Best New year's eve Movies
Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of new year's eve cinema — measured across 1,537 indexed frames from 20 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.
New year's eve films over-index on sofa, desk and snow — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.
- 1
The Apartment (1960)
Billy WilderDP Joseph LaShelleIMDb 8.3TMDB 8.2See in full on FrameThrower →
As of November 1, 1959, mild mannered C.C. Baxter has been working at Consolidated Life, an insurance company, for close to four years, and is one of close to thirty-two thousand employees located in their Manhattan head office. To distinguish himself from all the other lowly cogs in the company in the hopes of moving up the corporate ladder, he often works late, but only because he can't get into his apartment, located off of Central Park West, since he has provided it to a handful of company executives - Mssrs. Dobisch, Kirkeby, Vanderhoff and Eichelberger - on a rotating basis for their extramarital liaisons in return for a good word to the personnel director, Jeff D. Sheldrake. When Baxter is called into Sheldrake's office for the first time, he learns that it isn't just to be promoted as he expects, but also to add married Sheldrake to the list to who he will lend his apartment. Dobisch, Kirkeby, Vanderhoff and Eichelberger are now feeling neglected as Baxter no longer needs their assistance in moving up.
- 2
The Shining (1980)
Stanley KubrickDP John AlcottIMDb 8.4TMDB 8.2See in full on FrameThrower →
Haunted by a persistent writer's block, the aspiring author and recovering alcoholic, Jack Torrance, drags his wife, Wendy, and his gifted son, Danny, up snow-capped Colorado's secluded Overlook Hotel after taking up a job as an off-season caretaker. As the cavernous hotel shuts down for the season, the manager gives Jack a grand tour, and the facility's chef, the ageing Mr Hallorann, has a fascinating chat with Danny about a rare psychic gift called "The Shining", making sure to warn him about the hotel's abandoned rooms, and, in particular, the off-limits Room 237. However, instead of overcoming the dismal creative rut, little by little, Jack starts losing his mind, trapped in an unforgiving environment of seemingly endless snowstorms, and a gargantuan silent prison riddled with strange occurrences and eerie visions. Now, the incessant voices inside Jack's head demand sacrifice. Is Jack capable of murder?
- 3
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Billy WilderDP John F. SeitzIMDb 8.4TMDB 8.3See in full on FrameThrower →
Desperate for cash, screenwriter Joe Gillis has a chance meeting with a faded silent film star. Norma Desmond lives in her crumbling Sunset Boulevard mansion with only her butler to keep her company. She has become a sad demented recluse convinced that the outside world is clamoring for her dramatic return. Enticing him with the prospect of script work she puts him up in her mansion and he becomes ever more involved and entangled in her life.
- 4
Paul Thomas AndersonDP Robert ElswitIMDb 7.9TMDB 7.6See in full on FrameThrower →
Set in 1977, back when sex was safe, pleasure was a business and business was booming, idealistic porn producer Jack Horner aspires to elevate his craft to an art form. Horner discovers Eddie Adams, a hot young talent working as a busboy in a nightclub, and welcomes him into the extended family of movie-makers, misfits and hangers-on that are always around. Adams' rise from nobody to a celebrity adult entertainer is meteoric, and soon the whole world seems to know his porn alter ego, "Dirk Diggler". Now, when disco and drugs are in vogue, fashion is in flux and the party never seems to stop, Adams' dreams of turning sex into stardom are about to collide with cold, hard reality.
- 5
Megalopolis (2024)
Francis Ford CoppolaDP Mihai Malaimare Jr.IMDb 4.7TMDB 5.2See in full on FrameThrower →
In a futuristic New York known as New Rome, visionary architect Cesar Catilina dreams of building "Megalopolis," a utopian city that redefines society’s limits. Opposing him is the corrupt Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who clings to power and profit. Between them stands Julia, the mayor’s daughter, whose love for Cesar forces her to choose between loyalty, ambition, and the fate of humanity.
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- Plex
- 6
Anora (2024)
Sean BakerDP Drew DanielsIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →
Anora, a young stripper from Brooklyn, gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as the parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.
- 7
The Godfather Part II (1974)
Francis Ford CoppolaDP Gordon WillisIMDb 9.0TMDB 8.6See in full on FrameThrower →
The continuing saga of the Corleone crime family tells the story of a young Vito Corleone growing up in Sicily and in 1910s New York; and follows Michael Corleone in the 1950s as he attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba.
- 8
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
Joel Coen, Ethan CoenDP Roger DeakinsIMDb 7.2TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →
When Waring Hudsucker, head of hugely successful Hudsucker Industries, commits suicide, his board of directors, led by Sidney Mussberger, comes up with a brilliant plan to make a lot of money: appoint a moron to run the company. When the stock falls low enough, Sidney and friends can buy it up for pennies on the dollar, take over the company, and restore its fortunes. They choose idealistic Norville Barnes, who just started in the mail room. Norville is whacky enough to drive any company to ruin, but soon, tough reporter Amy Archer smells a rat and begins an undercover investigation of Hudsucker Industries.
- 9
Carol (2015)
Todd HaynesDP Edward LachmanIMDb 7.3TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →
In an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's seminal novel The Price of Salt, CAROL follows two women from very different backgrounds who find themselves in an unexpected love affair in 1950s New York. As conventional norms of the time challenge their undeniable attraction, an honest story emerges to reveal the resilience of the heart in the face of change. A young woman in her 20s, Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara), is a clerk working in a Manhattan department store and dreaming of a more fulfilling life when she meets Carol (Cate Blanchett), an alluring woman trapped in a loveless, convenient marriage. As an immediate connection sparks between them, the innocence of their first encounter dims and their connection deepens. While Carol breaks free from the confines of marriage, her husband (Kyle Chandler) begins to question her competence as a mother as her involvement with Therese and close relationship with her best friend Abby (Sarah Paulson) come to light.
- 10
An American In Paris (1951)
Vincente MinnelliDP Alfred GilksIMDb 7.1TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →
Jerry Mulligan, a struggling American painter in Paris, is "discovered" by an influential heiress with an interest in more than Jerry's art. Jerry in turn falls for Lise, a young French girl already engaged to a cabaret singer. Jerry jokes, sings and dances with his best friend, an acerbic would-be concert pianist, while romantic complications abound.
What new year's eve films are made of
How much more often each element appears in a new year's eve frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — sofa is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.
- sofa2.4×
- desk1.8×
- snow1.6×
- fedora1.6×
- mirror1.6×
- bed1.6×
- streetlamp1.6×
How new year's eve films are shot
Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate new year's eve from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.
- 19%high keyvs 12% baseline
- 33%naturalvs 43% baseline
- 32%dayvs 42% baseline
- 87%eye levelvs 69% baseline
What breaks the pattern
Snowpiercer (2013) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.
Method
Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 1,537 frames from 20 films carrying the new year's eve label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (408,752 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.
Machine-readable: /api/list/new-year-s-eve
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