay.

Final Words

NYT Connections on November 14, 2025 (Game #887) is a strong example of a well-crafted puzzle — one that demands a mix of vocabulary, culture, and logic. With its categories of evaluating words, radio tuning, action subgenres, and classic ’90s movies, it’s accessible yet challenging.

For players stuck on this puzzle, use the strategic steps above — start with the obvious, eliminate carefully, and don’t be afraid of the harder categories. For fans who breeze through it, reflect on what made this puzzle tick, and use that insight for future games.

And whether you solve it quickly or take your time, the satisfaction of grouping GRADE, BAND, BUDDY, and ARMAGEDDON (along with their teammates) into the right categories is part of what makes Connections such a beloved game.