There’s something sacred about that first movie of the year. It feels like your choice could somehow set the tone for the months ahead. So, it becomes crucial to curate that first watch carefully, treating it as a reset for the new season. For a few hours, the world outside just stops mattering, and it’s only you and whatever story unfolds. You just hope you picked a good one.
Well-intentioned resolutions aside, the new year isn’t always about reinventing yourself. Most times, it’s about remembering who you already are. The films on this list get that. They’re about renewal in all its forms. The funny, the fragile, the fearless. Each one leaves you with that quiet reminder that starting over doesn’t always mean changing everything. Sometimes, it just means pressing play.
1. When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
Two friends spend over a decade doing Olympic-level denial about being in love. Nora Ephron comes through with the dialogue (funny and a little too honest), and every scene feels like eavesdropping on two people who swear they’re just friends. Spoiler: they’re not. What starts as banter turns into something slower, softer, and real. It’s about timing, pride, and how love sneaks up when you’re too busy arguing about it. The result is nothing short of perfection. Here’s a crazy thought: no one has ever made it through that Katz’s scene without immediately wanting a pastrami on rye… but let’s save that for a different article.
2. La La Land (2016)
Two dreamers fall for each other while chasing the same impossible thing: success, art, and a life that means something. (Yes, it’s a musical, but don’t panic.) La La Land glows like a love letter and a warning at once, dancing right on the fault line between ambition and heartbreak. It knows the math of love too well: sometimes the thing that brings you together is what tears you apart. Watch it if you’re brave enough to feel everything. It’s so intense it can have you ready to smack the person sitting next to you for breathing too loudly (or whatever, really). And yeah, keep tissues close, the ending is a tear-jerker.
3. The Apartment (1960)
A lonely office worker lends his apartment to his bosses for their affairs. A classic corporate tale, to be sure. Until, that is, a complicated romance changes everything. Billy Wilder’s masterpiece starts as a cynical comedy about corporate climbing and slowly transforms into a surprisingly warm story about finding your backbone. That’s why it’s the ideal January watch. It doesn’t promise a shiny new you. Instead, it offers the comforting hope that you can reclaim your dignity and maybe even find your person. It’s a film that believes in second chances, which (come on) is exactly what January is supposed to be about.
4. Carol (2015)
A love story that whispers instead of shouts. In 1950s New York, two women fall for each other in a world built to keep them apart. Carol unfolds like a winter memory: muted light, gloved hands, stolen glances that say everything words can’t. Todd Haynes directs with the eye of a painter, every frame feeling like a photograph pulled from a cherished, secret album. Seriously, the cinematography is stunning. Start your year with Carol (maybe under a heavy blanket, with a cup of very strong tea) if you need reminding that some beginnings can launch with something as simple as a trembling “yes.”
5. About Time (2013)
A young man discovers the men in his family can travel in time, and uses it to win the heart of the woman of his dreams. But don’t be fooled, the love story is just the gateway. The film’s real magic is how it shifts into a profound lesson on savoring the ordinary, beautiful mess of daily life. This is the ultimate “reset” film because it hands you a new perspective without a single lecture. It will make you want to hug the people you love and find the extraordinary hidden inside your perfectly ordinary day. It’s a warm, funny, and genuinely moving hug of a movie.
6. Phantom Thread (2017)
A brilliant, ridiculous, obsessive dressmaker in 1950s London finds his meticulously controlled life unraveled by a strong-willed young woman. This isn’t a warm romance, but a dark and twisted battle of wills where love acts as both poison and cure. The film hurls a bizarre but beautiful metaphor for change, suggesting that sometimes you must be lovingly, deliberately unstitched for a new self to be built. It’s like spiritual surgery. The perfect, prickly catalyst for a new year.
7. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
The final chapter of the epic quest to destroy the One Ring and end Sauron’s reign. This is a monumental catharsis about the end of long journeys and the courage required to let go. We watch as characters are forged in fire, forced to shed who they were to become who they must be. Starting a new year with this film is permitting yourself to have a grand emotional reset. It serves as a reminder that hard-won peace is worth every struggle, and that it’s necessary to sail into the Grey Havens and leave old versions of yourself behind.
8. The Holiday (2006)
Two women, completely disillusioned with their love lives, impulsively swap homes for Christmas. Nancy Meyers’ classic is pure comfort-food cinema, trading one brand of loneliness for another across a cozy English cottage and a sunny L.A. mansion. Fine, the whole Jude Law “Mr. Napkin Head” thing is incredibly cringe, but the rest of the movie works, so we’ll allow it. To start your year with The Holiday is to give yourself permission to choose joy and believe that your own grand love story might be waiting just around the corner.
9. Boogie Nights (1997)
A found family in the 1970s San Fernando Valley porn industry chases the American dream. Paul Thomas Anderson’s film is a wild, pulsing epic about a naive teenager who becomes an overnight sensation. But beneath the glitter and disco, it’s a profound story about the desperate need to reinvent yourself and be seen as “special.” It’s a chaotic, funny, and heartbreaking look at what happens when the party ends and the real work of building your self-worth begins. A bracing jolt of energy and a stark reminder that your true reset comes from finding a version of yourself you can actually live with.
10. Moonstruck (1987)
A practical Italian-American widow agrees to marry a man she doesn’t love, then falls for his estranged, hot-tempered brother. This isn’t a gentle romance (clearly) but a full-blooded opera set in a Brooklyn brownstone, where love strikes fast, like a lightning bolt that somehow still hits the right target. The film argues that a life lived by pure logic is no life at all, championing the glorious, irrational madness of surrendering to passion. To start your year with Moonstruck is to embrace the beautiful chaos of new beginnings, with Cher‘s iconic “Snap out of it!” as the only pep talk you’ll ever need.
So, pick your portal. Whether you need a grand catharsis or a cozy escape, let one of these films be your first great story of the year.
