As the saying goes, New Year, new you. The countdown to the New Year is full of possibility and promise, making New Year’s one of Hollywood’s favorite holidays to capture on the silver screen. The best New Year’s Eve movies can look like anything. This can be a wildly romantic time to profess your love for someone, à la When Harry Met Sally or The Apartment. Sometimes it’s a day when it feels like world-ending panic could strike at any moment, a premise used in films such as Snowpiercer and Ghostbusters II. 

Ahead, find 31 films to fill your New Year’s schedule, from classic rom-coms to time-traveling sci-fi, and every Paul Thomas Anderson movie in between. Just make sure you watch them before the ball drops. 

An Affair to Remember (1957)

• Release Date: July 1957
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• Director: Leo McCarey 
• Noteworthy Cast: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Richard Denning

Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant’s tragic romance begins with a fateful New Year’s Eve kiss. Though both are engaged to other people, the couple agrees to meet on top of the Empire State Building in six months’ time. By now, many of us know how that deal soured—but their love affair is teeming with possibility at the start of the year. (Of course, the film would later inspire Sleepless in Seattle.)

Carol (2015)

• Release Date: November 20, 2015
• Studio: The Weinstein Company
• Director: Todd Haynes
• Noteworthy Cast: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy, Kyle Chandler

Speaking of New Year’s kisses, the then forbidden relationship between Cate Blanchett’s Carol and Rooney Mara’s Therese is consummated on the holiday. It’s a brief honeymoon period for the pair, who first meet in a department store during Christmastime, and are separated by early 1953. They may have ultimately had a blue Christmas, but Carol and Therese were red-hot on NYE. 

Ghostbusters II (1989)

• Release Date: June 16, 1989
• Studio: Columbia Pictures
• Director: Ivan Reitman 
• Noteworthy Cast: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis

The follow-up to Ivan Reitman’s supernatural 1984 comedy reaches its climax on New Year’s Eve. As slime threatens to envelope New York City, the Ghostbusters must harness enough goodwill from their fellow citizens to ward off the offending spirits. Naturally, it’s a city-wide rendition of “Auld Lang Syne” that defeats the movie’s central baddie.

About Time (2013)

• Release Date: November 1, 2013
• Studio: Universal Pictures
• Director: Richard Curtis  
• Noteworthy Cast: Domnhall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Tom Hollander, Margot Robbie

The time-traveling genre is perfectly suited to the New Year, a time when everyone is reminiscing about days past and planning for the future. One of the more underrated entries in this genre is About Time, centered on the era-shifting love story between Domhnall Gleeson’s time-traveling Tim and Rachel McAdams’s regularly-timed Mary, alongside a standout performance from Bill Nighy as Tim’s similarly powered father. Plus, future Barbie star Margot Robbie pops up as Tim’s unattainable teen crush, Charlotte. 

Diner (1982)

• Release Date: March 2, 1982
• Studio: MGM
• Director: Barry Levinson   
• Noteworthy Cast: Kevin Bacon, Mickey Rourke, Daniel Stern, Tim Daly, Steve Guttenberg, Ellen Barkin

Writer-director Barry Levinson assembled Kevin Bacon, Mickey Rourke, Daniel Stern, and Tim Daly to play a group of longtime friends navigating the transition from college to adulthood. They reminisce about these growing pains at a diner in 1950s Baltimore just before one of them gets married in a New Year’s Eve wedding. 

The Age of Adaline (2015)

• Release Date: April 24, 2015
• Studio: Lionsgate
• Director: Lee Toland Krieger
• Noteworthy Cast: Blake Lively, Michael Huisman, Kathy Baker, Harrison Ford, Ellen Burstyn

There’s something about time-traveling that works for a New Year’s watch. Enter this 2015 romantic drama starring Blake Lively. The first baby born in San Francisco on New Year’s Day 1908, Lively’s Adaline gains ageless powers after a tragic accident at age 29. Decades later, a New Year’s celebration gives Adaline a chance to reverse her curse.

Waiting to Exhale (1995)

• Release Date: December 22, 1995
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• Director: Forrest Whitaker
• Noteworthy Cast: Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine, Lela Rochon

If you’ve ever seen that meme of Angela Bassett strutting away from her husband’s torched car, it’s from this 1995 movie—and the burning takes place on New Year’s. Follow as she and her three friends (including Whitney Houston!) search for love and success between two New Year’s Eves. After watching, you can listen to the hit soundtrack written and produced by R&B superstar Kenneth “BabyFace” Edmonds.

