MoviesLinks

How MoviesLinks works

The home page opens with a panel headed Start with a name. Inside it the thirty actors are set out as overlapping rings, blue and orange by turns, like the links of a chain, each with the number of its films. Pressing a name opens that actor's list. Below the panel run five rows of posters: the double links, the top rated and three periods. Every poster carries its score on a dark pill, and under the title and year a blue line names the actors who link the film to the rest.

That blue line is the heart of the site, and How the links work explains it in full. A film with one name on its line belongs to one chain. A film with two belongs to two, and a visitor can change direction there. A movie page gives the year, the length, the rating, the genres, the full leading cast, the director and a summary. Beside the Watch now button is a country selector; choose a country, press the button, and the movie opens on JustWatch, which lists the subscription, rental, purchase and free services that carry it there. MoviesLinks is a guide, and the watching happens on those official services.

Four routes lead to a movie, set out in Finding a movie: the names, the search field, the lists page and the alphabetical index. The list feature is called My Chain; it keeps movies to watch in the browser on the device in use, and the My Chain page shows how to add to it and how to save it as a file.

The golden age: four stars of the studio years

Four of the thirty belong to the age of the great studios, and the golden age guide presents them together. Katharine Hepburn has seven films here, reaching from 1935 to 1981. She was the screen's great independent spirit, quick, angular and unimpressed by authority. In The Philadelphia Story she is a society bride with three men to choose between on the eve of her wedding, and the film is one of the wittiest ever written. Woman of the Year was her first appearance with Spencer Tracy, the start of a celebrated partnership; Desk Set, fifteen years later, sets them sparring over a computer in a television network's library. Stage Door places her in a boarding house full of young actresses, Summertime sends her to Venice alone, and On Golden Pond won her a fourth Academy Award beside Henry Fonda.

Cary Grant, with six films, is her partner in two of them, which makes those the oldest double links on the site. Sylvia Scarlett, from 1935, is the earliest film in the catalogue, an odd and charming comedy in which Hepburn spends much of the story disguised as a boy. Grant on his own is the model of the light comedian. The Awful Truth has him and Irene Dunne as a divorcing couple who sabotage each other's new romances. Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House turns the purchase of a country home into a slow comic disaster, Monkey Business gives a chemist a formula for youth, and Only Angels Have Wings shows the more serious side of him, as the head of a small air-mail service in South America.

Audrey Hepburn has six films, all of them occasions. Roman Holiday, rated 7.9, introduced her to the world as a princess who slips away from her duties for one day in Rome, on the back of a scooter driven by a reporter. Funny Face dances her through Paris with Fred Astaire. Breakfast at Tiffany's and My Fair Lady, the longest film on the site at 173 minutes, are among the most loved pictures of the 1960s, and Paris When It Sizzles and Robin and Marian show her at play and in maturity.

Gregory Peck is the reporter on that scooter, so the Roman film is a double link as well. His six films show a steady, decent presence in very different settings: a father in the Florida backwoods in The Yearling, a penniless American handed a banknote of enormous value in The Million Pound Note, a sportswriter married to a fashion designer in Designing Woman, and a mission controller in Marooned. In Other People's Money, made in 1991, he plays the head of an old family firm.

Leading men

The leading men guide begins with Tom Hanks, who has seven films here across forty-two years. He became a star with two fantasies of the 1980s: Splash, in which a lonely New Yorker falls for a mermaid, and Big, in which a boy of twelve wakes in a grown man's body and takes a job at a toy company. He plays a child with complete truthfulness. You've Got Mail makes him the heir to a chain of bookshops who falls in love by electronic mail with the owner of the small shop he is putting out of business. The Terminal strands him in an airport, Elvis casts him against type as a singer's manager, and Here follows one room across a century. He also returns as the voice of a toy cowboy in Toy Story 5, which shares the highest rating on the site.

