Auld Lang Syne: 21 Films to Watch on New Year’s Eve
BY SCOTTIE KNOLLIN
Things look different this year, but the good news is that a new year is right around the corner. While it would take a miracle for 2021 to suddenly be different than the pandemic-riddled 2020 we’ve all socially distanced through, the promise of starting over is refreshing enough to make the last days of the year bearable.
To help make your at-home New Year’s Eve extravagant, we’ve partnered with Fargo Broadway Square, downtown Fargo’s newest amenity, to provide tips and tricks for the perfect night in. Fargo Broadway Square’s Virtual New Year’s Eve Extravaganza includes ice skating at the SCHEELS Skating Rink, then tuckering in at home with Downtown Fargo’s New Year’s Spotify playlist, a pre-ordered meal from The Boiler Room, and a virtual concert by Jessica Vines Duo. Plus, we’ve curated the perfect movie list of NYE favorites to fill in the gaps while you’re relaxing on the couch.
Celebrate 2021 with one of these films that capture the essence of new life, new love, and everything in between. From Oscar darlings to mindless fan favorites, there’s something special about each of these films.
About a Boy (2002)
Holiday movies are often about change. How will the new year work its transformative magic on characters? In this adaptation of a beloved Nick Hornby novel, a rich, womanizing man (played perfectly by Hugh Grant) has his life turned around by a 12-year-old boy (Nicholas Hoult), who meanders into his world on New Year's Eve and has a lesson or two to teach.
About Time (2013)
A delightful British romantic comedy you may have missed, About Time stars Rachel McAdams and Domhnall Gleeson as Mary and Tim, a couple whose story continues to be rewritten thanks to Tim’s ability to travel through time. Though its moral is something like “The grass actually isn’t always greener,” one of the film’s best scenes is when Tim keeps hopping back in time to get a New Year’s Eve kiss just right.
After the Thin Man (1936)
A sequel to the Christmas-set Thin Man, the aptly titled After the Thin Man is another lighthearted murder mystery starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. It picks up where its predecessor left off: It’s New Year’s Eve, Nick and Nora are back on the West Coast, and there’s another missing-persons case to solve. But this time, it hits a lot closer to home.
An Affair to Remember (1957)
In real life, the first kiss ranges somewhere between “needs improvement” and “yowza.” In Hollywood circa the 1950s, though, each and every on-screen smooch had only one result: perfection. Read: He takes her in his arms, looks deep into her eyes, and lays one on her. That’s exactly the case for the New Year’s Eve kiss that ignites a romance to remember between Cary Grant and Debrah Kerr in the film that launched “Sleepless in Seattle”.
Are We There Yet? (2005)
On New Year's Eve, Nick (Ice Cube) must drive his girlfriend's reluctant children from Portland to Vancouver as they try to sabotage him every step of the way.
Boogie Nights (1997)
There’s a lot to, um, see in this dizzying drama that charts an adult film actor’s brutal downward spiral. And though the holiday on topic doesn’t consume the entire two-and-half-hour reel, it does play a pivotal role about a third of the way in. As revelers welcome in the new decade, there’s one partygoer (William H. Macy) who gives the passage of time an explosive farewell. Just a disclaimer here: Things gets graphic.
Carol (2015)
In Todd Haynes's Carol, two women meet under the holiday decorations of a New York department store in the 1950s. Defying restrictive social mores, Carol (Cate Blanchett), a disaffected New Jersey housewife, and Therese (Rooney Mara), a saleswoman, pursue a relationship. On New Year's Eve, they get their first taste of freedom through a kiss.
Ghostbusters II (1989)
Everyone’s favorite supernatural crime-fighters return to the screen for a sequel with all the same players: Ivan Reitman directing; Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Sigourney Weaver starring; New York City as the setting. But this time, there is no Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Rather, the Statue of Liberty comes to life and slimy spectral activity is oozing onto the streets, just as the New Year’s Eve festivities kick into high gear.
The Godfather: Part II (1974)
New Year's Eve is usually associated with champagne and kisses. Not so in The Godfather: Part Two, the rare movie sequel that might be better than the original. At a New Year's Eve party, Michael (Al Pacino) tells his brother, Fredo (John Cazale), that he knows of his betrayal. They do have a New Year's Eve kiss, but it's laced with anger and intensity.
Happy New Year Charlie Brown (1986)
You’ve celebrated Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas with the Peanuts crew, so you simply must finish the year with a screening of the shy guy’s ode to the final holiday of the year. Charlie Brown is all of us in this 1986 classic: Does he a) go to Peppermint Patty’s New Year’s Eve party and muster up a good time, or b) finish reading War and Peace? Awkward party…comfy reading sesh… arg, decisions are the worst.