Boogie Nights (1997)

• Release Date: October 10, 1997
• Studio: New Line Cinema
• Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
• Noteworthy Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, Don Cheadle, John C. Reilly, William H. Macy, Heather Graham, Nicole Ari Parker, Phillip Seymour Hoffman

The second half of the drug-fueled disco that is Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997 opus is set in motion by a tragic New Year’s Eve sequence in which William H. Macy’s Little Bill discovers his wife with another man. There’s bloodshed by evening’s end, casting an ominous shadow over 1980 and the decade that follows it. 

The Holiday (2006)

• Release Date: December 8, 2006
• Studio: Columbia Pictures
• Director: Nancy Meyers
• Noteworthy Cast: Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Jack Black

The fortuitous house swap between Los Angeles–based Amanda (Cameron Diaz) and Englander Iris (Kate Winslet) all leads up to New Year’s Eve, where the two women celebrate alongside their new loves—Jude Law’s Graham and Jack Black’s Miles. Perhaps if enough people devote their end-of-year to watching the film, writer-director Nancy Meyers may change her mind about a sequel? Jack Black is down. 

Forrest Gump (1994)

• Release Date: July 6, 1994
• Studio: Paramount Pictures
• Director: Robert Zemeckis
• Noteworthy Cast: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Mykelti Williamson, Sally Field 

One of the more quietly heartbreaking scenes in Forrest Gump, which earned Tom Hanks his second Academy Award, takes place during New Year’s 1971. Forrest spends the holiday with an increasingly disillusioned Lieutenant Dan (Gary Sinise) in New York City while nursing heartache over Jenny (Robin Wright), who is spending the evening across the coast in California. 

How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998)

• Release Date: August 14, 1998
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• Director: Kevin Rodney Sullivan
• Noteworthy Cast: Angela Bassett, Taye Diggs, Regina King, Whoopi Goldberg

The end of the year is all about starting over, and what better film to revisit (or catch for the first time) than this 1998 rom-com led (once again) by Angela Bassett? She plays the titular Stella, in search of adventure and—perhaps—a vacation romance with Taye Diggs, a decades-younger island local who challenges her at every turn. 

An American in Paris (1951)

• Release Date: November 11, 1951
• Studio: MGM
• Director: Vincente Minnelli 
• Noteworthy Cast: Leslie Caron, Gene Kelly, Oscar Levant

One of film’s most electric New Year’s celebrations takes place in this Oscar-winning musical from director Vincente Minnelli. All of the glittery action centers on a burgeoning romance between Lise (Leslie Caron in her film debut) and Jerry (Gene Kelly), the eponymous American artist finding love and purpose in Paris long before Netflix’s Emily ever showed up. The film is so beloved it’s been adapted into a Broadway musical of the same name. 

Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)

• Release Date: April 13, 2001
• Studio: Universal Pictures
• Director: Sharon Maguire  
• Noteworthy Cast: Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, Gemma Jones 

This quintessential rom-com is often mislabeled as a Christmas movie, for Colin Firth and Renée Zellweger’s matching holiday jumpers. But they wear said jumpers at a New Year’s party, and they reconcile with the film’s final kiss exactly one year later. Case closed.

Snowpiercer (2013)

• Release Date: July 29, 2013
• Studio: The Weinstein Company
• Director: Bong Joon-ho
• Noteworthy Cast: Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Song Kang-Ho, Ed Harris, Octavia Spencer

Before director Bong Joon-ho picked up his Parasite Oscars, he helmed another societal parable starring Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, and Song Kang-Ho. It’s 2031 and climate change has rendered all of humanity stuck on a moving train, hurtling toward New Year’s Day on a loop. The train’s passengers are divided by social class—until Evans’s character opts to disrupt the pecking order.

The Apartment (1960)

• Release Date: June 15, 1960
• Studio: United Artists
• Director: Billy Wilder
• Noteworthy Cast: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MaClaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston, Edie Adams

Writer-director Billy Wilder would inject New Year’s scenes into two of his most famous works: 1950’s Sunset Boulevard and, a decade later, The Apartment. In this best picture winner, ladder-climbing insurance salesman C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) harbors feelings for unlucky-in-love elevator operator Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine). The only problem? His apartment serves as the meeting spot for Fran and Baxter’s married boss, Mr. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray). Alas, it’s on New Year’s Eve that Fran breaks things off with Sheldrake—running through the city streets to Baxter and a bottle of champagne.

