13 Awesome New Year's Eve TV & Movie Moments That You Can Have Vicarious Fun Through

I don’t think anything even happens in this episode. They see a Russell Crowe movie? Why do we love this show so much? But we do. I mean, look at Marissa’s hair game plus open back dress. ON POINT.

Pam puts up a resolutions board in the office, which of course gets defaced almost immediately (Ryan’s “make more art” turns into “make more fart”). Michael is anticipating what’s going to happen now that Holly and AJ have broken up. Creed wants to do a cartwheel. Sometimes The Office is really subtly painful, like when Pam gives up and throws away the board, and sometimes it’s subtly hopeful, like Michael helping Creed do his cartwheel.

Okay, Carrie Bradshaw is the girl I love to abhor the most in all of TV-land. She’s so selfish!!! But this isn’t the place for a Carrie invective. In the New Year’s scene in the SATC movie, Carrie plans on spending the night alone with Chinese food, but when Miranda calls her sounding lonesome, Carrie actually GETS ON THE SUBWAY (the Carrie Bradshaw equivalent of giving a kidney) to tell Miranda she’s not alone, all cut with a montage of the rest of the characters spending NYE with people they love (or not — dumb Big) of “Auld Lang Syne.” I love this scene so much I can almost ignore the fact Carrie’s wearing stilettos in the snow.

HIMYM has been dragged on wayyyy too long, but Season 1, Episode 11 is why I have a strange love for it. Ted is determined for the gang to have the perfect New Year’s Eve, so they shall attempt to attend five parties in hours, find the best and ring in the New Year. Obvi this fails, as “party hopping planning” is wont to do; but Ted, Barney, Robin, Marshall and Lily (oh, and Ranjit) end the night and start the New Year by popping a bottle of champagne together in the middle of Manhattan traffic. Like I said, friends, booze, and your own family. (Bonus: Barney’s so-bad-it’s-good Get Psyched mix.)

If you wanna feel better about having a debaucherous New Year’s Eve, just revel in this Paul Thomas Anderson’s murder/porn. Suddenly it seems like you can do that juice cleanse next year, after all.

Basically: Y2K fear + a riff on a Judy Blume title + period humor + meditations on the meaning of life and puberty = the perfect South Park episode.

THIIIIIIS MOOOOOOVIE. It begins and ends on NYE, starting with Bridget meeting Mark Darcy at the turkey curry buffet and ending with lovely Mark buying her a new diary (fresh start!). He likes her just the way she is, even in her huge panties. Gahhh, give me a man that buys me stationary and will stand up to scummy Hugh Grant for me.

Adorably irritating bro-sis duo Monica and Ross Gellar are invited by Joey’s gorgeous roommate Janine (Elle MacPherson) to a taping of a dance show. Naturally the Gellars are desperate to dance on the platform, which they have to be chosen from the crowd to do, so they reprise “The Routine” a gloriously horrible dance number they made up in 8th grade. I would love a BFF sibling like Monica and/ or Ross. Their New Year’s is fun because no one has huge expectations or huge letdowns. Sometimes a New Year is just another day.

Not super touching or poignant or anything, but a great episode of 30 Rock nonetheless, from the 4th season when things were still good. It’s post New Year’s, and Jack realizes he left a message on his high-school crush’s answering machine (perfect Julianne Moore), so he takes Kenneth go with him to Pennsylvania for a quick B&E into her apartment to delete the voicemail. Meanwhile Liz outs her young cousin at a family party, and Jenna Maroney has a publicity stunt relationship with James Franco to hide the fact that he’s in love with a Japanese body pillow. I guess you could say the episode is about making human connections, but for me it’s mostly about Kenneth accidentally taking selfies on Nancy’s iMac.

Do I, on some level, hate this gorgeous 1957 movie for making me have a cliched desire to kiss someone on New Year’s on top of the Empire State Building? Sure, but who cares. It’s perfect.

Season 4, Episode 3. I’m obsessed with Mad Men, even though I hate that deviant POS that is Don Draper. In “The Good News,” we see Don at his most human: he learns Anna Draper, the wife of the late REAL Don, is ill, and it wrecks Dick Whitman. He slow dances with her lovely young hippie niece and paints her wall and then goes back to New York and bonds with lonely Lane Pryce over hookers (Don’s treat). A quiet, lonely, lovely episode and makes Don a touch less deplorable for like ten seconds. “Gentlemen, shall we start 1965?”

Am I allowed to love this movie as much as I do if I was born 3 years after it released? Perhaps because I’m always chasing the platonic relationship-turned-deep-love unicorn. An adorable young Billy Crystal dashing through the barren streets of Manhattan (lol). “It Had to Be You.” GLITTER AND SHOULDER PADS AND MEG RYAN’S PERM. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and the thing is, I love you.” Damn. They don’t make ‘em like this anymore. All Hail Our Lady Nora Ephron.