| MOGAMBO | "___ khush hua!" Fill in the blank with the name of the evil mastermind in the 1987 movie Mr. India |
| CHROME | ___ yellow is a shade of the color, and it is a lead compound. (You can also fill in the blank with the name of a well-known web browser.) |
| TEJA | "___ main hoon. Mark idhar hai." Fill in the blanks with the name of one of the antagonists in the movie Andaz Apna Apna, played by Paresh Rawal |
| PATRICKSWAYZE | Johnny Castle in the 1987 movie, Dirty Dancing (7,6) |
| ERNST | First name of the evil genius Blofeld in James Bond stories |
| OFFSTAGE | Old party mastermind in the wings (8) |
| WEIRDO | Anyhow, I drew a blank with the oddball (6) |
| STANLEYKUBRICK | Director of the 1987 movie, Full Metal Jacket (7,7) |
| BOND | ___ villain (evil mastermind from a series of novels and movies) |
| ABET | Aid an evil mastermind, perhaps |
| STADE | ___ was a sprint of approximately 200 yards in the Ancient Olympics. Fill in the blank with a word that shares its root with an English term that refers to a sports arena. |
| TAIGA | Word, homophonous with the name of the "stripes" of the big cat world, for the "land of little sticks" biome also called a Boreal forest (5) |
| REDDIT | "I read it on ___": fill in the blanks with a social news company named as a pun |
| HEADSTONE | Marker put at one end of a grave with the name of the person who has died (9) |
| LEAK | Homophonous with the name of a spring onion-like scallion, a word for a crack allowing the escape of liquid, gas or figurative secret information (4) |
| GLUE | Word, sharing its root with the name of the wheat protein that makes dough elastic, for adhesive (4) |
| CLIVE | First name of Mr Myrie who took over as presenter on Mastermind in 2021 (5) |
| CANALS | From "grooves, reeds, water pipes" and sharing a source with the name of a variety of tubular pasta, a word for artificial waterways; or, ducts (6) |
| MYRIE | Surname of Clive who took over from John Humphrys as host of Mastermind in 2021 (5) |
| ANNA | Actress Kendrick of the upcoming movie "Mr. Right" |