Fruitvale Station (2013)

• Release Date: July 12, 2013
• Studio: The Weinstein Company
• Director: Ryan Coogler
• Noteworthy Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Melonie Diaz, Kevin Durand, Chad Michael Murray, Ahna O'Reilly, Octavia Spencer

Before Ryan Coogler was launched into the blockbuster stratosphere with Creed and Black Panther, he earned raves for this intimate indie starring Michael B. Jordan as Oscar Grant, a real 22-year-old Black man who was killed by police on New Year’s Eve 2009 in the Bay Area. 

Moonstruck (1988)

• Release Date: December 18, 1987
• Studio: MGM
• Director: Norman Jewison
• Noteworthy Cast: Cher, Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia, Olympia Dukakis, Danny Aiello

So it’s not an outright New Year’s–centric film, but the cozy, wintery vibes of Norman Jewison’s ode to Italian Americans living in Brooklyn makes for the perfect NYE rewatch. Cher and Nicolas Cage star as Loretta and Ronny—two slightly broken people who find love in each other, despite their best efforts to snap out of it. The film would be one of the rare rom-coms to earn three Oscars—for John Patrick Shanley’s script and the mother-daughter performances from Cher and Olympia Dukakis. 

Mermaids (1990)

• Release Date: December 14, 1990
• Studio: Orion Pictures
• Director: Richard Benjamin
• Noteworthy Cast: Cher, Bob Hoskins, Winona Ryder, Michael Schoeffling, Christina Ricci

Cher must love New Year’s Eve. She would follow up her Oscar-winning performance with a splashy turn in Mermaids, a coming-of-age story about a mother eccentrically, and often nomadically raising her two daughters (Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci). The movie gets its title from a New Year’s Eve–set scene where Cher dresses as an underwater goddess to help win over her drifting kids. 

High School Musical (2006)

• Release Date: January 20, 2006
• Studio: Disney Channel 
• Director: Kenny Ortega
• Noteworthy Cast: Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Lucas Grabeel, Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman

The enduring love story of Zac Efron’s Troy Bolton and Vanessa Hudgens’s Gabriella Montez kicks off on New Year’s Eve with a snowy ski lodge and a spontaneous karaoke duet to “Start of Something New.” They—and the Disney Channel generation—would never be the same.

Defending Your Life (1991)

• Release Date: March 22, 1991
• Studio: Warner Bros. 
• Director: Albert Brooks
• Noteworthy Cast: Albert Brooks, Meryl Streep, Rip Torn, Lee Grant, Buck Henry

There’s no obvious New Year’s sequence in Albert Brooks’s meditation on the afterlife. But this existential romantic comedy, in which he stars alongside Meryl Streep as two souls awaiting their post-death fates in Judgement City, is all about reflecting on the past and vowing to do better in the days ahead—an ideal end-of-year film. 

Rent (2005)

• Release Date: November 23, 2005
• Studio: Sony 
• Director: Chris Columbus 
• Noteworthy Cast: Rosario Dawson, Taye Diggs, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Jesse L. Martin, Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp, Tracie Thoms

Of course, there is a portion of this adaptation of Jonathan Larson’s seminal musical (and a whole song in the stage show!) that takes place on New Year’s. But the story itself is about the passage of time—and what better one than December 31 to ask, “How do you measure, measure a year?”

Ocean’s Eleven (1960)

• Release Date: August 10, 1960
• Studio: Warner Bros. 
• Director: Lewis Milestone
• Noteworthy Cast: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Angie Dickinson

Long before Steven Soderbergh would cast George Clooney and Brad Pitt in a trilogy of madcap capers, there was the 1960 original. In this iteration, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. plan for a heist that launches on New Year’s Eve at exactly midnight.

Sex and the City (2008)

• Release Date: May 30, 2008
• Studio: Warner Bros. 
• Director: Michael Patrick King
• Noteworthy Cast: Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis, Kim Cattrall, Jennifer Hudson

The Sex and the City revival, And Just Like That…, may be embracing the subway—but it was in the 2008 film that Carrie was first spotted near the MTA. While both she and her best friend are spending their first New Year’s without their significant others, Carrie dares to take public transportation in order to visit Miranda in Brooklyn. This also marks the first time Stanford and Anthony lock lips at a different NYE soiree, leading to their ill-fated romance. Hey, not every NYE couple is built to last.

