5 Movies That Will Have You Excited To Ring In The New Year

These movies prove that life can get better.

By

Rent / Sony Pictures

New Year’s brings to an end a tumultuous and confusing year for many of us.

While 2025 may seem scary, the new year can be exactly what you make it. So many of us set lofty goals for the new year with little intention for follow-through. I’m here to say let’s make 2025 the year that we all set a goal and take the steps to achieve it. It’s time we hold ourselves accountable! So if your goal is health and fitness related, get after it! If you aim to improve your finances, make a plan! Whatever your goal, you can accomplish it, I know it! But first, let’s find a cute and inspiring movie to watch that will have you potentially excited about the new year and new possibilities. Here are 5 movies about New Year’s that will ignite your fire!

Rent (2005)

Sony Pictures

I know, I know, starting a list with a musical isn’t the best way to get everyone’s attention but Rent is all about new beginnings. What I love most about Rent is that it doesn’t shy away from hardship. It shows you all the terrible things and the many hardships that we can experience. Another thing that is so great about Rent is that it shows you the power and support of your chosen family even if your biological family is unsupportive. With 2025 looming, we can mostly all agree that we have struggles to face this year, and hopefully, Rent can show you that, together, those struggles are much more tolerable.

When Harry Met Sally (1989)

Columbia Pictures

When Harry Met Sally is on everyone’s holiday lists, I fear, but for good reason! The classic enemies-to-lovers trope is alive and well in this movie, but there’s also a great theme of going for what you think you don’t want. These two individuals can’t stand each other because they’re so different, but over time, they realize that they can have a connection despite their differences. Plus, the scene at the diner is enough to make anyone watch it. The conclusion and big moment of the film takes place at a New Year’s party, so it’s totally festive!

Waiting To Exhale (1995)

20th Century Fox

If you watch Waiting To Exhale for just one thing, make it for the Whitney Houston soundtrack. Besides that, this film is a great story that takes place over a year and ends at New Year’s. You’ll follow along the trials and tribulations that people in relationships can experience. As you twist and turn through all of their trials and tribulations, you also see how friendship can traverse through the most treacherous of seas. Plus, if you want to be inspired, seeing a BMW of a cheating spouse being set on fire is quite the inspiration!

Snowpiercer

CJ Entertainment

Snowpiercer may be a little too on the nose for the debauchery that 2025 will likely bring, but I feel it’s best to be prepared for anything. Chris Evans stars in this apocalyptic-style film set in 2031 (as if that’s far away) and how the Earth is basically in an Ice Age because affecting climate change didn’t work. The survivors of the Ice Age II are stuck aboard a luxury train, but those who are not wealthy enough live together in a squalid boxcar. Of course, those living below their means decide it’s time to revolt against the upper class. My recommendation? Take notes while you watch it.

200 Cigarettes

Paramount Pictures

200 Cigarettes is most often forgotten, but it follows the type of trend that New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day, and all of those anthology movies, except 200 Cigarettes came first. The cast is SO star-studded, featuring Paul Rudd, Kate Hudson, Ben Affleck, and Christina Ricci. This movie follows the lives of a bunch of 20-something-year-olds in Manhattan and how they are all trying to cope with relationships, being alone, and the expectation that New Year’s has to be the most perfect night or it’s a waste. This movie just teaches us that things don’t have to be perfect and expectations are mostly what we place on ourselves, so just live your life in the way you feel the happiest.