Richard Gere has seven films and a talent for quiet authority. Hachi: A Dog's Tale, rated 8.0, is the best loved: a music professor finds a lost puppy at a railway station, and the bond between them outlasts everything. Runaway Bride reunites him with Julia Roberts as a columnist who writes about a woman famous for leaving grooms at the altar. He is a guest with a secret at an Indian hotel in The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a doctor at a beach inn in Nights in Rodanthe, a publisher in Amelia and a devoted father in Bee Season.

Kevin Costner is the catalogue's sportsman, with five films and four sports. He is a golf professional with a perfect swing and poor judgement in Tin Cup, a veteran pitcher on the mound for what may be his last game in For Love of the Game, a team executive on the busiest day of his year in Draft Day and a coach who discovers a team of natural runners in McFarland, USA. In The Art of Racing in the Rain, rated 8.1, he is heard while staying off screen, as the voice of a wise old dog.

Kurt Russell has eight films and has been on screen since childhood. The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, from 1969, shows him as a college student who absorbs the memory of a computer. He is a carpenter who claims an amnesiac heiress as his wife in Overboard, a cheerfully unreliable sailor in Captain Ron, the coach of the 1980 American ice hockey team in Miracle, a horse trainer in Dreamer: Inspired By a True Story and, late in his career, a Santa Claus with rock-and-roll timing in The Christmas Chronicles and its sequel.

Sam Neill, born in Northern Ireland and raised in New Zealand, has six. He is the palaeontologist who learns to like children while fleeing dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, a gruff foster uncle on the run in the bush in Hunt for the Wilderpeople, the calm director of an Australian radio telescope on the day of the Moon landing in The Dish, and a young suitor in My Brilliant Career, made in 1979. The Horse Whisperer and Wimbledon complete his link.

The comedians

The comedians guide gathers five men who made a science of being funny. Steve Martin, with eight films, moved from wild comedy to something gentler and wiser. ¡Three Amigos! sends three silent-film cowboys to a Mexican village that takes their films for fact. Parenthood, directed by Ron Howard, gives him the role of a father doing his anxious best, and is one of the truest comedies about family life. Father of the Bride finds him unable to accept that his daughter is grown, L.A. Story, which he wrote, is a love letter to his adopted city, and the two films of Cheaper by the Dozen hand him twelve children.

Bill Murray has six films and a manner all his own, a dry detachment that conceals a soft heart. Meatballs, from 1979, is his first leading role, as a camp counsellor who champions a lonely boy. What About Bob? makes him the most devoted and exhausting patient a psychiatrist ever had. Groundhog Day is his masterpiece: a weatherman lives the same day until it has taught him everything. He walks an elephant across America in Larger Than Life, and lends his voice to a cat in Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties and to a bear in The Jungle Book.

Michael Keaton has seven films, beginning with Mr. Mom, a comedy of 1983 about an engineer who loses his job and takes over the household. Multiplicity lets him play four versions of one overworked man. He is a speechwriter in love with a rival in Speechless, an American president in First Daughter, a ringmaster in Dumbo and, in his finest performance here, the salesman who built a hamburger empire in The Founder.

Michael J. Fox has seven films, four as an actor and three in which his voice is the thing. He travels to the future in Back to the Future Part II, climbs from the mailroom to the boardroom in The Secret of My Success, is detained in a small Southern town in Doc Hollywood and manages child actors in Life with Mikey. He voices a brave mouse in Stuart Little 2 and a headstrong young bulldog in Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey and its sequel.

Kevin Kline, trained in the classical theatre, has six. In Dave he is a cheerful man who happens to look exactly like the president and is asked to stand in for him. Soapdish makes him a fading actor recalled to a daytime serial. He is the melancholy Jaques in a film of As You Like It, a former husband in Ricki and the Flash and a doctor searching the mountains for a lost dog in Darling Companion.

