The 20 Greatest Party Movies of All Time

Some of these are about the night itself, others about the wreckage discovered the next morning. Very few of them agree on what a good party looks like.

1

Animal House

The 1978 fraternity comedy that invented most of the party-movie rulebook everyone else copied.

2

The Hangover

A 2009 comedy that starts the morning after a Vegas bachelor party and reconstructs the night backwards.

3

Superbad

The 2007 comedy about two friends trying to buy alcohol for the party that might change their lives.

4

Dazed and Confused

Richard Linklater's 1993 portrait of the last day of school in 1976, drifting from keg to keg.

5

Project X

The 2012 found-footage film in which a suburban birthday party escalates into a neighbourhood disaster.

6

Old School

The 2003 comedy about grown men starting a fraternity to avoid growing up entirely.

7

American Pie

The 1999 teen comedy built around four friends and a prom-night deadline.

8

Can't Hardly Wait

A 1998 graduation-party comedy that unfolds over one night in one house.

9

House Party

The 1990 Kid 'n Play comedy that turned a parents-are-away house party into a hip-hop landmark.

10

Booksmart

Olivia Wilde's 2019 comedy about two overachievers cramming four years of partying into one night.

11

Neighbors

The 2014 comedy pitting new parents against the fraternity that moves in next door.

12

Risky Business

The 1983 film in which a teenager left home alone turns the family house into a business.

13

Sixteen Candles

John Hughes' 1984 comedy in which the forgotten birthday girl ends up at the party of the year.

14

Weird Science

The 1985 Hughes comedy where two teenagers build a woman and accidentally throw a legendary party.

15

The Party

Blake Edwards' 1968 comedy in which Peter Sellers ruins a Hollywood dinner party one course at a time.

16

The Great Gatsby

Baz Luhrmann's 2013 adaptation, staged as the loudest party in American literature.

17

Eyes Wide Shut

Kubrick's 1999 final film, where a masked gathering turns a marriage inside out.

18

Saturday Night Fever

The 1977 film that made a Brooklyn discotheque the centre of a young man's whole week.

19

Girls Trip

The 2017 comedy following four friends reuniting for a weekend in New Orleans.

20

Human Traffic

A 1999 British cult film set across one weekend of Cardiff clubbing.