The new year is almost here and that means time for resolutions, saying goodbye to the old and hello to the new. Grab a partner, steal a kiss, and let’s countdown 12 great New Year’s Eve movies. And absolutely no way is New Years Eve (2011) on this list. However, we will start with a disaster.
On the cruise ship Poseidon, it’s New Year’s Eve, and you know what that means? A rogue wave! You were expecting Champagne? So were all the passengers, including an all-star cast led by Kurt Russell, who now have to contend with a ship that is upside down. Most were probably wishing they had stayed in a hotel. Maybe one with . . .
It’s New Year’s Eve at the formerly renowned Mon Signor Hotel, and Ted the Bellhop (Tim Roth), on his first night on the job, finds himself in a pickle when he delivers ice to the wrong room and becomes part of a domestic incident. That’s after he’s already dealt with some witches in the Honeymoon suite. But there more to come in this slapstick action comedy from four directors (including Quentin Tarantino).
Two foster brothers (Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson) working as transit cops are on two different paths, with one living the perfect life while the other has come on hard times. The second, desperate for cash, decides to rob the “money train,” a subway carrying the job’s weekly revenue. It’s the New Year’s train that get targeted, the one carrying the most cash, and now it’s up to one brother to stop the other. Snipes and Harrelson should have made a lot more movies together.
The (actual) Devil comes to crash the New Year’s Eve celebration by choosing a 20-year-old girl to be his bride. If she bears his child between 11:00pm and midnight, it’s lights out for all humanity. Call in Jericho Cane (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a suicidal, alcoholic ex-cop. Think he can do it? Hasta la vista, Devil.
On the last day of 2008, Oscar Grant III (Michael B. Jordan), a 22-year-old Bay Area resident seems to have a normal day, interacting with friends and family as he plans for his night out to celebrate New Year’s Eve. But things change quickly at the Fruitvale Station. The saddest movie on the list, it’s a powerful experience and one to be seen, but let’s get back romance . . .
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A wildly erotic story of a couple Nigel (Hugh Grant) and Fiona Dobson (Kristin Scott Thomas) who meet a beautiful, exotic French woman (Emmanuelle Seigner) on a cruise from Istanbul to India, her story is complicated by her crippled husband (Peter Coyote), a man thoroughly obsessed by his wife. Tensions grow and things come to a head at the New Year’s Eve party when a dance seems to change everything. This Bitter is sweet (and sexy.)
The quirky story of a not-so-typical mother (Cher) and her two daughters (Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci) sees the family move to Massachusetts to start again, where love and other challenges cross paths with the locals. Set after the Kennedy assassination, a New Year’s party sees two lovers still bound by failing marriages to other people clash about their future. Bring a tissue.
A group of college friends (Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, and more) come together for a ten year reunion at a country manor to celebrate the New Year weekend and along the way, discover much about each other and the fate of Peter (Stephen Frye), their host in this touching and heart-felt look at growing up. Bring two tissues.
The year-long trials and tribulations of a thirty-something woman (Renée Zellweger) who makes a New Year’s resolution to take control of her life by keeping a dairy that keeps tabs on her love life. Sure it’s silly and romantic, but who wouldn’t want to kiss the girl standing in her leopard print underwear (NOT granny panties) on a snowy street?
To ring in the year 2000, Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes), an ex-cop who now deals with data-discs containing recorded memories and emotions becomes caught in a wild ride of blackmail and murder when he gets hold of a disc that contains the memories of a murderer killing a prostitute. It all comes down to the end of the millennium countdown. And a kiss.
The boys (Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson) are back and this time face an ancient sorcerer by using some ectoplasmic slime to animate Lady Liberty and get the crowds of New York City to sing Auld Lang Syne, spreading good cheer and positive energy. Say what you will about the movie, that’s one way to take down a demigod and ring in the new year.
Okay, so no surprise here. The story of two adorable people (Meg Ryan, Billy Crystal) who take ten years to truly make it work, you’re not going to find a better New Year’s Eve moment than when the film’s titular characters finally realize they are perfect for each other. And it’s not because we’re lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. We choose this title because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with a great movie, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.
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