Leading ladies: romance and comedy

The leading ladies guide covers eleven actresses, and it begins with the star of the romantic comedy. Julia Roberts has six films. In Notting Hill she plays a film star who walks into a London travel bookshop; in My Best Friend's Wedding a food critic with four days to stop a marriage; in Runaway Bride a small-town woman who keeps bolting from the altar. Eat Pray Love sends her around the world, Wonder, rated 8.1, casts her as the mother of a boy starting school with a face unlike other children's, and in Charlotte's Web she is the voice of a spider.

Reese Witherspoon has eight films and a gift for making determination funny. Sweet Home Alabama takes a New York designer home to the South to settle her past. Four Christmases drags a couple to four family gatherings in a day. She is a performer on a circus train in Water for Elephants, a celestial guide in A Wrinkle in Time, a newly single mother in Home Again and half of a twenty-year friendship in Your Place or Mine. Early in her career she appeared in The Importance of Being Earnest.

Andie MacDowell has seven films and had a remarkable run in the early 1990s. She is the gardener who marries a Frenchman for convenience in Green Card, the producer who wins over a weatherman in the film of the repeated day, and the American guest whom Hugh Grant keeps meeting at other people's weddings. Multiplicity, The Muse and two recent films, Christmas Inheritance and Along for the Ride, show her as wife, friend and mother.

Diane Keaton has ten films, more than any of the thirty, and nearly all are comedies of family life. She is the mother of the bride opposite Steve Martin, a matriarch whose son brings home an unsuitable fiancée in The Family Stone, and a meddling mother of three daughters in Because I Said So. Morning Glory casts her as a breakfast-television presenter, And So It Goes and 5 Flights Up as a woman finding or keeping love in later life, and Poms as the founder of a cheerleading squad in a retirement village. Book Club: The Next Chapter takes four old friends to Italy.

Jamie Lee Curtis has seven films. She is a mother skipping Christmas in Christmas with the Kranks, a former school tormentor in You Again and the mother who once swapped bodies with her daughter and does so again in Freakier Friday. Forever Young, My Girl 2, House Arrest and Spare Parts, where she is a school principal, fill out the link.

Anne Hathaway has five. She is a reluctant princess in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, a bride at war with her best friend in Bride Wars, the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland and one half of a twenty-year friendship in One Day. Armageddon Time is a serious family drama of the 1980s.

Leading ladies: range

Meryl Streep has six films here, and four of them are double links, which says something about how readily other stars work with her. Mamma Mia! sets her singing on a Greek island with Colin Firth among her former suitors. Julie & Julia gives her the voice and the joy of a great cookery writer, with Amy Adams as her admirer half a century later. In Florence Foster Jenkins she is an heiress who sings opera with more love than skill, and Hugh Grant is the husband who protects her. Ricki and the Flash makes her a bar-band rocker with Kevin Kline as her former husband. Music of the Heart and A Prairie Home Companion complete the link with a violin and a radio microphone.

Nicole Kidman has seven films and the widest range of settings. She is an adoptive mother in Tasmania in Lion, rated 8.0, a glamorous and dangerous traveller in The Golden Compass, a rigorous assistant in The Upside and a famous television comedienne in Being the Ricardos. The Portrait of a Lady, Grace of Monaco and Genius, in which she plays a costume designer, are period pieces.

Scarlett Johansson has seven, beginning in childhood. She is a girl recovering beside her horse in The Horse Whisperer, a teenager reunited with her family in An American Rhapsody, a nanny on the Upper East Side in The Nanny Diaries, a zookeeper in We Bought a Zoo and a film star of 1959 in Hitchcock. In Good Company and Jurassic World Rebirth show her at twenty and at forty.

Amy Adams has six films and an unmatched sincerity. She is a painter whose husband takes the credit in Big Eyes, a baseball scout's daughter in Trouble with the Curve, a fairy-tale princess adjusting to the suburbs in Disenchanted and the sweetheart of a puppet's brother in The Muppets. The Wedding Date is an early appearance.

Toni Collette, from Australia, has eight and disappears into each. She is the exhausted mother in the yellow van of Little Miss Sunshine, the fragile mother of a schoolboy in About a Boy, a mother again in The Way Way Back and a friend in Enough Said. Japanese Story, Foster, Please Stand By and Goodbye June show how much she can do with small films.

