Just a simple card game idea that is a variant on the famous “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”. A deck of cards consisting of popular movies and actors from recent years. I.e. a card will have on it “Tom Cruise” or “Mission Impossible”. Players keep a hand of 12 cards. On a person’s turn they draw to fill their hand (like poker, they can discard up to their whole hand if they wish), and turn over the top card. Then, who ever can lay down a ‘pair’ the fastest claims the set until all the pairs are played. The last person to play a pair wins the set, getting one point for each pair. First person to 10 (or 20 or 30) points wins.
So, let’s say you turn over Nicole Kidman. This means you need to lay down a movie she’s been in and an actor/actress who was in that movie with her (sometimes there will be no pairs to be laid down). You could lay down “Ewan McGregor” and “Moulin Rouge”. That’s one pair. Depending on which card was on top (order doesn’t matter for the pair), someone else has to play a pair on the top card. If it’s “Ewan McGregor”, they need to lay down a card for a movie he’s been in and a card for another actor who’s been in a movie with him. If “Moulin Rouge” comes on top, they need to lay down an actor/actress who was in Moulin Rouge and another movie they’ve been in.
Not sure if you’d have the right cards frequently for it to be fun. Maybe common movies and actors/actresses could have duplicate copies in the deck. Hard ones that don’t have many connections might be worth bonus points.