April 1, 2026 NYT Connections Puzzle #1025 Hints and Answers

Today’s New York Times word games Connections puzzle #1025 has a strong theme running through it — if you know your rock bands, your classic movies, your beer labels, or your American city nicknames, you’re in good shape. If not, read on for progressive hints, category reveals, and the full solution.

What Is NYT Connections?

NYT Connections is a daily word puzzle published by the New York Times. The game presents players with 16 words and challenges them to sort those words into four groups of four, with each group sharing a hidden common thread. Categories span almost any topic — pop culture, history, science, sports, wordplay, and more.

Each category is assigned a color based on difficulty: yellow is the easiest, green is moderate, blue is harder, and purple is the most deceptive. The puzzle resets every day at midnight, and players can share their results on social media just like Wordle.

How to Play

You are shown 16 words on a grid and must find four groups of four that share something in common.
Select four words you believe belong together and tap “Submit.” If correct, those words are cleared from the board.
A wrong guess counts as a mistake. You get a maximum of four mistakes before the game ends.
You can shuffle and rearrange the board at any time to help spot connections more easily.

Category Hints — No Answers Yet 🟨🟩🟦🟪

Not ready for the full reveal? Here are vague hints to nudge you in the right direction:

🟨 Yellow: Think about what you order at a bar or crack open from the fridge on a hot day.
🟩 Green: These are iconic music groups — the kind you’ve heard blasting from arenas and car stereos for decades.
🟦 Blue: Lights, camera, action — these all belong on the silver screen.
🟪 Purple: Every major American city has a nickname. These four are among the most recognizable.

Category Names — Getting Warmer

Still need a little more? Here are today’s actual category names without the answers:

🟨 BEER BRANDS
🟩 ROCK BANDS
🟦 MOVIES
🟪 U.S. CITY NICKNAMES

Full Answers for Connections #1025 — April 1, 2026

Here are all four completed categories for today’s puzzle:

🟨 BEER BRANDS: BLUE MOON, DOS EQUIS, MILLER HIGH LIFE, RED STRIPE
🟩 ROCK BANDS: GREEN DAY, PINK FLOYD, THREE DOORS DOWN, U2
🟦 MOVIES: BACK TO THE FUTURE, BLUE VELVET, SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN, TOP GUN
🟪 U.S. CITY NICKNAMES: BIG APPLE, BIG EASY, MILE HIGH CITY, SECOND CITY

What Made Today Tricky

Today’s puzzle had some genuinely clever misdirection built in. Several words carry color names — BLUE MOON (beer), BLUE VELVET (movie), GREEN DAY (band), PINK FLOYD (band), and RED STRIPE (beer) — which makes you want to group them by color rather than by their actual categories. Resisting that instinct was the key to solving the puzzle cleanly.

The 🟦 MOVIES category was probably the sneakiest. TOP GUN and BACK TO THE FUTURE are obvious classics, but BLUE VELVET (David Lynch’s 1986 film) and SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (the 1952 musical) require a broader knowledge of cinema history. Players who aren’t film buffs may have struggled here.

The 🟪 U.S. CITY NICKNAMES category was deceptively broad. BIG APPLE (New York), BIG EASY (New Orleans), MILE HIGH CITY (Denver), and SECOND CITY (Chicago) are all well-known, but MILE HIGH CITY in particular might have thrown some people — it sounds like it could belong somewhere else entirely.

And in 🟩 ROCK BANDS, the inclusion of U2 alongside longer names like THREE DOORS DOWN adds an odd-one-out feeling that might make you second-guess the group even when you have it right.

Tips for Today’s Puzzle

Ignore the colors in the words. BLUE MOON, PINK FLOYD, GREEN DAY, and RED STRIPE all contain colors, but they span three different categories. Don’t let that lead you astray.
Start with what you know best. If you recognized BLUE MOON, DOS EQUIS, and RED STRIPE as beers right away, anchor your yellow group first and build from there.
The movie category rewards film knowledge. SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN and BLUE VELVET are both iconic but from different eras. If you spotted them as films early, that eliminates two potential misdirectors from the board.
City nicknames are geography trivia. BIG APPLE, BIG EASY, and SECOND CITY are widely known, but MILE HIGH CITY (Denver) is less instinctive. If you had three obvious city nicknames and one leftover word that didn’t fit elsewhere, that was your fourth.

More Daily Puzzle Help

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Shahid Maqsood

Shahid Maqsood is a digital entrepreneur and SEO specialist focused on building engaging web experiences. He is the creator of DotWordle, combining creativity with smart, user-friendly design.