The British names

Five of the thirty are British, and the British guide treats them as a company. Jim Broadbent has nine films, and his warmth is their common thread. In The Duke he is a taxi driver from Newcastle who, in 1961, is accused of taking a famous portrait from the National Gallery to make a point about pensioners. Another Year and Life Is Sweet, both by Mike Leigh, cast him as a contented husband and a cheerful cook. He is a football club's loyal chairman in The Damned United, a philosophy lecturer on a weekend in Paris in Le Week-End, and a villain or eccentric in Nicholas Nickleby, The Borrowers, Inkheart and Dolittle.

Bill Nighy has seven films and the driest delivery in the business. The Girl in the Café, written by Richard Curtis, makes him a shy civil servant who invites a stranger to an international summit. He is an eccentric recluse who loves books in The Bookshop, a failing novelist in a crumbling castle in I Capture the Castle, a husband in Hope Gap and the manager of a football team with an unusual qualification in The Beautiful Game. In The Wild Robot, rated 8.3, he is the voice of an elderly goose.

Hugh Grant has six films, and five are double links. He is the best man who is always late in Four Weddings and a Funeral, the bookseller of Notting Hill, the idle bachelor of About a Boy, a faded pop star in Music and Lyrics, a screenwriter turned teacher in The Rewrite and the protective husband of the opera-loving heiress. Colin Firth has seven: a football-mad teacher in Fever Pitch, a father discovering a daughter in What a Girl Wants, a famous editor in Genius, a weary squire in Easy Virtue and one of three possible fathers on the Greek island and again in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

Sally Hawkins has six films and a radiance that needs very little dialogue. Maudie, rated 7.8, is the true story of a painter in Nova Scotia who lived in a tiny house and covered every surface of it with flowers and birds. Happy-Go-Lucky makes her a London teacher whose optimism is a form of courage. She is the mother of the family that adopts a bear in Paddington, an amateur historian on the trail of a lost king in The Lost King, a devoted wife in The Phantom of the Open and a queen in A Boy Called Christmas.

The double links

Seventeen films feature two of the thirty, and the double links guide lists them. They are the junctions of the site, the places where a visitor following one actor can turn and follow another. Some are famous pairings: Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant twice, Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in Rome, Julia Roberts and Richard Gere in a small Maryland town, Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant in west London.

Others are less obvious and just as rewarding. Andie MacDowell is the hinge of three: with Bill Murray on the repeated day, with Hugh Grant at four weddings, and with Michael Keaton in the comedy of copies. Meryl Streep is the hinge of four, as described above. Steve Martin and Diane Keaton are husband and wife in the wedding comedy of 1991. Toni Collette and Hugh Grant share the story of the schoolboy and the bachelor, Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth a Victorian farce, Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman the tale of an editor, and Scarlett Johansson and Sam Neill a Montana ranch.

A double link is usually a sign of quality. Two stars agree to share a film when the script gives both something to do, and the seventeen include several of the best comedies and romances in the whole catalogue.

The linking game

The linking game turns the site into a pastime for a car journey or a dinner table. One player names a film from the catalogue; the next must name another that shares one of its thirty actors; and so on until someone is stuck. The double links are the prized moves, because they let a player change chains. A round might run from the weatherman's repeated day to four English weddings by way of Andie MacDowell, on to the Notting Hill bookshop by Hugh Grant, and then to the runaway bride by Julia Roberts, where Richard Gere opens a new line.

Younger players can use a simpler version: name any two films with the same actor. Disputes are settled by the blue line under each poster, which shows exactly which of the thirty appear.

Family picks along the links

Many of the chains pass through films for the whole household, gathered in Family picks. Animals lead: the bear from Peru, the spider in the barn, the three pets crossing the mountains, the dog at the station and the wise old dog who loves motor racing. Adventure follows with the island of dinosaurs and the boy raised by wolves. For December there are two journeys with Santa Claus, a boy's quest to the far north and a family who decide to skip the season and are overruled by their neighbours.

