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A friend invited me to a movie night. But instead of telling me which movie we are going to watch, she just gave me a bunch of movie tickets:

enter image description here

Can you tell me which movie we will watch?

Hint 1:

The searched movie title is not on one of the tickets.

Hint 2:

The shown arrangement of the tickets is random and irrelevant to the solution. However, you have to bring the tickets in a certain order.

Hint 3:

There is no or tag. You don't have to know that movie. The name is hidden within the information of the tickets.

Hint 4:

The movie title consists of two words. You have to use all tickets, but it's not one letter per ticket.

  • Hint 4.1:

    You have to use all tickets for each of the two words.

Hint 5:

Use the directions you get from the times in the right order and you will get to the answer.

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    $\begingroup$ There's no comments on any of the answers indicating if any reasoning is close or correct. How about a hint? :) $\endgroup$ – m1gp0z Nov 15 '18 at 17:36
  • $\begingroup$ @m1gp0z I added two hints. They might be already obvious, but I don't want to hint to much. There is not so much missing to the solution. Someone just needs to have the right idea and I don't know how to hint it without giving it away. $\endgroup$ – formica Nov 15 '18 at 22:53
  • $\begingroup$ @formica may be the answer is "Searching" as your hint 1 "The searched movie title is not on one of the tickets." so its obvious movie name is "Searching" $\endgroup$ – Tara Nov 16 '18 at 6:26
  • $\begingroup$ @formica Is there maths involved here? $\endgroup$ – Jamie Barker Nov 19 '18 at 13:27
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    $\begingroup$ @Dmihawk It is also hard to come up with a hint, that doesn't make it too obvious. But there you go: I added a fith hint and also made an addition to hint 4. I hope someone will solve it now ;) $\endgroup$ – formica Dec 2 '18 at 23:19

10 Answers 10

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So the Answer is Ice Age. You start off plotting the tickets to a seating plan which puts them all next to each other and spells out THE TIMES WILL POINT TO IT using the first letter of each movie on the ticket. You then use that order to use a clock face to map out the hour and minute hands to form two words. The hour hand spells out ICE and the minute hand spells out AGE. Below are the steps taken over the weeks it took to work this out!

Plotting the clocks on a seating plan map puts them in a trail but I can't make out any more than that yet: http://jsfiddle.net/7tdhvysu/5/

EDIT 1: The first one is on row 3 and points to the 1, the second is on row 4 and also points to the 1, and the next one down points to the 5. These are the starting numbers for pi: 3.1415..., which points to The Life of Pi

EDIT 2: Reversing the order of the rows doesn't help: http://jsfiddle.net/8rbd5pv9/

EDIT 3: There are a number of them with the same minutes right next to each other, in fact there are 6 "pairs" of same minute hands next to each other - perhaps relevant? One of those pairs contains "12" minutes, which is abnormal to the others which are all multiples of 5.

EDIT 4: Based upon the two hints, it would appear that the film title relates to a number. Clockwork Orange also screams out at this point so I wonder if somehow the numbers of the times are able to be formed to produce the hex code for Orange?

EDIT 5: Not the answer (based upon hints) but "The times will point to it" could indicate Shutter Island, as the time for that is 2:15 and the HTML code for the "times" symbol is ×, however the one that points to is WALL-E so that could also be an answer.

Edit 6 - ANSWER!?: Is the film "Ice Age"?
I used a clock face to map out the minute hands and it printed out what looked like "Age". Looking at the hour hands it looks like if I did the same I would get "Ice".
enter image description here

EDIT 7: Ice Age is definitely the answer! enter image description here

Really annoying that I tried this about two weeks ago but I used the actual clocks from my JSFiddle and nothing showed up. It's also technically not correct to use analogue as some of the comments suggest, because if a minute hand is pointing to the 10 or 11, then the hour hand is nearly pointing the next number. That is partly what threw me before when I was trying to line up the hour hands in my JSFiddle!

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  • $\begingroup$ The trail order is the same order that you use to pluck off the first letters of the titles to get the message @generalcrispy pointed out. I'm wondering if the hands pointing would make more sense in a "times point to it" if in your chart you had the lower numbered rows at the bottom instead of starting them at the top $\endgroup$ – Dason Nov 14 '18 at 16:29
  • $\begingroup$ @Dason See Edit 2 $\endgroup$ – Jamie Barker Nov 14 '18 at 17:21
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    $\begingroup$ This occurrence of pi is mere coincidence, but interesting find! Ordering the clocks by the seat numbers is the right way. You need to find a way to use the information of the clocks together with that order. $\endgroup$ – formica Nov 15 '18 at 23:23
  • $\begingroup$ @formica edit 4 added $\endgroup$ – Jamie Barker Nov 19 '18 at 7:27
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    $\begingroup$ Nice answer, but I'm withholding my +1 until an edit is made to the answer to make it easier - and immedieately - undestandable for people just browsing in and reading first question and then the answer. Thie final answer should be here, not the full chronology of trials. At least, the final answer should pop out most clearly. And It could use a bit better explanation of how the mapping is done as well. As said: Great puzzle, great solution - but the solution post is not yet great. $\endgroup$ – BmyGuest Dec 4 '18 at 12:11
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Partial answer:

I did a little rearranging by seat number, and the first letters of the movies spell out THE TIMES WILL POINT TO IT.

