Entertainment
The Leonardo DiCaprio Bloody Thriller That Is A Crime Classic
By TeeJay Small
| Updated
While we can all agree that Leonardo DiCaprio was long overdue for his Oscar award when he finally received it for The Revenant in 2015, the debate for his best performance continues to rage on to this day. Some say DiCaprio should have won an Academy Award for his work on films such as Django Unchained, The Wolf of Wall Street, or 2006’s Martin Scorsese directed The Departed. The latter serves as one of the greatest crime films of the 21st century and is currently available to stream on Hulu.
A Dream Team Of A-Listers
The Departed serves as the third of seven collaborative efforts between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, and is an American adaptation of the 2002 Hong Kong film, Internal Affairs. After choosing to set the adaptation in Boston, Massachusetts, Scorsese decided to restructure the film to loosely adapt the true story of notorious Boston crime kingpin James “Whitey” Bulger.
After fleeing Boston and going into hiding in the mid 1990s, Bulger was listed as number two on the FBI’s most wanted list, second only to Osama Bin Laden.
The Departed features an all-star ensemble cast consisting of Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin, Vera Farmiga, Anthony Anderson, and more, marking the film as a who’s who of A-list performers.
Brad Pitt also serves as a producer on the film, apparently purchasing the rights to the adaptation himself before handing over the director reigns to Martin Scorsese. The film also holds a special place in Scorsese’s filmography, serving as his only Oscar win among over a dozen well-deserved nominations.
More Cat And Mouse Than Tom & Jerry
The film follows a complex series of interweaving plot lines surrounding Boston’s criminal underworld, led by Jack Nicholson‘s Frank Costello, a fictionalized version of Whitey Bulger.
As Costello grooms his protege, Matt Damon’s Colin Sullivan, to become a spy inside the Massachusetts State Police, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Billy Costigan Jr. is recruited by a special task force to act as a man on the inside of Costello’s gang. To make things even more complicated, one of Costigan’s only allies within the police force is his department-appointed psychiatrist, Vera Farmiga’s Madolyn Madden, who is the girlfriend of Officer Sullivan.
Through a series of highly intense action sequences, Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio engage in a game of cat and mouse, finding themselves each searching for one another around every corner without tipping their identity to the other. Soon thereafter, it is revealed how Costello was able to maintain a stranglehold on Boston’s crime world for so long unimpeded, adding another twist to the narrative.
Double Agents Double Crossing
The similarities between Costello and Boston mobster Whitey Bulger seem to come to a bloody end towards the film’s shocking conclusion. In reality, Whitey Bulger was killed by inmates hours after being transferred to a penitentiary in Hazelton, West Virginia at the age of 89 in 2011, 5 years after The Departed had been released. The fictionalized version of Bulger has a very different fate.
From this point in the film, the bloodshed continues, as droves of double agents working for both Costello and the state of Massachusetts begin locating and killing one another in an effort to protect themselves from a growing list of federal indictments, with Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio at the center of it all.
The Departed was praised for its complex screenplay, nuanced performances, and incredible direction from Scorsese. Many film fans maintain to this day that the performance delivered by Leonardo DiCaprio in the film was the best of his career, building on the at-the-time popular trend of deriding the Oscars for not awarding the star his due Award for his long-celebrated acting chops.
The film received massive critical and audience success, amassing scores of 91 percent and 94 percent from critics and audiences, respectively on Rotten Tomatoes.
Following the success of The Departed, Martin Scorsese has since recruited Leonardo DiCaprio to lead in 4 more fantastic films, including Shutter Island (2010), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), The Audition (2015), and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). The pair have maintained an incredible working relationship together since first collaborating on 2002’s Gangs of New York, leaving audiences hopeful that the duo can continue to capture their magic in numerous films to come.
In the meantime, The Departed is streaming on Hulu as of this writing.
Entertainment
NYT Strands hints, answers for May 29, 2026
Today’s NYT Strands hints are easy if you’re an animal lover.
Strands, the New York Times‘ elevated word-search game, requires the player to perform a twist on the classic word search. Words can be made from linked letters — up, down, left, right, or diagonal, but words can also change direction, resulting in quirky shapes and patterns. Every single letter in the grid will be part of an answer. There’s always a theme linking every solution, along with the “spangram,” a special, word or phrase that sums up that day’s theme, and spans the entire grid horizontally or vertically.
By providing an opaque hint and not providing the word list, Strands creates a brain-teasing game that takes a little longer to play than its other games, like Wordle and Connections.
If you’re feeling stuck or just don’t have 10 or more minutes to figure out today’s puzzle, we’ve got all the NYT Strands hints for today’s puzzle you need to progress at your preferred pace.
NYT Strands hint for today’s theme: E-I-E-I-O
The words are related to animals.
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Today’s NYT Strands theme plainly explained
These words describe barnyard animals.
NYT Strands spangram hint: Is it vertical or horizontal?
Today’s NYT Strands spangram is horizontal.
NYT Strands spangram answer today
Today’s spangram is Farm Animals.
NYT Strands word list for May 29
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Cows
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Farm Animals
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Goats
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Chickens
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Sheep
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Horses
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Ducks
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Pigs
Looking for other daily online games? Mashable’s Games page has more hints, and if you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now!
Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to yesterday’s Strands.
Entertainment
NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for May 29, 2026
The NYT Connections puzzle today is not too difficult if you have a sensitive nose.
Connections is the one of the most popular New York Times word games that’s captured the public’s attention. The game is all about finding the “common threads between words.” And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we’ve served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.
If you just want to be told today’s puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for today’s Connections solution. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
What is Connections?
The NYT‘s latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications’ Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.
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Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there’s only one correct answer.
If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.
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Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.
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Here’s a hint for today’s Connections categories
Want a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:
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Yellow: Seas
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Green: Bad odors
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Blue: Found in an estate
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Purple: Acronym
Here are today’s Connections categories
Need a little extra help? Today’s connections fall into the following categories:
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Yellow: Oceans
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Green: Sources of distinctive smells
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Blue: Kinds of rooms in a mansion
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Purple: What “PA” might refer to
Looking for Wordle today? Here’s the answer to today’s Wordle.
Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today’s puzzle before we reveal the solutions.
Drumroll, please!
The solution to today’s Connections #1083 is…
What is the answer to Connections today
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Oceans: ARCTIC, ATLANTIC, INDIAN, PACIFIC
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Sources of distinctive smells: AMMONIA, BO, DURIAN, WET DOG
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Kinds of rooms in a mansion: BILLIARD, DRAWING, POWDER, READING
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What “PA” might refer to: FATHER, PENNSYLVANIA, PROTACTINIUM, PUBLIC ADDRESS
Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
Are you also playing NYT Strands? Get all the Strands hints you need for today’s puzzle.
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to yesterday’s Connections.
Entertainment
Jimmy Kimmel gleefully roasts Trump over record low approval rating
The midterms are getting closer, and — according to some polls — Donald Trump’s approval rating is lower than ever before.
“He is now down to 34 percent. He has the same approval rating as Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” says Jimmy Kimmel in the monologue above from Thursday night’s show. “Not only is Trump at his lowest point, he’s also two points behind JD Vance. I don’t have a joke for that, I just want to make sure he knows he’s two points behind JD Vance.”
Kimmel goes on to bring up White House spokesman Davis Ingle’s official response, in which he pointed to Trump’s win in the 2024 election as “the ultimate poll.”
“OK, yeah,” says Kimmel, “but now it’s May of 2026 and everybody hates him.”
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