A family can use the links to move from a film the children love to one the adults will enjoy as well. From the voice of the toy cowboy it is one step to the boy who wished to be big; from the mother of the bear's adopted family, one step to the painter of Nova Scotia.

The newest links

The newest links guide collects the films made since 2020, which show that the thirty are still at work. The two highest-rated titles on the site are recent animated films, one with the voice of Tom Hanks and one with Bill Nighy. Jim Broadbent, Sally Hawkins and Bill Nighy lead a run of warm British comedies drawn from true stories. Nicole Kidman plays a television star, Reese Witherspoon a single mother, Amy Adams a princess in the suburbs, and Jamie Lee Curtis swaps bodies once more.

A long career is one of the pleasures the links reveal. Kurt Russell can be seen as a student in 1969 and as Santa Claus half a century later; Katharine Hepburn's link spans forty-six years; and Tom Hanks is a young man in 1984 and a grandfather in 2024.

Three periods

The catalogue is filed in three periods, set out in Three periods. Twenty-three films date from before 1980, nearly all from the four golden-age stars, with early roles for Bill Murray, Sam Neill and Kurt Russell. Forty-seven date from 1980 to 1999, the years in which Hanks, Martin, Murray, Keaton, Fox, Roberts and MacDowell were at their busiest. One hundred and seventeen have appeared since 2000.

The weight of recent films reflects how the thirty were chosen: these are the actors with the most family-suitable films in a large pool, and most of them are still working. The older links are shorter and denser, and a newcomer to classic cinema will find them an easy way in.

Top rated

Twenty-five movies are rated 7.2 or higher by at least three hundred voters, and the top rated guide lists them. Two animated films lead at 8.3. Four follow at 8.0 and 8.1: the boy starting school, the dog who loves racing, the long journey home across India and the dog at the station. The dinosaurs stand at 8.0, the Roman holiday at 7.9 and the Nova Scotia painter at 7.8.

The blue lines on these posters show which chains reach the summit most often. Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Nicole Kidman and Sally Hawkins each have a film among the first ten.

Five routes through the web

The best way to understand the links is to follow a few. The first route is the romantic one. Begin with Roman Holiday, move by Audrey Hepburn to Funny Face, and enjoy two of the loveliest films of the 1950s. Return to Rome, change to Gregory Peck, and watch him as a husband bewildered by fashion in Designing Woman. Three films, one evening each, and a small education in the grace of the studio years.

The second route is British. Start with the bear at the railway station, where Sally Hawkins plays the mother, and step to Maudie. From there the search field finds Jim Broadbent, and The Duke and Le Week-End follow. Bill Nighy takes over with The Bookshop and The Girl in the Café. Six gentle films, most of them drawn from life, all of them good company.

The third route is for laughter. Open Steve Martin's link at Parenthood, cross to Diane Keaton by the wedding comedy they share, and take her to The Family Stone. Or begin with Bill Murray at summer camp, pass through the repeated day to Andie MacDowell, and on to Michael Keaton and his copies, ending with the stay-at-home father of 1983.

The fourth route follows true stories. Tom Hanks leads to the manager of a famous singer; Michael Keaton to the salesman and the hamburger stand; Kurt Russell to the hockey coach of 1980; Sam Neill to the telescope in the sheep paddock; Nicole Kidman to the boy who found his way home across India; Amy Adams to the painter and her stolen signature; Sally Hawkins to the search for a king. A visitor can cross from one to the next by name and see a dozen real lives.

The fifth route is for children. The voice of a cowboy leads to a boy who wakes up big. The voice of a mouse leads to three pets crossing a mountain range. The voice of a bear leads to a camp counsellor and a lonely boy, and the voice of a spider to a mother who walks her son to school on his first day.

