StreamLikers

From dusk to dawn

Some of the best films ever made take place in a single night. The rule is older than the cinema: the playwrights of ancient Greece liked a story that unfolds in one revolution of the sun, and the cinema found that a single night is even better, because the night changes people. The streets empty, the usual rules loosen, strangers meet, secrets come out and every hour brings the dawn a little closer, like a clock that counts down to the end of the film. A couple walks through Vienna until sunrise; four teenagers cruise the streets of a Californian town on their last night of summer; a cab driver carries a hitman across Los Angeles; a family hides in a farmhouse while the dead walk outside. One night is enough for a whole life to turn.

StreamLikers was a site with a Night Mode switch in its header, and this guide takes that switch as its subject. It gathers 155 films of the night, most of them set over a single night and the rest lived almost entirely after dark, from Rope, of 1948, to The Mortuary Assistant, of 2026, and sorts them on twelve shelves, in three families. Each film has an English synopsis, its cast and director, and a Watch now button that opens it on JustWatch, where you can see the services that offer it in your country. The guide Start with StreamLikers picks one film from each shelf, and the guide How the nights work explains the selection.

The three families follow the hours of the night. Dusk holds the nights that begin with a plan: dates and babysitters, parties and nights out, dinner parties and long talks, gigs, raves and dance floors. Midnight holds the city after dark: odysseys across a town, crimes on the clock, the people of the night shift and the thrillers of a single night. Small hours holds the longest nights of all: sieges and home invasions, Halloween nights, battles and disasters, and the nights of Christmas, New Year and other holidays. Together the films carry about 425,700 votes on TMDB, with an average rating of 6.73; the most voted is Coco, of 2017, the night of the Day of the Dead in which a boy crosses into the land of his ancestors, and the best rated is Stop Making Sense, of 1984, the concert film of Talking Heads, with an 8.4.

The site in Night Mode

The Wayback Machine keeps copies of streamlikers.com from 2018 to 2026, built on PsyPlay, a WordPress theme made for film sites. In its daytime look the page was white, with a header of seventy pixels holding the logo, a thin divider and a menu in the tall capitals of Oswald, Home, Movies, Most Viewed, Genres and Series and TV Shows, that turned green under the pointer. Each section began with a title in a green block, with tabs beside it, and the films sat in a grid of posters, each with a yellow badge for its quality, a green circle for the number of episodes of a series and the title in white over a dark gradient at the bottom; a dark veil and a play button appeared when the pointer passed over a poster. A switch in the header, Night Mode, loaded a second stylesheet that turned the whole site dark: a body of near-black, a header of charcoal, boxes and tabs in shades of grey.

This guide is shown in that Night Mode, with the stylesheet of the archive as its model: the near-black page, the charcoal header with its Oswald capitals that underline in green, the green blocks of the section titles, the grey tabs, and the yellow badge, which here carries the TMDB rating. The tabs become the board of the home page, called Tonight, a row of grey tabs for the twelve shelves, each with its number of films, that turn green under the pointer. Each poster carries the year in a green badge and, in white over the dark gradient at the bottom, the tag of its shelf, such as Party or Siege, and it darkens under the pointer as on the old site. The guide Night Mode describes the captures; only their look was measured, and the guide uses its own data and images from TMDB.

How the nights work

Every film of the guide belongs to the night. Most of them tell a story that starts in the evening and ends by the next morning, or covers a single night with a short day on either side, like a party that starts after school or a siege that begins at sunset. One shelf, The night shift, is different: it holds the films of people who work at night, the cab drivers, the guards, the night clerks and the reporters of crime, whose stories stretch over many nights but always after dark. The films were chosen by hand from TMDB, and each one sits on a single shelf; each shelf keeps up to fifteen of its most voted films and lists them by votes, so that the best known come first.

The guide is in English, and 148 of its films are in English; the others come from Italy, Denmark, France, Spain, Germany and India, from the dinner of phones of Perfect Strangers to the single take of Victoria and the night drive of the Tamil thriller Kaithi. The guide How the nights work sums up the rules.

Dusk

The first family, Dusk, gathers 50 films of the nights that begin with a plan: a date, a party, a dinner, a concert. Its films carry about 85,400 votes, with an average of 6.82, the best of the three families. These are mostly comedies and dramas of conversation, in which the night is a stage where people say what the day kept them from saying. The guide Dusk sums up the family.

