In case you missed it, the 2026 Milwaukee Film Festival wrapped up Thursday night. It was a blast! (The Closing Night film, Power Ballad, was great!) Oh, and something else wrapped up earlier in the week: our epic Milwaukee Film Festival treasure hunt!

Yes, we did a treasure hunt for MFF26 (just like we did for MFF25), and yes, someone won! Actually, two people won! Both Nate Smars and Bailey Wegner successfully navigated a trail populated with more than dozen virtual and physical clues, and found plenty of goodies at the end of it. What were those goodies? For first place Nate, a lockbox stuffed with a Movie Star Dual Membership to Milwaukee Film (valued at $400), three Cinema Gift Packs (valued at $100, $60, and $30), and $200 cash (valued at $200). For second place Bailey, the three Cinema Gift Packs (valued at $100, $60, and $30). Not too shabby!

So how did they do it? Well, here’s a clue-by-clue solution! Enjoy! (The first clue was included in our original treasure hunt announcement article. Oh, and most of the clues came complete with countdown timers, though we’re not including those below.)

CLUE #1

The DeLorean is traveling at 88 mph. The blue letters spell out “minus.” The blue box is blocking “18th.” Eighty-eight minus 18 is 70. If you visited the hidden Milwaukee Record page milwaukeerecord.com/hunt70, you found…

CLUE #2

…this image. If you went to YouTube (that’s the YouTube logo, dontcha know) and searched for “Take Bob Uecker out to the ballgame” and “10 minutes” you found…

CLUE #3

…this 2021 Milwaukee Record video titled “Bob Uecker sings ‘Take Bob Uecker Out To The Ballgame’ for 10 minutes.” If you checked the description to that video, you saw this…

Combo 1/3 = 0
Next = 4/18/26
/midnighthunt

…and learned that the first number in the lockbox combination was 0. Then, if you went to milwaukeerecord.com/midnighthunt on April 18, you found…

CLUE #4

…these images. If you rearranged the letters in “commend theaters,” you got “read the comments.” And if you looked at the movie poster long enough you noticed that the word “forum” blinks on and off. If you went to Read The Comments, a.k.a. the Milwaukee Record forums, and went to the Film section, you found…

CLUE #5

…this post. If you clicked the link/article and searched for “midnight,” you found…

CLUE #6

…this listing. If you went to milwaukeerecord.com/shit, you found…

CLUE #7

…this quiz. If you searched YouTube and found the latest episode of Milwaukee Film’s “Popped Ones” (with special guest me, Matt Wild)…

…and watched it for a few minutes, you got to a part where host Jolee Mallmann struggles to eat some flavored popcorn while a “Struggle Timer” ticks away in the corner. That’s immediately followed by a part where I say Milwaukee Record has been around for 12 years.

Then, if you went to page 12 in the Film Festival program book (“The years are the page”), you found…

CLUE #8

…this clue, seeded in the program book weeks in advance. If you recognized this as a line from Star Wars and entered “Death Star” or “space station” into the above quiz, you got…

…this response. (If you entered anything else, it said “that is why you fail.”) Then, if you went to milwaukeerecord.com/million, you found…

CLUE #9

…this image, with the text “field trip” on the top of the page. If you took the name of the character, Max Fischer, and took away the “x,” you got “Ma Fischer.” Then, if you took a field trip to longtime East Side eatery Ma Fischer’s and looked on the backside of the pole holding the Ma Fischer sign, you found…

CLUE #10

…this Milwaukee Record sticker, which I stuck to the pole a few days earlier and checked every day after that. If you went to milwaukeerecord.com/savedlatin, you found…

CLUE #11

…this page. If you watched the video and got to the part where Bill Murray’s character describes Max to the police as “5’3″, 112 lbs., black hair, glasses, oval face,” and subtracted 105 from 112, you learned that the second digit in the lockbox combination was 7. Then, after a timer counted down, the “magic dance” link appeared. If you clicked the link you found…

CLUE #12

…this video from Labyrinth, with the text “/[hoursinaday]” below it. If you watched the video and noticed a shot of a clock that goes up to 13, and then went to milwaukeerecord.com/twentysix, you found an image that slowly formed over the course of three days. In the end, it looked like…

CLUE #13

…this. If you then went to Landmark Lanes and found the Monster Bash pinball table featuring the classic Universal monsters, you found…

CLUE #14

…my longstanding high score, which is next to impossible to beat because the Frankenstein monster toy doesn’t register hits anymore. Then, if you were the first person to email me my high score, you received…

CLUE #15

…the final clue. If you searched the Film Festival program book and discovered this was the screenshot for The Last Spy, and you saw that The Last Spy was playing at the Downer Theater on Tuesday, April 28 at 7 p.m., and you went to the Downer at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, you found…

THE LOCKBOX

…the lockbox! If you figured the “2” in “2uesday” from the previous clue was the final digit in the combination, and you dialed in 0-7-2 into the combination, the box opened and, well, you won!

Phew. We should note that while Bailey was the first person to email the high score, that score was slightly wrong; thus the second place. Sorry about that! We’ll just have people send photos next time. Because we’re totally doing this again next year.

Thanks to everyone who played along! And thanks to Milwaukee Film for letting us do wacky stuff like this as part of our Cinema Hooligante sponsorship! Love you, Milwaukee Film! Love you, Milwaukee!

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