Wordle has taken the world by storm since the game's debut in late 2021. Its simple but addictive nature even caused The New York Times to buy it earlier this year. However, in recent weeks, the now popular word-based game has had some competition that movie fans have been going nuts over. Framed takes the concept of Wordle and applies it to movie images. Similar to that letter-based brain game, you get six frames from a single movie to try to win the round.
However, unlike that game, you only get one guess per frame. Once you guess, the frame changes to a different shot from that same movie. That is either towards your benefit or detriment, depending on what image you get next — you can, however, go back and look at previous frames as you deliberate on your next guess. You do this six times until you either win or lose. Also, just like with Wordle, you can view your stats like your winning streak and share them on your various social media pages.
It is also important to note that once you start typing in a title for a film, the program auto generates a bunch of titles for you. This helps the game be a little more manageable in some regards compared to Wordle. However, if you do not know the title at all, the auto-generated list will probably not help point you in the right direction. The challenge in this game lies within the images themselves because, in any given movie, the game has around two hours of single shots to choose from. So even if the image is from a popular film, it will still be hard to guess what exact title the image is from in certain instances.
For example, one of the past films was the Oscar-nominated Call Me By Your Name. The first image was an extreme close-up that any true fan of the film would know. Also, two of the additional images were establishing shots that could have been from any movie made in the past ten years. It is not until the third image of this particular round did actors like Timothée Chalamet or Armie Hammer appear.
It is fun to see that, just like Wordle, this is a game that works your mind. The game is still fairly new but is it starting to really catch on in the film community. In its short life span, the game has featured classic movies, including Halloween, Night of the Living Dead, Shaun of the Dead, Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, and Being John Malkovich. Other notable films that have popped up in the game include Pixar’s Wall-E, Best Picture winner Birdman, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, Best Picture winner Steven Spielberg’s Schindler‘s List, Zack Snyder’s 300, and Neill Blomkamp’s District 9.
The game refreshes every 24 hours, so it is always exciting to see what films will be featured next. So far, the game has been giving a lot of love to the horror genre. George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, Oscar-nominated The Exorcist, Ari Aster’s Hereditary, and John Krasinski's A Quiet Place have all been represented thus far. Also, the game does not shy away from arguably lesser quality genre sequels like Alien: Resurrection. All this means we may see more mainstream films like Wes Craven’s Scream, A Nightmare on Elm Street, or Bernard Rose’s Candyman in the near future. It also may mean we could see lesser-known horror gems like The Black Coat's Daughter, Tourist Trap, or Robert Rodriguez’s The Faculty thrown in there as well. Just imagine six frames of creepy mannequins from Tourist Trap! That would be a horror fan's dream and anyone else's living nightmare.
Just like with the many combinations of words, the possibilities are endless because of the number of films that are out in the world. The film industry has been around for over 100 years — one day you could get the centennial vampire masterpiece F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, and the very next day, you could be treated to a modern comic book classic like Spider-Man: No Way Home. That should be a very exciting thought for any film fan.
As mentioned before, this cinematic delight has won over the hearts of the film community on social media with many film buffs sharing their current streaks as well as their experience with the game on Instagram and Twitter. You can start your streak today and try out the game for yourself on the Framed website and check out the interface below.
