NYT Connections — August 18, 2026

Today's board moves from sights you'd expect outside a red-carpet event, to phrases that all shorten to the same two-letter initials, to things sharing a bold orange color, and finally to things you could call gritty in very different senses.

Yellow (easiest): each of these is something you'd notice at a glitzy Hollywood movie opening.

Green: say the first letters of each phrase out loud and they all spell the same two-letter abbreviation.

Blue: every item here shares the same bright, citrus-like color.

Purple (hardest): each of these could be described as "gritty" — whether that means literally coarse, stylistically dark, or the actual mascot of an NHL team.