Dates and babysitters

The shelf Dates and babysitters holds fourteen films from 1985 to 2020, and its most voted and best rated film is the most romantic of the guide: Before Sunrise, of 1995, by Richard Linklater, with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as two strangers who meet on a train and spend one night walking through Vienna, talking until the sun comes up, rated 8.0. Night on Earth, of 1991, by Jim Jarmusch, rated 7.5, follows five taxi rides in five cities, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki, on the same night, and Before We Go, of 2014, the first film directed by Chris Evans, lets two strangers miss the last train out of New York and wander the city until morning.

The comedies of the shelf are dates gone wrong. Date Night, of 2010, sends Steve Carell and Tina Fey into a night of gangsters after they steal a dinner reservation; The Lovebirds, of 2020, with Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani, traps a couple about to break up in a murder in New Orleans; Man Up, of 2015, with Simon Pegg and Lake Bell, begins with a blind date taken by the wrong woman in London, and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, of 2008, with Michael Cera and Kat Dennings, is a night in the clubs of New York in search of a secret concert. Last Night, of 2010, with Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington, is the drama of a married couple tempted on the same night in two different places.

The babysitters complete the shelf. Adventures in Babysitting, of 1987, the first film directed by Chris Columbus, follows Elisabeth Shue and the children in her care on a disastrous rescue across downtown Chicago; The Sitter, of 2011, by David Gordon Green, gives Jonah Hill three children and a night of errands in New York; and Career Opportunities, of 1991, written by John Hughes, locks a young cleaner and Jennifer Connelly inside a department store overnight. Into the Night, of 1985, by John Landis, sends an insomniac played by Jeff Goldblum on the run across Los Angeles with Michelle Pfeiffer; Booty Call, of 1997, with Jamie Foxx, is a double date in New York, and Medicine for Melancholy, the first film of Barry Jenkins, follows two strangers through San Francisco the day after their night together. The guide The great first dates gathers the romances of the guide.

Parties and nights out

The shelf Parties and nights out holds twelve films from 1973 to 2019, and it holds the two founding films of the genre. American Graffiti, of 1973, by George Lucas, follows a group of teenagers through the last night of summer 1962 in a small town of California, cruising the main street to the rock and roll of the radio, rated 7.1; Dazed and Confused, of 1993, by Richard Linklater, does the same for the last day of school of 1976 in Texas, with the young Matthew McConaughey, rated 7.3. Linklater has two films in the guide, this one and Before Sunrise.

The comedies of the 2000s are led by Superbad, of 2007, by Greg Mottola, with Jonah Hill and Michael Cera as two friends trying to bring alcohol to a party before high school ends, rated 7.3, the most voted film of the shelf; its spiritual sister is Booksmart, of 2019, the first film directed by Olivia Wilde, two top students who decide to make up for four years of study in one night, rated 7.0. Project X, of 2012, filmed as found footage, is a birthday party that destroys a suburb; Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, of 2004, follows John Cho and Kal Penn on a night quest for hamburgers; Rough Night, of 2017, turns a bachelorette party in Miami into a crime; The Night Before, of 2015, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen, is a last Christmas Eve out in New York, and Sisters, of 2015, with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, a last party in the house of their childhood. A Night at the Roxbury, of 1998, with Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan, House Party, of 1990, with Kid 'n Play, and 21 and Over, of 2013, complete it.

Dinner parties and long talks

The shelf Dinner parties and long talks holds fifteen films from 1948 to 2023, and with an average of 7.24 it is the best rated shelf of the guide. Its most voted and best rated film is Italian: Perfect Strangers, of 2016, by Paolo Genovese, seven old friends who agree to read every message on their phones aloud during a dinner, rated 7.8, a film remade so many times around the world that it entered the record books. The oldest film of the shelf is Rope, of 1948, by Alfred Hitchcock, a dinner served over a chest that hides a body, filmed in a few long takes as if in a single shot, rated 7.9; Sleuth, of 1972, by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, with Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine, plays a game of humiliation in a country house, rated 7.7.

The great domestic battles of the shelf are Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, of 1966, by Mike Nichols, with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton as a couple who tear each other apart in front of their guests until dawn, rated 7.7, and Long Day's Journey into Night, of 1962, by Sidney Lumet, from the play of Eugene O'Neill, with Katharine Hepburn, at 170 minutes the longest film of the guide. The Celebration, of 1998, by Thomas Vinterberg, the first film of Dogme 95, is a birthday dinner in a Danish manor where the eldest son reveals the secret of the family, rated 7.7; Carnage, of 2011, by Roman Polanski, traps two couples in an apartment of Brooklyn, and The Invitation, of 2015, by Karyn Kusama, turns a reunion dinner in Los Angeles into a nightmare.

