There are some holidays that have a lot of movies celebrating them. You have your Christmas holiday movie season, there’s even a trend of movies celebrating the Fourth of July, and obviously Valentine’s Day has quite a few. But things like Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve are a bit more rare, so if you’re trying to celebrate with some specific films in mind, you have some fun options.
Now to be clear, some of these movies have a single scene that is New Year’s Eve-based, and that means that it technically counts in my understanding of holiday films. So, if you can convince your friends and family to watch it with you, you’re a stronger person than I am.
But hey, these are all the movies I think you should try to watch this New Year’s Eve to kick the holiday off right.
New Year’s Eve
Obviously. The movie is an attempt to make Love Actually happen again, but if it were set in Times Square on New Year’s Eve and people cared way too much about New Year’s traditions. It’s not great—in fact, it’s pretty bad—but you get to see Bon Jovi acting and that’s hilarious. So … attempt to watch it and see Seth Meyers and Jessica Biel trying to have the first baby in the new year!
Can’t Buy Me Love
Like many of the movies I am going to suggest, this movie has a New Year’s scene, and thus, it counts. Ronald Miller (Patrick Dempsey) is in a fake relationship with Cindy Mancini (Amanda Peterson), but the two end up having feelings for each other despite pretending like they don’t. At a New Year’s party, Cindy hears Ronald reading a special poem meant for her to a different girl, and it kicks off the two revealing their feelings for each other and is important to the overall story, so IT COUNTS.
About Fate
A new movie to add to the New Year’s rooster is About Fate. And maybe this movie isn’t that great but it includes multiple references to Breakfast at Tiffany’s in a movie about the sister of Emma Roberts forcing people to celebrate her WEDDING on New Year’s Eve, and that’s oddly impressive to me. It’s cute, it’s about two people realizing that they’re in love even though they met by happenstance, and it is a cute and easy watch and a movie definitely designed to be one for a New Year’s Eve viewing.
Bridget Jones’s Diary
While Bridget Jones’s Diary has a reputation for being just a holiday movie in general (because she does see Mark Darcy at Christmas at her parents’ home), the movie does have a very important New Year’s scene, so you can count it as such. It’s also technically an Easter movie and so on and so forth, but hey, any excuse to watch Bridget Jones’s Diary, right?
Carol
While you’ve definitely seen the “they’re lesbians, Harold” meme, another popular meme from Carol comes with the “Happy New Year” image because … well, we can use it on New Year’s Eve. So that is just all the proof you need to watch Carol and loudly talk about Harold.
The Age of Adaline
Adaline LOVES New Year’s because, I guess, it is also the time she realizes she hasn’t aged, since it is her birthday. But the movie tracks the life of a woman who becomes immortal when she dies in a lake but is struck by lightning, and it keeps her young forever—which becomes a problem when she falls in love with a man (Michiel Huisman) who is the son of Adaline’s former flame (Harrison Ford) from back when they were both young. But it has New Year’s in it, and this movie rules, so give it a go.
About a Boy
Marcus (Nicholas Hoult) wanders into the life of Will (Hugh Grant) and changes his life for the better on New Year’s Eve, and while this movie has a lot of great performances and moments, it is one that will make you think about “Killing Me Softly” all the time—or at least that’s my relationship to it. Anyway, it’s a nice watch and one that you will probably love coming back to, and why not kick off the new year with it?
Now You See Me 2
Now You See Me 2 ends on New Year’s and also rules, so it’s a win-win of a choice, to be quite honest. While Now You See Me has a fun arc and is a good movie on its own, it is a rare case where the sequel is definitely better. Maybe that’s the Lizzy Caplan and Daniel Radcliffe effect. But it is so much fun to watch and, like I said, counts as a New Year’s movie.
When Harry Met Sally
When Harry Met Sally has this beautiful moment when Harry is looking into the eyes of Sally at a New Year’s Eve party, and the rest is history. As someone who watched this movie for the first time relatively recently, it is so much fun and a testament to the genre of a romantic comedy, and I would watch it once a month if I could, so it is easy to put this on a New Year’s list.
Snowpiercer
Oh yes, that’s right, you too can watch Snowpiercer on New Year’s Eve because it is a movie set around that time. Because, of course, those aboard the train holding our post-apocalyptic survivors celebrate when they make it around the track as a new year, and the tailies aren’t having it. Do you want to ring in the new year with Chris Evans admitting that babies taste best? Well, you can!
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What movie are you going to watch this New Year’s Eve?
(featured image: CJ Entertainment)
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