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Whether it pains you to say goodbye to 2012 or you’re anxious to bid the past 12 months sayonara, everyone has got a reason to celebrate come New Year’s Eve. The mere fact that the calendar reads December 31st is reason enough to overindulge—to eat and drink too much, sleep and exercise too little, and swear you’ll change your ways in 2013.
But partying like it’s 1999 isn’t some newfangled construct; people have been doing it since the days of Julius Caesar. So whether you plan to brave the crowd of one million revelers who swarm Times Square to watch the ball drop or bring in the new year with a pots-and-pans jam session in your very own kitchen, get in the mood for midnight with The 10 Best New Year's Parties in Movies.
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Written by Jennifer Wood (@j_m_wood)
10. Strange Days (1995)
More than a dozen years before she became the first woman to win a Best Director Oscar, Kathryn Bigelow was worrying about what would happen in Y2K. And she had more than just re-set calendars on her mind.
In this cyberpunk thriller—co-scripted by ex-hubby James Cameron—Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) is a former LAPD officer who now deals in the virtual reality black market, selling memories to the highest bidder. But as the new millennium approaches, Lenny becomes the recipient of a series of disturbing videos, in which people he knows and loves are tortured and murdered.
All is revealed in the final moments of 1999, as Lenny and his sidekick Mace (Angela Bassett) infiltrate an elite millennium bash in order to share what they've learned with the police commissioner and the entire city rejoices in the approach of 2000.
9. Trading Places (1983)
There's nothing like the new year for taking down a couple of fat cats! After being used as human guinea pigs by the Duke brothers, defamed businessman Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) and street hustler Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) board a costume party train bound for Philadelphia in order to take their lives back.
With prostitute Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Winthorpe's former butler Coleman (Denholm Elliott) as their cohorts, the quartet gets in the attired spirit as they dress up in appropriately inappropriate costumes and attempt to con a con man (Paul Gleason). Between Billy Ray's beef jerky, Ophelia's Swedish meatballs, Jim Belushi's drunken carousing, and the in-transit gorilla finding love with Gleason, just whose evening went best is a toss-up. Merry New Year!
8. Ocean's 11 (1960)
Before there was Clooney and Pitt there was Sinatra and Martin. In Lewis Milestone's original imagining of this now well-worn heist story, a group of World War II vets—headed up by Danny Ocean (Frank Sinatra) and Jimmy Foster (Peter Lawford)—have cause to celebrate when they successfully rob five of Las Vegas' busiest casinos at the stroke of midnight. As New Year's Eve revelers warble their best renditions of "Auld Lang Syne," Ocean's team of 11 burglars is busy stuffing its pockets with the casinos' cash.
7. When Harry Met Sally... (1989)
New Year's Eve is a night for romance, both fleeting and everlasting. So no list would be complete without at least one rom-com on the countdown. In the case of When Harry Met Sally..., it's not the New Year's Eve party itself—but the conversation that takes place between the two titular characters as the clock strikes midnight—that makes it such a memorable affair.
After a dozen years of serendipitous encounters and an on-off friendship, Harry (Billy Crystal) makes like Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment when he realizes that he's in love with Sally (Meg Ryan) and rushes to tell her, sprinting the city streets to reach her, "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."
6. The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
For a movie that's intended to be a drama, The Poseidon Adventure sure is funny. Blame it on the steeped-in-'70s production design, the extreme scenery chewing on the parts of both Ernest Borgnine and Gene Hackman (who spend half the movie screaming at each other), or the fact that Leslie Nielsen is playing the straight man Captain.
The poster for this 1972 disaster flick tells you all you need to know about the plot: "At midnight on New Year's Eve, the S.S. Poseidon was struck by a 90-foot tidal wave and capsized." With all of the ship's celebrants making merry in the dining room, the rogue tsunami turns their celebration upside down. Climbing through the bowels of a luxury ocean liner may not seem like an ideal way to spend the holiday, but it certainly makes for a memorable way to welcome the new year!
5. Four Rooms (1995)
New Year's Eve is like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book at the Mon Signor Hotel, where each room offers a singular experience, thanks to four of the decade's biggest indie directors offering up their own contributions to this anthology.
It's up to newbie bellhop Ted (Tim Roth) to attend to all of his guests, including a coven of witches attempting to resurrect their goddess in the Honeymoon Suite, a masochistic role-playing couple in Room 404, two unattended children who find a dead hooker under their mattress, and a famous Hollywood director (played by Quentin Tarantino, in a segment he wrote and directed) attempting to re-create an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" in the Penthouse.
4. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
In this film noir, Billy Wilder utilized New Year's Eve as a storytelling device with drastically different results than when he employed it 10 years later in the 1960 dramedy The Apartment.
Faded, forgotten silent-film star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) knows how to throw one hell of a party. In her attempts to woo wannabe scribe Joe Gillis (William Holden), the aging starlet arranges an elegant fete (think live orchestra and dance floor for tangoing) fit for a crowd but intended just for the two of them. General party rule: When the orchestra musicians outnumber the party guests two to one, it's time to invite some more revelers to share in the experience.
3. Boogie Nights (1997)
The 1970s go out with a bang—literally—in Paul Thomas Anderson's epic ode to porn. The dawn of a new decade means new beginnings for all of the film's 624 main characters, with hints of what's to come for each of them seen throughout this 15-minute sequence (including budding drug addictions, business ventures, romantic entanglements, and the birth of videotape).
But the sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll lifestyle prove too much for assistant director Little Bill (William H. Macy), who decides to bow out of the next decade when one too many adulterous walk-ins on his wife lead him to shoot her, her lover, and himself at a crowded party as the clock strikes midnight.
2. The Apartment (1960)
Shirley MacLaine originated the "run to the one you love on New Year's Eve" sequence (which Billy Crystal perfected in When Harry Met Sally... and Renée Zellweger attempted in Bridget Jones's Diary) in this Billy Wilder classic, in which office shnook C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) lends out his Upper West Side bachelor pad to his philandering bosses in an effort to quicken his climb up the corporate ladder. But when he falls for one of big boss man Jeff Sheldrake's flings (MacLaine, as elevator operator Fran Kubelik, in her second Oscar-nominated performance), the situation gets precarious.
The love triangle comes to a head on New Year's Eve, when Baxter refuses to give Sheldrake access to his love nest and ends up quitting his job. As the clock nears midnight, Fran—observing the holiday with Sheldrake in raucous Mad Men style—realizes that it's Baxter she loves.... (Cue the aforementioned running sequence.) The film ends with a celebration a deux, complete with champagne and gin rummy, in which Baxter tells Fran he loves her and she responds with one of the most memorable final movie lines ever: "Shut up and deal!"
1. The Godfather: Part II (1974)
A midnight kiss is a New Year's Eve tradition, but the late-night buss Fredo Corleone (John Cazale) receives is a kiss of death, delivered by mob boss brother Michael (Al Pacino), after he realizes that big brother helped orchestrate an assassination attempt on his life.
Not even the lush pageantry of a night out in Havana—complete with music, dancing, waterworks, sparkly outfits, and appropriately festive headgear—can take the sting out of Michael's declaration that "You broke my heart!" Fredo, who flees his brother, rings in the new year knowing that it may be his last; it won't be long before he's sleeping with the fishes. ¡Feliz Año Nuevo!