← Flickle Games

Articles

Essays and data stories from the world of movie connections — what the co-star graph behind our daily games reveals about a century of cinema.

The Loneliest Stars: Famous Actors on the Edge of the Network

Some famous actors sit far from everyone else in the co-star network. Language, era and short filmographies explain Hollywood's loneliest stars.

15 August 2026

The 2020s So Far: Event Casts and the Ensemble Revival

Oppenheimer's colossal cast, Top Gun: Maverick's reunions, A24's repertory and multiverse cameos: how the 2020s became the decade of the event ensemble.

14 August 2026

The Actors Closest to All of Hollywood

Average distance, not co-star counts, reveals Hollywood's true centre: why John Goodman is closer to everyone than any megastar, per Flickle's graph.

13 August 2026

From Bogart to Margot Robbie in Three Films

Real shortest paths from Bogart, Monroe and Buster Keaton to today's stars, and the long-career bridge actors who make three-film hops possible.

11 August 2026

The 2010s: The Marvel Effect on Hollywood's Social Network

How the Marvel Cinematic Universe rewired Hollywood's co-star network in the 2010s, from nine-picture contracts to the most star-dense ensembles ever filmed.

10 August 2026

The Great Connector Films: Casts That Link Everyone to Everyone

From The Prince of Egypt's all-star voice booth to Avengers: Endgame, these are the mega-cast films that wire the whole co-star network together.

8 August 2026

The 2000s: Trilogy Casts and the Prestige Ensemble

Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Ocean's Eleven: how 2000s trilogies, prestige ensembles and the Frat Pack bound huge casts together for a decade.

7 August 2026

The 30 Most Connected Actors in Film, Measured

The 30 most connected actors in film, ranked by distinct top-billed co-stars on Flickle's graph. Not the A-listers you'd guess — and that's the story.

5 August 2026

The 1990s: Indie Ensembles and the Miramax Web

Se7en, Pulp Fiction and the Miramax web: how 1990s indie ensembles, character actors and rom-com pairings knitted the decade's stars into one graph.

4 August 2026

Six Degrees of Separation Is a Myth. It's Usually Three.

Six degrees of separation? Measured on Flickle's co-star graph of 895,000 films, most famous actors are two or three steps apart — almost never six.

2 August 2026

The 1980s: Brat Packs, Action Stars and the Franchise Web

How the 1980s wired Hollywood together: Star Wars and Amblin casts, the Brat Pack cluster, and why Stallone and Schwarzenegger never shared a frame.

1 August 2026

The 1970s: New Hollywood's Small Circles

New Hollywood connected actors in tight circles: Coppola's Corleones, Scorsese and De Niro, all-star disaster casts and the blockbusters that built new hubs.

28 July 2026

The 1960s: New Waves, Ensembles and the Break-Up of the Studio Network

In the 1960s studio rosters collapsed and single films did the wiring: Bond, Leone's westerns, Psycho, 2001 and the mega-cast road-show epics of the decade.

24 July 2026

The 1950s: When the Studio System Wired Hollywood Together

How the studio system wired 1950s Hollywood into one dense network: contract players, Hitchcock's rotating stars, the Method generation and Kurosawa's circle.

20 July 2026

A Short History of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

From a 1929 Hungarian short story to a snowbound dorm in 1994: the full history of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, and the daily puzzle games it inspired.

16 July 2026

Why Hollywood Is a Small World: The Math of Movie Networks

Nodes, hubs, and shortcut actors: how small-world network theory explains why half of all famous actor pairs sit exactly three co-star steps apart.

12 July 2026

From Crosswords to Wordle: How the Daily Puzzle Conquered the Internet

From Arthur Wynne's 1913 word-cross to Wordle's emoji grids: how the one-a-day puzzle became the internet's favorite shared ritual, and why scarcity works.

8 July 2026

What Counts as a Co-Star? The Surprisingly Hard Question Behind Movie Trivia

Cameos, extras, voice roles, archive footage: where movie trivia draws the co-star line, and why counting only top-billed casts keeps steps meaningful.

4 July 2026