All 13 answers to today’s NYT Mini Crossword (Saturday, July 4, 2026) are listed below. The three entries most likely to cause trouble on this Saturday grid are ARIZONA (4-Across), BUGONIA (4-Down), and AMAZING (3-Down), for reasons covered after the hints.
Hints for the trickiest clues
If you are still working through the puzzle and want a nudge rather than a full reveal, here are hints for Saturday’s hardest clues:
- 4-Down (2025 film starring Emma Stone as an undercover extraterrestrial): If you have not seen the film, the crossing letters are the only guide to this seven-letter title.
- 3-Down (Incredible!! as suggested by the double exclamation mark black squares): Read the clue in full and look at where the exclamation marks fall in the grid. The black squares form the punctuation, and the clue tells you exactly what that punctuation expresses.
- 2-Across (Really overdo for the camera): Think of the phrase “ham it up” with the middle word removed. The crossword runs the two remaining words together into a single entry.
- 3-Across (Fly into blank, become furious): The full phrase is “fly into a rage.” The answer takes the last two words as a single compressed grid entry.
NYT Mini Crossword full answers, July 4, 2026
Across
- 1-Across (Strike-breaking workers): SCABS
- 2-Across (Really overdo for the camera): HAMUP
- 3-Across (Fly into blank, become furious): ARAGE
- 4-Across (Sunniest state in the U.S.): ARIZONA
- 5-Across (Glues back together again): REBINDS
- 6-Across (Friends of corrupt politicians): CRONIES
- 7-Across (What cotton candy is made of): SUGAR
Down
- 1-Down (Ones who don’t hog): SHARERS
- 2-Down (Deer in the Arctic tundra): CARIBOU
- 3-Down (Incredible!! as suggested by the double exclamation mark black squares): AMAZING
- 4-Down (2025 film starring Emma Stone as an undercover extraterrestrial): BUGONIA
- 5-Down (Big blank, person throwing cash around): SPENDER
- 6-Down (Curved path): ARC
- 7-Down (Donkey, by another name): ASS
Saturday’s Mini earned its difficulty. BUGONIA was the sharpest challenge: the 2025 Emma Stone film is recent enough that solvers without that reference were left entirely dependent on crossing letters. The 3-Down clue for AMAZING is the constructor’s standout, using the grid’s own black squares as visual exclamation marks to make the clue self-referential in a way that rewards careful reading over pattern recognition. ARAGE and HAMUP are both compressed everyday phrases that parse quickly once spotted but can redirect solvers who expect standalone dictionary words. ARIZONA carried a quiet July 4 relevance: the state leads the country in annual sunshine hours, a fitting entry for a holiday that puts Americans outdoors. For more from today’s NYT word games, the NYT Strands July 4 answer featured an Independence Day spangram, and the Quordle July 4 answers are also live with all four solutions.
