This is for the day that we’re all waiting for. It’s mid-December and you’re leaving your 11:10 class only to check your phone and realize that your next class, the only thing between you and the weekend, has been canceled. The time has come to smuggle hot chocolate packets and at least three cookies out of Peirce and take over the ski-lodge-esque common room of Bushnell for a movie marathon. It’ll happen some day, guys. But for now we can dream about what movies we would watch. Or maybe just watch them on a regular old snowy Saturday. That works too, I guess.
1. When Harry Met Sally
If you’re in the mood to laugh, cry, admire the perfect chemistry that is Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal together, and laugh some more then look no further. As I tell anyone who mentions When Harry Met Sally, this movie is my comfy movie. Comfy Movie (n.): a movie that never gets old, however many hundreds of times you watch it, makes you smile even if you’re feeling blue, and is your go-to sick day movie.
(Meg Ryan Comfy Movie Substitute: Sleepless in Seattle) (editor’s note: Or, You’ve Got Mail…or really any Nora Ephron movie)
2. Some Like it Hot
Ever since I was in first grade and slightly embarrassed to admit to my fellow seven-year-olds that I watched black-and-white moves, Some Like It Hot has been a favorite. After witnessing a mafia murder, two musicians go into hiding, their only option to cross-dress and join a girl band in Florida. The pure humor of Jack Lemon and Tony Curtis is so great, someone of any age would have to be dead inside not to enjoy it…combined with Marylin Monroe’s shiny dresses create two hours of sheer awesomeness.
(Classic Comedy Substitutes: Arsenic and Old Lace or Bringing Up Baby)
3. Any Classic Disney Movie
Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that I am more than a little Disney-crazed, but even objectively speaking, Disney’s got game. The music, animation, and familiar plots are sure to put a smile on your face, not to mention the joy of revisiting your childhood favorites. Don’t let uppity Kenyon film scholars scare you away. You pop in that Toy Story 2 DVD you bought just last year with pride!
(My suggestions for best plots and music: The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Mulan, and Hercules)
4. Crazy Stupid Love
I realize that almost all of the movies on this list are classics from 1950s-1990s. Though Crazy Stupid Love is very recent, it’s one you’ll keep on loving years from now. You’d all be lying if you said you didn’t have a girl crush on Emma Stone, the female lead. Not to mention plans to marry Ryan Gosling, one of the male leads. And the other male lead? You just want to carry Steve Carrell around in your pocket so that every time you get a bad grade or Peirce has nothing good for dinner you can pull him out and make him cheer you up.
(Actually-in-this-millennium Substitute: Juno, The Proposal, or Mean Girls)
5. Titanic
If you’re in need of a good cry, this is your movie. Seriously. I watched this for the first time last year with relatively new friends and I think they were legitimately worried about my sanity. Even if you’re not one for dramatics, sometimes you just need a good cry, and Leo D, Kate Winslet and the powerful, if gag-inducing music of Celine Dion will do it. If you’re lucky, maybe you can get Campus Cutie Benji Dossetter to bring the tissues, as Titanic is one of his favorites, too!
(Tearjerker Substitute: Moulin Rouge or The Notebook)
6. The Sound of Music
Am I the only one who thinks the upcoming remake of The Sound of Music with Carrie Underwood as Maria von Trapp is an unnecessary flop waiting to happen? J. Andrews can never be replaced, in our hearts or the television screen. Warning: If you choose to watch this movie in your dorm’s common room, be prepared that singing along will be inevitable and thus stares from people who enter and exit the building will be as well.
(Musical Substitutes: Rent, Singing in the Rain, see #3)
7. The Princess Bride
If you have never seen this movie, you should be ashamed of yourself. Based on the equally wonderful book by William Goldman, this is an epic tale of love, adventure, and friendship and is one of the most quotable movies of all time. I realize that not everyone can recite the Battle of Wits scene verbatim like my brother and I can, but honestly, Princess Bride virgins, you do not know what you’re missing.
(No substitute. Just watch it. Even if it’s the 78th time.)
8. Rear Window
Be prepared for some hyperventilating and screaming, “What are you doing? GET OUT!” at the TV if this is your pick. A suspense classic, Rear Window has the genius of Alfred Hitchcock, the talent of Jimmy Stewart, and the (dare I say it?) grace of Grace Kelly. It will keep your heart pounding and impress you with the ability of a film set in one small apartment room to have such depth.
(Suspense Substitutes: Psycho, Dial M for Murder, North By Northwest, or any other Hitchcock movie)
9. 10 Things I Hate About You
This really needs no explanation. Everyone knows where I’m coming from: baby Joseph Gordon Levitt, young, hot Heath Ledger, and forward thinking feminist Julia Stiles. With its cast plus music of the 90s, you can’t go wrong with this light adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Plus you get this.
(Classic literature and you didn’t even know it substitutes: She’s the Man or Clueless)
10. Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Listening to Audrey Hepburn sing “Moon River” in her distinctively enchanting voice and admiring her fabulous fashion escapades are reason alone to watch this movie. Though it may not be the feel-good movie that When Harry Met Sally is, it is a timeless classic. Breakfast at Tiffany’s has become iconic and Audrey Hepburn an idol for classy women everywhere.
(Hepburn Substitutes: Funny Face or Roman Holiday)
If none of these do it for you and your snowy/rainy/just plain lazy day falls between the last half of November and the New Year, pop in a holiday flick and you’re golden.