All work is done, so you can now with a clear conscience chop salads for New Year and watch holiday movies! We, the editorial team of 'After the Credits', have prepared our favorite New Year's films that are sure to brighten your magical night.

'Planes, Trains and Automobiles', 1987 

Director: John Hughes

I'll say right away that the film is about Thanksgiving, but the atmosphere is truly Christmas-like, so I regularly rewatch it during the New Year holidays. It creates a great mood.

In the plot, advertising agent Neal Page (Steve Martin) is rushing home for the holidays. Unexpectedly, he encounters a hapless shower curtain ring salesman, Del Griffith (the brilliant John Candy). Their joint journey could turn into a real nightmare, but unexpectedly for themselves, Neal and Del become best friends.

An incredibly touching, funny, sentimental road movie about mutual assistance, holiday miracles, and finding a kindred spirit in a huge metropolis.

'Silent Night, Deadly Night', 1984

Director: Charles E. Sellier Jr.

This year was very rich in horrors (real and cinematic), so we even made a separate top for them. And I, for my part, want to recommend to genre lovers an interesting, in my opinion, Christmas horror 'Silent Night, Deadly Night'. I certainly wouldn't list it among my favorites. It's more of my guilty pleasure in a New Year's setting. The film doesn't shine with ratings, but the concept is so promising and good that I was simply amazed why such potential was used in such a lackluster project.

Roman Kovalev

Top 10 Horror Films of 2022 According to the 'After the Credits' Editorial Team

Alien invasion, nightmare in a rented house, mass murder during a porn shoot — this and much more in the list of the main horrors of 2022.

Open material

The film begins with an ordinary family (mom, dad, and two children) visiting their grandfather, who has been ill for a long time. While the parents are distracted by a conversation with the doctor, five-year-old Billy is left alone with the old man, who suddenly grabs his grandson's hand and starts telling horrors about Santa Claus, that he is actually bad and should be feared, not eagerly awaited every year. After such frightening words, the family drives home, and by chance, a man in a Santa suit decides to rob them on the road (confirming grandpa's words). Billy's parents die, but the boy and his brother manage to survive, but now the guy is left with a permanent psychological trauma and a panic fear of Christmas and Santa Claus.

Personally, I think the plot is just excellent. A child with a psychological trauma of fearing Christmas, who goes off the rails due to the incompetence and negligence of the orphanage staff — this is a great idea for a film adaptation. If everything were more thoroughly developed, written, and directed, it would have made a magnificent Christmas horror. Unfortunately, many aspects leave much to be desired, but it's still worth checking out, especially if you're tired of watching melodramas and 'Harry Potter' every year.

'Fanny and Alexander', 1982

Director: Ingmar Bergman

My most unforgettable Old New Year spent alone with the TV. Actually, there were many people with me then, but when 'Fanny and Alexander' started, it seemed like no one was left — it's that captivating a spectacle.

The first part of the film is a significant, thorough prologue with table speeches, children's games, adult squabbles — perhaps the best thing ever filmed about celebrating Christmas. All subsequent action works in contrast: after the patriarch's death, everything changes in the happy family and a real nightmare begins.

Bergman's cinema, as always, is about a hundred things at once: about how to live after loss, about religion, about God, about a child's perception of the world, and about the fact that people don't disappear without a trace. But also, of course, about not being too enchanted by Christmas bliss; further on, it's not necessarily better, although miracles do happen. They happened to Fanny and Alexander. But 'Fanny and Alexander' itself is a miracle, not just a film.

'The State Councillor', 2005.

Director: Filipp Yankovsky

It might seem that the strangest favorite New Year's film is 'The State Councillor' by Filipp Yankovsky. And not even the film itself, but its TV version. I remember it being shown non-stop on Channel One during the New Year holidays. The story of a detective's adventure against a winter landscape. Mesmerizing!

But for me, that's where the magic of New Year came together. I decorate the tree, and next to me, the TV is on, showing snow-covered 19th-century Moscow. From that moment, this tradition emerged — rewatching 'The Councillor' specifically for New Year.

Each time I find something new in this project — the winter town in Neskuchny Garden, beautiful and bright costumes against the backdrop of white snow. The final song 'White Snow' puts a beautiful finishing touch.

'Elf', 2003

Director: Jon Favreau

This film can be called silly. Derivative. Even just unfunny. But what it has in abundance is Christmas spirit and kindness.

The story of Buddy, who was raised and brought up by Santa's elves and who went to New York in search of his real father, is maximally simple but very effective. At its core, it represents the 'fish-out-of-water' formula, charged with holiday atmosphere to the brim.

And it's impossible not to note the extremely interesting work of Will Ferrell, who most authentically plays the naive Buddy, who never left the state of childhood and is filled with the spirit of Christmas. And Zooey Deschanel looks funny with blonde hair.

'Black Christmas', 1974

Director: Bob Clark

'Black Christmas' is the progenitor of the slasher, a cult film, and one of the few representatives of the genre where the killer hasn't yet become the main character. Because it's unclear who ruined the holiday for everyone, it seems that in complete silence and pitch darkness, time is inexorably breathing into the receiver at the heroines' student house on the eve of the holiday. And if you're still wondering 'Where does the old year go?', rather than just seeing it off with the hope that it won't repeat, there are few films more relevant.

'Black Christmas' is an unusual choice for New Year even for those who celebrate such holidays exclusively with 'Silent Night, Deadly Night', but it's an engaging, intelligent film that, moreover, back in the seventies taught the main lesson — never answer calls from unknown numbers.

'Something Happens to Me', 2012

Director: Viktor Shamirov

If I were to characterize the joint film work of Shamirov and Kutsenko, I think 'sad kindness' would fit well.

'Something Happens to Me' is a film about two brothers who drifted apart over time, but life circumstances bring them together on New Year's Eve. And each seems to be in a hurry to celebrate this holiday where they planned, but something always gets in the way, whether it's fate or the heroes themselves distancing themselves from their usual lives in a desire to spend at least one night in sincere and simple happiness.

I watched the film much later than its theatrical release, but it very well conveys my feelings about this holiday, and the themes and doubts that torment the main characters resonate with me. Seemingly intimate, the film is at the same time very dynamic. It has no ostentatious and commercial joy or heart-wrenching drama. It has no good ending that happens just because it's New Year. But it does have a good script. It's simple, but not stupid, and even deep. It's a talented work whose theme and cinematic language will remain relevant for many, many years to come.