Voices

Seven of the thirty are present partly as voices, a reminder that a star's sound can be as distinctive as a face. Tom Hanks has voiced the same loyal cowboy for thirty years. Michael J. Fox gives a mouse courage and a young dog impatience. Bill Murray is a cat of few ambitions and a bear of many songs. Julia Roberts makes a spider wise and kind, Kevin Costner narrates a dog's whole life, and Bill Nighy lends an old goose his dry good sense.

Voice roles often reach the youngest viewers first. A child who knows an actor only as an animal may be delighted, years later, to meet the face that goes with the sound. The links make that meeting easy to arrange.

True stories on the links

A good share of the catalogue is drawn from life. Besides the route described above there are McFarland, USA, about a cross-country team from a farming town; Being the Ricardos, a week in the life of a famous television couple; Florence Foster Jenkins; The Phantom of the Open, about a crane driver who entered a great golf championship; The Damned United; Julie & Julia; Grace of Monaco; and Amelia.

Actors are drawn to real people because the challenge is exact: an audience may know how the person walked and spoke. It is interesting to follow one actor through several such roles. Meryl Streep plays three real women here, a cook, a singer and a teacher, and gives each her own music.

Partnerships

Some pairings were so successful that studios repeated them. Katharine Hepburn made nine films with Spencer Tracy, two of which are here, and four with Cary Grant, two of which are here. Julia Roberts and Richard Gere were reunited nine years after their first great success. Hugh Grant made his name in scripts by one writer, who also wrote for Bill Nighy and Colin Firth, which is why those three links feel like cousins.

Directors link actors as well. Mike Leigh worked twice with Jim Broadbent and once with Sally Hawkins. Ron Howard directed Tom Hanks with a mermaid and Steve Martin with a houseful of children. George Cukor directed both Hepburns. The director's name on each movie page is a link of its own, and pressing it shows that person's other films in the catalogue.

What a link shows about a career

Reading a link from its earliest film to its latest is like reading a short biography. Most begin with youth and romance, pass through a period of comedy or adventure, and settle into parents, mentors and eccentrics. Diane Keaton moves from the mother of a bride to the organiser of a cheerleading squad for the retired. Kurt Russell goes from student to coach to Santa Claus. Reese Witherspoon begins as an ingénue in a Victorian comedy and becomes a mother rebuilding her life.

The links also show constancy. Jim Broadbent is recognisably the same warm presence across thirty years. Bill Murray's raised eyebrow is unchanged from summer camp to the jungle. That mixture of change and constancy is what people mean when they call someone a star, and it is the reason following a name is such a reliable way to find a good film.

The quiet end of each chain

Every link has famous films at one end and lesser-known ones at the other, and the quiet end is often where the pleasure lies. In Tom Hanks's link it is the story of one room seen across a hundred years. In Toni Collette's it is Japanese Story, set in the red desert of Western Australia. In Bill Nighy's it is Hope Gap, a tender film about a long marriage, and in Sally Hawkins's the tale of a golfer who entered a great championship with more hope than practice.

Katharine Hepburn's quiet film is Summertime, in which a secretary from Ohio takes the holiday of her life in Venice. Cary Grant's is the aviation drama of 1939, Gregory Peck's the comedy of the banknote, and Audrey Hepburn's the late romance of an outlaw and his love. Michael Keaton's is Post Grad, Kevin Kline's the Shakespeare film, Richard Gere's Mr. Jones, and Jamie Lee Curtis's the comedy in which children lock their quarrelling parents in the basement until they make peace.

A good habit is to watch one famous film and one quiet film from each link. The first shows why the actor is loved; the second shows what else the actor can do.

Links for the seasons

The chains reach every part of the calendar. For winter there are the two sleigh rides with Kurt Russell, the family who try to skip the holiday, the couple with four visits to make, and an heiress sent to deliver letters in a snowbound town. February has its own film, repeated daily, and a great many romances. Spring brings the weddings, four in one film and one in each of several others, and summer brings the camp, the water park, the Greek island and the Roman scooter.