The Godfather Part II (1974)

• Release Date: December 20, 1974
• Studio: Paramount Pictures
• Director: Francis Ford Coppola 
• Noteworthy Cast: Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Robert DeNiro, Talia Shire

There’s never been a more threatening New Year’s kiss than the one Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone plants on John Cazale’s Fredo, registering his betrayal. “I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart,” he tells him at a Havana-set party that’s over before it ever really began.

The Shining (1980)

• Release Date: May 23, 1980
• Studio: Warner Bros.
• Director: Stanley Kubrick
• Noteworthy Cast: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers, Danny Lloyd

Stanley Kubrick’s bone-chilling adaptation of Stephen King’s 1977 novel may feel more fitting for a Halloween rewatch, but given its wintry setting and the fact that the old photograph from the Overlook Hotel’s past took place during a New Year’s Eve party, consider this permission to terrorize yourself into a new year. 

When Harry Met Sally…(1989)

• Release Date: July 14, 1989
• Studio: Columbia Pictures
• Director: Rob Reiner
• Noteworthy Cast: Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, Bruno Kirby

Has the holiday ever looked as romantic as when Harry tells Sally: “I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible”?

Phantom Thread (2017)

• Release Date: July 14, 1989
• Studio: Focus Features
• Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
• Noteworthy Cast: Daniel Day Lewis, Vicky Krieps, Lesley Manville

Apparently, PTA has a thing for New Year’s scenes. Twenty years after Boogie Nights, the filmmaker set another pivotal sequence on the holiday. This time, Daniel Day-Lewis’s fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock meets his eventual love interest Alma (Vicky Krieps) at a NYE party. The shot at the end of the night, where Reynolds and Alma sway alone in an empty concert hall, has been declared one of Anderson’s best.

Last Holiday (2006)

• Release Date: January 13, 2006
• Studio: Paramount Pictures
• Director: Wayne Wang
• Noteworthy Cast: Queen Latifah, LL Cool J, Timothy Hutton, Gerard Depardieu, Alicia Witt, Giancarlo Esposito 

While ostensibly set during Christmastime, this 2006 Queen Latifah vehicle makes for perfect New Year’s viewing. When Georgia discovers that she has a terminal illness, she decides to quit her job, spend her life savings on a European vacation, and live out her final days to the fullest. The movie not only feels like an extreme resolutions list, but it ends on New Year’s Eve with a major twist.

While You Were Sleeping (1995)

• Release Date: April 21, 1995
• Studio: Buena Vista Pictures
• Director: Jon Turtletaub
• Noteworthy Cast: Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman, Peter Gallagher, Peter Boyle, Glynis Johns

Sandra Bullock’s Lucy saves the life of her secret crush, Peter, just before Christmas. After being mistaken for Peter’s fiancée, Lucy spends the holidays with his family while he lies in a coma. But it’s on New Year’s Eve that Peter awakes and Lucy must face her pre-holiday fibs—and an attraction to Peter’s brother, Jack.

Can’t Buy Me Love (1987)

• Release Date: August 14, 1987
• Studio: Buena Vista Pictures
• Director: Steve Raub
• Noteworthy Cast: Patrick Dempsey, Amanda Peterson

Often forgotten in the discussion of ‘80s teen movies, Patrick Dempsey stars as Ronald Miller, a far-from-McDreamy outcast who enlists Cindy Mancini (Amanda Peterson), the most popular girl in his high school to pretend to date him, thus elevating his social status. The ruse gets revealed to their classmates, however, during a pivotal New Year’s Eve party. 

New Year’s Eve (2011)

• Release Date: December 9, 2011
• Studio: Warner Bros.
• Director: Gary Marshall
• Noteworthy Cast: Halle Berry, Jessica Biel, Jon Bon Jovi, Abigail Breslin, Robert De Niro, Zac Efron, Hillary Swank

What would this list be without its namesake film? This 2011 ensemble comedy from the late Garry Marshall is far from a critical darling, but it does cram as many New Year–related activities into two hours as humanly possible.

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