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Can you name a Michael B. Jordan movie that made $100 million? What about naming an R-rated Uma Thurman movie?

Britina Cheng ’16 can tell you—it’s her job to know these film facts and more. Cheng is the editorial producer for Cinematrix, the movie-based daily trivia game from Vulture, New York Magazine’s entertainment news site.

Cheng, who majored in English and minored in film studies at �ʹڲ�����ַ, turned her post-graduation editorial internship at New York Magazine into a position first as a fact-checker and then as a puzzle master.

“I’m in a medley of journalism, entertainment, media, and puzzle-making,” says Cheng. “It’s very fun to apply my cinema knowledge here.”

Making Puzzles

Cinematrix is a trivia game where players use clues to pick a movie for each of nine spots on a grid. A new puzzle comes out each day, and creating them is more complicated than it looks. “You need three people to intersect with three other film-related categories, such as Oscar-nominated or release date of 2000–2009 or one-word title,” says Cheng. “You have to satisfy all the clues with a range of actors and directors, and you don’t want to repeat your categories too often.”

To add layers of interest or complexity, Cheng and her editorial team collaborate on themes to run through the grid, such as holidays, rom-coms, or especially difficult puzzles known as “Cinemasochists.” On the puzzle for March 15, 2025, for example, all actors were from the George Clooney movie The Ides of March.

“It’s fun when cinephiles and people in the industry like the game as well,” says Cheng, although she admits not every puzzle is beloved. For April Fool’s Day, she created an all-M. Night Shyamalan grid where players had to guess which of his own movies he cameoed in. “That got a lot of feedback online, and not all of it was positive,” she says. “But I’m moved by the fact that people feel so strongly about our game.”

Checking Facts

The involved editorial process of developing a game hints at Cheng’s deep skill set in fact-checking, something she did for Billboard magazine and the acclaimed Stan Lee biography True Believer as well as for the bi-weekly New York Magazine. 

“Your whole job is to make sure things are accurate,” says Cheng. “I’ve worked as a server and a short-order cook, too, and a lot of the skills overlap: working on multiple projects at once, in a limited time frame, and engaging with people. I find it exciting to have a lot of balls up in the air.”

Fact-checking for the magazines required Cheng to correspond with the writer, editor, copy editor, and every source, becoming a quasi-expert on each new subject, all on the hard deadline of sending pages to the printer. Cheng says she doesn’t want to romanticize the grind, but she really enjoyed the work. 

“You’re within a network of people who are trying to produce excellent journalism,” she says. “So you’re working with smart, talented writers, and every issue you’re presented with new stories. There’s always something to learn from the job.”

Unlike with fact-checking, where she worked on other people’s stories, developing puzzles gives Cheng a lot of agency. She watches more movies than ever, which counts as research and inspires game ideas. A virtual film club of friends across the country also watches and comments on movies together. “It makes me feel like I’m really engaging with films, firing on all cylinders,” she says. “It makes my job even more enjoyable.” 

Cinematrix continues to grow in popularity, counting Edgar Wright, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Seth Rogen among its esteemed players. Vulture intends to expand the game (it recently launched the TV-based Telematrix), and Cheng is there for it. 

“To produce a puzzle every day and to see people play—it’s very gratifying,” she says.