Autumn suits the sports films of Kevin Costner, the school stories and the country-house comedies. A visitor can ask the search field for a season by a word in the summary, or simply follow a favourite actor through the year: Diane Keaton alone has a film for Thanksgiving, one for Christmas and one for a summer in Italy.

Sharing a chain

Because a chain is easy to describe, it is easy to share. A friend can be told to start with the film about the bookseller and the film star and go wherever the names lead. A grandparent can introduce a grandchild to the two Hepburns by way of the flower seller who learned to speak like a duchess. A film club can take one actor a month and meet to compare the best and the quietest film in the link.

The list page saves My Chain as a small file that can be sent to someone else and opened on their own device. It is a simple feature, and it suits the idea of the site: films are linked by the people in them, and they travel best when one person hands them to another.

However a chain begins, it tends to grow. One film suggests two more, each of those suggests others, and a visitor who arrived looking for a single title leaves with a month of evenings planned. That is the quiet purpose of the blue line under every poster: it always points onward to another film worth seeing.

Kinds of story along the chains

Although the site is arranged by actor, the usual kinds of story are all present, and a visitor can read them off the cards. Comedy is the largest, as the choice of names would suggest: almost every one of the thirty is at home in it. Romance follows closely, led by the Roberts, Grant, MacDowell and Hepburn links. Drama is strongest in the Kidman, Gere, Collette and Broadbent links, and family films in those of Fox, Russell, Hawkins and Murray.

Sport has a chain almost to itself in Kevin Costner, with support from Kurt Russell and Colin Firth. Music runs through Meryl Streep, who sings in four of her six films, and through Tom Hanks as a manager and Audrey Hepburn as a flower seller with a new accent. Christmas appears in the links of Russell, Curtis, Witherspoon, Keaton and MacDowell, enough for a festive week.

Places along the way

The chains cross a good deal of the world. Rome, Paris and Venice belong to the two Hepburns. London belongs to Hugh Grant, Bill Nighy and Sally Hawkins, with excursions to Newcastle, Leicester and the Suffolk coast. New York is shared by Tom Hanks, Diane Keaton and Steve Martin, Los Angeles by Martin again, and the American small town by almost everyone.

Further afield lie the Australian outback and a New Zealand forest, a Greek island, an Indian railway and a hotel in Jaipur, the Canadian Maritimes, the plains of Montana and the Scottish Highlands of a fairy tale. An actor's link is often a travel diary, and a viewer who follows Sam Neill alone will visit five countries.

Why follow an actor

There are many ways to choose a film, by genre, by year, by rating, and the oldest of them is by star. Audiences of the 1930s went to see the new Hepburn or the new Grant on the strength of the name alone, trusting it to deliver a certain kind of evening. The trust was usually repaid, because stars chose scripts that suited them and studios built films around what they did best.

The habit still works. An actor whose company a viewer enjoys is likely to have chosen other stories that viewer will enjoy, and to behave in them in a way that pleases. Following a name also leads to surprises, a comedy star in a quiet drama, a dramatic actress in a farce, that a search by genre would have hidden. MoviesLinks simply makes the old habit easy, by laying the chains side by side and marking where they cross.

Planning with My Chain

The list feature takes its name from the idea of the site. A visitor can build a chain of films for a week or a month: three by one actor, then a double link, then three by the partner. The list keeps them in order, and the list page can save the chain as a file to share with a friend who might enjoy the same route.

Households sometimes give each member a name to follow and compare notes at the end of the month. With thirty names and five to ten films each, there is material for a long season of viewing, and the blue lines ensure that every film leads somewhere else.

What a movie page shows

A movie page on MoviesLinks sets the people first. Under the title and year, the leading cast is listed in order, and any of the thirty who appear are the ones named on the poster's blue line. The score, with its number of votes, and the running time follow. A short summary gives the premise and leaves the ending alone. The director is credited beneath, and the genres appear as small labels. The country selector and the Watch now button stand near the top of the page on every screen, and the page ends with more films from the same actor's link.

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