Mermaids (1990)
Cher is many things, including a sensational performer who defies time. So it’s no wonder she makes a splash as a mythical creature at a New Year’s Eve costume party in this coming-of-age classic about a mother and her two daughters (Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci) who weather puberty, crisis, and the holidays together to find new beginnings on the other side.
New Year’s Eve (2011)
Bronx-born filmmaker Garry Marshall (brother of the late Penny Marshall) loves the holidays. It’s the only logical conclusion after scanning his body of work: Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve. Each of his seasonal contributions is an interconnected ensemble comedy that assembles several bold-faced names into one glitzy movie. For New Year’s Eve, you have Josh Duhamel, Michelle Pfeiffer, Halle Berry, Jessica Biel, Zac Efron, and more colliding on December 31.
Phantom Thread (2017)
Although most of the movie doesn't take place on New Year's, there is an extravagant New Year's Eve party that will dreamily transport you to London in the 1950s. Paul Thomas Anderson’s vision has never looked as gorgeous as it does in this Academy Award-winning film. “Phantom Thread” also marks Daniel Day-Lewis’ final film role, as of yet. The actor announced his retirement while working on the film.
Rent (2005)
The Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning show remains one of the most popular musicals of all time—even after debuting on Broadway five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes ago (actually, it’s more like 23 years ago, but you know). It was made into a rock-opera film in 2005, starring the tonsils of Taye Diggs, Idina Menzel, Rosario Dawson, and more, and kicks off its seasons of love on New Year’s Eve. Just use those extra cocktail nappies to dry your tears.
Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
Another Nora Ephron emotion-stirrer that costars Meg Ryan, Sleepless in Seattle will result in Crying in [Insert City Here], so keep the tissues handy when you hit play. Especially as Tom Hanks, who plays a grieving widow named Sam Baldwin, imagines sharing a beer on New Year’s Eve with his late wife. “Here’s to us,” he says. And there goes our stiff upper lip.
Snowpiercer (2013)
An atypical watch this time of year, the dystopian thriller Snowpiercer stars Chris Evans, Jamie Bell, and Octavia Spencer. And we’ve included it on this list, because its New Year’s Eve actually bares more meaning than just parties with noisemakers and silly hats. Rather, climate change has ravaged humanity and the few survivors are confined to a class-sectioned speeding locomotive that celebrates a new year every time it traverses the globe.
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Considered one of the best movies about Hollywood ever made, Sunset Boulevard reaches an emotional peak at a New Year's Eve party with only two guests. Joe (William Holden), a screenwriter, reluctantly moves into the mansion of a reclusive silent film star whose career has dwindled, to work on a script for her. At the New Year's Eve party that Norma (Gloria Swanson) throws specifically for Joe, and only for Joe, he learns that her feelings for him have grown romantically. Sunset Boulevard captures the loneliness of New Year's Eve.
Trading Places (1983)
Not in the mood for a New Year's Eve romance? Go with a New Year's Eve comedy like Trading Spaces, a classic that stars Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy as two men caught up in an experiment about nature vs. nurture. Murphy's Billy Ray Valentine is plucked off the street of New York to become a commodities broker. Come for the stellar acting and jokes; stay for the thought-provoking commentary on generosity, poverty, and redemption.
Waiting to Exhale (1995)
It’s lady’s night every night in the phenomenon that is Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker’s directorial debut. It stars a fabulous foursome in Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine, Lela Rochon, and Whitney Houston, who each play a strong woman trying to find a good man—or in Bassett’s character’s case, get rid of a bad one. It’s a sobering realization that hits Bernadine Harris like a Mack truck on—what else?—New Year’s Eve.
While You Were Sleeping (1995)
America’s sweetheart Sandra Bullock stars opposite Bill Pullman and a completely comatose Peter Gallagher in this romantic dramedy. She plays a transit token collector who pretends to be the fiancée of the man in the coma (Gallagher), and then ends up falling in love with his brother (Pullman). It’s a lie that consumes her until New Year’s Eve, when she takes her power back.
When Harry Met Sally (1989)
Often touted as the best rom-com of all, the Rob Reiner-Nora Ephron master work about that time a man named Harry met a woman named Sally and the two spent their entire friendship trying to NOT have sex culminates in a New Year’s Eve midnight kiss that begins with Frank Sinatra’s “It Had to Be You” and ends with the obligatory NYE tune, “Auld Lang Syne.”
