It’s the New Year — the time of auld acquaintance.
And what better time to reacquaint ourselves with the movies that have used the New Year as a backdrop, a plot pivot, an occasion for nostalgia or sentiment, or — on occasion — dread. Even, sometimes, thought.
These movies aren’t a genre, like Christmas movies. Nobody has their favorite New Year’s movie.
Yet the flipping of the year, the turning of the calendar, is a charged moment — one that many films have used to their advantage. Here are some New Year’s movies that should never be forgot.
Poor Charlie Chaplin! He’s a lone prospector in the Klondike, who’s fallen hard for a dance-hall girl (Georgia Hale). He’s invited her to his New Year’s Eve party. He’s dreamt of how wonderful it would be — how his little cabin would be full of merrymakers, how he would win her over with his famous dance of the oceana rolls (one of Chaplin’s most celebrated routines). But when New Year’s eve arrives, no Georgia. No anybody. Charlie, alone at his table full of party favors, is left to listen to the sounds of Auld Lang Syne coming from town. A sad moment for a funny man. Available on YouTube, Tubi, Apple TV.
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Happy 20th century! Diana Wynyard and Clive Brook, typical specimens of the British upper-crust, toast the year 1900 at the beginning of Noël Coward’s bittersweet timeline that takes us from the end of the Victorian age to the “present” (i.e. 1933). Spoiler alert: the 20th century isn’t exactly a bed of roses. There’s a little thing called World War I. Also, the Titanic. And, finally, “modern” — 1930s — life with all its alienation. One of the characters actually sings a song called “20th Century Blues.” Little did they know what the rest of the century was going to be like. Available on YouTube, Amazon Prime, Apple TV.
Want to see what New Year’s Eve in Times Square looked like in 1933? One of the odd dividends of this nifty early ’30s horror film is its New Year’s sequence, with all the confetti in early two-tone Technicolor. The rest of the film, which involves mad wax museum curator Lionel Atwill covering his living victims in hot wax, isn’t too shabby either. Scream queen Fay Wray (“King Kong”) nearly becomes his new Marie Antoinette. Available on Criterion Channel.
Captain Andy (Charles Winninger), of the showboat, is in Chicago New Year’s eve. With his shrewish wife Parthy (Helen Westley) left behind in her hotel room, he goes on the town to partake of the New Year’s celebrations with two ladies of easy virtue. “I left Parthy at the hotel about eight o’clock,” he says. “And ever since ten o’clock I been tryin’ to think of an excuse for not bein’ home by nine!” When he wanders into the Trocadero nightclub, who should he see singing but Magnolia (Irene Dunne) his long lost daughter! Cue “After the Ball” — one of the few songs not written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II for this famous musical — and lots of falling balloons, hugs and kisses. Available on Amazon Prime, Roku.
Inventor George (Rod Taylor) doesn’t particularly like the century he’s living in. So on New Year’s eve, 1900, he sets out in his gizmo for the year 802,701 AD. Which, in H.G. Wells’ famous story, is no picnic, either. Available on Amazon Prime, MGM Plus, Roku Premium.
It’s New Year’s Eve on the great ocean liner S.S. Poseidon, and what could possibly go wrong? Only the little matter of a rogue tidal wave — “a gigantic wall of water” — that overturns the ship shortly after midnight, sending Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters, Red Buttons, Carol Lynley, and Stella Stevens toppling over each other, and leaving them only hours to escape from the sinking ship by climbing up to the bottom. Got that? Millions of viewers did — the film grossed $84.5 million domestically. Available on YouTube, Amazon Prime, Apple TV.
“Here we are, protected, free to make our profits without Kefauver, the goddamn Justice Department and the F.B. I. ninety miles away, in partnership with a friendly government.” So says gangster Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg) to Mafia king Michael Corleone as they prepare to set up their illegal operations in Cuba. Only the year is 1959, the friendly government is Batista’s — and on Jan. 1, it falls to Castro’s communists. In the epic New Year’s ball sequence — the great turning point in the film — the city of Havana descends into chaos, mobs are running riot in the street, and Michael (Al Pacino) gives his famous Judas kiss to his brother (John Cazale). “I know it was you, Fredo!” Happy New Year, Fredo. There won’t be many more. Available on Amazon Prime, Paramount+, Apple TV, Roku.
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