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  • $\begingroup$ If you rot13: nirentr gur fgneg gvzrf, lbh neevir jvgu fvkgrra-avargrra, bar zvahgr orsber Yvsr bs Cv fgnegf, fb gung pbhyq or vg... $\endgroup$ – dissemin8or Nov 14 '18 at 15:10
  • $\begingroup$ Well done! This is exactly the first step to take to solve this puzzle. $\endgroup$ – formica Nov 15 '18 at 22:31
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I tried too rearrange then draw the clocks:

enter image description here

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    $\begingroup$ helpingwithmath.com/printables/worksheets/time/… $\endgroup$ – JMP Nov 14 '18 at 13:01
  • $\begingroup$ rot13( Unf nalbar gevrq gnxvat gur pybpxf, naq neenatvat gurz fb gur ubhef cbvag gb ubhef, be zvahgrf gb zvahgrf ) $\endgroup$ – CDspace Nov 15 '18 at 21:11
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    $\begingroup$ Not sure if it matters or not, but I think you might have La La Land and Life of Pi reversed. $\endgroup$ – Warlord 099 Nov 15 '18 at 21:30
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    $\begingroup$ I'm going to guess that rearranging the clocks in the right half of your diagram correctly will cause the clock hands to spell out a movie title. $\endgroup$ – Harfatum Nov 20 '18 at 4:00
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    $\begingroup$ @SPK.z It has to do with the clock hands. But it is not important what they are pointing to. $\endgroup$ – formica Nov 29 '18 at 21:05
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Potential partial answer building on generalcrispy's partial answer:

I tried drawing the times for an analog clock and noticed that the hour arms usually point more or less directly at another clock (Except those that point out of the image), but i have not been able to establish any kind of pattern, but thought this might save others some time or give them ideas. Maybe they need to be rearranged?
The minute arms doesn't seem to point at anything in this configuration [

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    $\begingroup$ The first and last ones are off. (18:25 is shown as 18:45 and 18:40 is shown as 20:40). Kudos, though on "newspaperman" going all analog! :) $\endgroup$ – Chowzen Nov 14 '18 at 12:14
  • $\begingroup$ Hm, I thought this might be something in flag semaphore, but some of the times don't map well onto any letter, and the ones that do don't seem to be spelling anything. $\endgroup$ – Nuclear Hoagie Nov 14 '18 at 13:52
  • $\begingroup$ The OP didn't mention that the tickets were laid out on a board. Can we be sure that the ticket arrangement is relevant? $\endgroup$ – Strawberry Nov 14 '18 at 15:55
  • $\begingroup$ "Going analog" is indeed the right way, but as @Strawberry suspected, the arrangement on the picture is irrelevant (see new hint). Find another order! $\endgroup$ – formica Nov 15 '18 at 23:03
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Building off @generalcrispy's answer (you were SO close if I'm right):

"THE TIMES WILL POINT TO IT." (Emphasis added)

So the movie you'll be watching is:

IT (Scary!)

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  • $\begingroup$ Seems odd to have a hidden message referencing the times if they're actually irrelevant. $\endgroup$ – Nuclear Hoagie Nov 14 '18 at 14:59
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    $\begingroup$ Could be a red herring? $\endgroup$ – dissemin8or Nov 14 '18 at 15:00
  • $\begingroup$ @NuclearWang see my comment to generalcrispy as an alternate possibility. $\endgroup$ – dissemin8or Nov 14 '18 at 15:12
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I think it is

Ocean's eleven? Because it starts around 9:55 pm and you are invited for movie night.

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    $\begingroup$ It could be 'night' at any time past 6pm. $\endgroup$ – Benjamin Goodacre Nov 14 '18 at 11:30
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    $\begingroup$ Its extreme northerly location means Murmansk experiences an annual 40-day long polar "night" from 3 December to 11 January. $\endgroup$ – Chowzen Nov 14 '18 at 12:35
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You are going to watch the classic:

Hot Shots

because

there are 2 sets of times that are duplicates: 12:05 and 12:30

these are:

The Third Man, Harold and Maude, Over the hedge, Shutter Island,

Which is formed by

Taking the 1st letter of each movie (SHOT) and using each letter twice, getting HOTSHOTS

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    $\begingroup$ There's also Toy Story 2 and Edward Scissorhands (18:25). $\endgroup$ – JMP Nov 15 '18 at 6:32
  • $\begingroup$ of course.. could we gracefully ignore that fact? $\endgroup$ – aqwert Nov 15 '18 at 21:03
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You're going to watch:

Titanic

Because

Graph the seats, they form a continuous line of an object. Rotate that object (i.e. assume the first and last points are at the same level) and it's an iceberg.

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  • $\begingroup$ With Clue#1, clearly this is wrong. :( $\endgroup$ – Dark Matter Nov 19 '18 at 13:33
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I think it is

La La Land

because

The seat and row numbers add to 15, the exact start time of the movie. None of the other tickets' seat/row numbers add up in this way.

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I have tried my best to evaluate each ticket on similarity basis bcos two ticket are required to watch the movie.But no similarity is found as far as row & seat no is concerned. Only similarity is found in timing of movies. So on the similarity of timing I can conclude that they will go one of
following movies
1 Edward Scissors Hands timing 18.25
2 Toy Story 2 timing 18.25
Moreover there seats are in line one behind other.

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