WISE Score
Avg. Tomatometer
A star-studded countdown to boredom that makes 11:59 PM feel like an eternity.
5.67%
22
This movie is a corporate product designed to sell tickets based on a poster full of faces you recognize. It's not art; it's a calendar.
It’s safe and technically 'fine,' but it’s so incredibly dull and formulaic that it’s hard to recommend to anyone with a pulse. If you're looking for a New Year's tradition, stick to the actual ball drop. You'll get more character development from the crowd shots in Times Square.
Best for kids 12 and up who can handle a bit of PG-13 romance, but honestly, most teens will find this 'cheugy' and dated.
It's a sugary ensemble film about love and forgiveness. While it's commercially driven, the core messages about human connection are fine, if a bit shallow.
This is a paint-by-numbers rom-com that follows the exact same blueprint as 'Valentine's Day.' There isn't a single original bone in its body.
Typical PG-13 fare. You'll see some drinking, hear some mild swearing, and deal with some sexual innuendo, but there's nothing shocking or graphic here.
It offers very little in the way of personal growth or insight. It's the cinematic equivalent of eating a bag of packing peanuts.
Watching this now feels like looking at a museum exhibit of the early 2010s. It was the peak of the "holiday ensemble" subgenre where the goal wasn't to tell a coherent story, but to fit as many A-listers as possible into a two-hour window. Critics were famously brutal to this movie, with Rotten Tomatoes critics giving it a measly 7%. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a New Year's resolution you've already forgotten by January 2nd.
The main issue you’ll run into is the jarring shifts in mood. One minute you're watching a goofy race to be the first person to give birth at midnight, and the next you're in a somber hospital room with a terminal patient. It tries to hit every emotional beat on the keyboard at once, and the result is mostly noise. If your teen is sensitive to medical drama or grief, those scenes feel much heavier than the rest of the fluffy, rom-com energy.
If you have a kid who actually enjoys the "intertwining lives" format, they might find this tolerable as background noise while scrolling through their phone. But if you want a movie that actually captures the spirit of the holiday without the corporate sheen, check out our list of 8 New Year's Eve Movies That Won't Make You Cringe Watching with Your Teen.
The specific friction here is the runtime. At 117 minutes, it overstays its welcome. Most of the subplots—like the one where two people are stuck in an elevator—could have been five-minute sketches. By the time the ball actually drops in the film, you'll likely feel like you've lived through the entire year twice. It’s a slog disguised as a party.
This is strictly for the "completionist" viewer. If you’ve already seen the director's other holiday-themed ensemble films and you just need to check the box, go for it. Otherwise, the IMDb score of 5.6 is a pretty accurate warning. It’s a movie made of clichés that were already tired in 2011. If your family is looking for a meaningful cinematic experience to start the year, this isn't the one. But if you want to play "spot the celebrity" for two hours while you wait for the real midnight, it serves that very narrow purpose.
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