The lighter evenings of the shelf are murder games and parties. Clue, of 1985, and Murder by Death, of 1976, written by Neil Simon, with Truman Capote as a millionaire who invites the great detectives to his house, are the comedies of the whodunit, and A Haunting in Venice, of 2023, by Kenneth Branagh, puts Hercule Poirot in a séance on Halloween night. The Party, of 1968, by Blake Edwards, with Peter Sellers as a clumsy actor at a party of Hollywood, and The Party, of 2017, by Sally Potter, a celebration in London that falls apart in 71 minutes of black and white, share their title. My Dinner with Andre, of 1981, by Louis Malle, is a whole film of conversation at a restaurant table, and Boiling Point, of 2021, with Stephen Graham, a single unbroken take of a night in the kitchen of a London restaurant.

Gigs, raves and dance floors

The shelf Gigs, raves and dance floors holds nine films from 1964 to 2018 of music and dancing after dark. The best rated film of the guide is here: Stop Making Sense, of 1984, by Jonathan Demme, the concert of Talking Heads filmed over several nights in Hollywood, with David Byrne in his famous big suit, rated 8.4. The Last Waltz, of 1978, by Martin Scorsese, films the farewell concert of The Band on Thanksgiving night of 1976, with Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young among the guests, rated 7.7, and A Hard Day's Night, of 1964, by Richard Lester, follows the Beatles through a day and a night of fans, trains and television.

The dance floors are those of Saturday Night Fever, of 1977, with John Travolta as a paint-store clerk of Brooklyn who lives for his Saturday nights at the disco; 54, of 1998, the most famous club of New York; Human Traffic, of 1999, a weekend of clubbing in Cardiff, and Groove, of 2000, a single rave in a warehouse of San Francisco. The most voted film of the shelf is the darkest: Climax, of 2018, in French, by the director of Enter the Void and Irreversible, a troupe of dancers whose rehearsal party turns into a nightmare after someone spikes the sangria. Detroit Rock City, of 1999, completes it, four teenagers trying to reach a concert of KISS in 1978.

Midnight

The second family, Midnight, gathers 47 films of the city after dark: the journeys of people who cross a town in a single night, the crimes that run against the clock, the workers of the night shift and the thrillers that trap their heroes until morning. Its films carry about 131,000 votes, with an average of 6.72. Martin Scorsese is its master, with four films in the guide, three of them here. The guide Midnight sums up the family.

City odysseys

The shelf City odysseys holds thirteen films from 1950 to 2017 about journeys across a city in the dark. Its best rated film is The Warriors, of 1979, by Walter Hill, a gang falsely accused of a murder who must cross all of New York at night to get home to Coney Island, rated 7.7. After Hours, of 1985, by Martin Scorsese, with Griffin Dunne as a word processor who goes downtown for a date and spends the night trying to get back home from SoHo, rated 7.5, is its comic counterpart, and Bringing Out the Dead, of 1999, also by Scorsese, with Nicolas Cage as an exhausted paramedic of Hell's Kitchen, spreads the same nightmare over three nights. Its most voted film is Escape from New York, of 1981, by John Carpenter, with Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken, sent into Manhattan, now a prison, to rescue the president before dawn.

The modern odysseys of the shelf are among its boldest. Victoria, of 2015, by Sebastian Schipper, in German and English, follows a young Spanish woman through a night in Berlin that turns into a bank robbery, filmed in a single take of 138 minutes, rated 7.6; Good Time, of 2017, by Josh and Benny Safdie, with Robert Pattinson as a small-time robber who races through Queens to free his brother, and Tangerine, of 2015, by Sean Baker, filmed on iPhones, two transgender women of Los Angeles on Christmas Eve. Locke, of 2014, is a single drive at night: Tom Hardy alone at the wheel on a motorway to London, as his life falls apart over the phone. Strange Days, of 1995, by Kathryn Bigelow, with Ralph Fiennes, plays on the last nights of 1999 in Los Angeles, and Miracle Mile, of 1989, begins when a man picks up a ringing phone at midnight and hears that a nuclear war is coming.

The oldest film of the shelf is Night and the City, of 1950, by Jules Dassin, with Richard Widmark as a hustler of the nightclubs of London, rated 7.5. Mikey and Nicky, of 1976, by Elaine May, with Peter Falk and John Cassavetes as two old friends of the mob during one long night in Philadelphia, and Judgment Night, of 1993, with Emilio Estevez and four friends lost in the wrong part of Chicago on their way to a boxing match, complete it.

Crime on the clock

The shelf Crime on the clock holds twelve films from 1976 to 2022 in which a crime must be done, or stopped, before the night ends. Its most voted film is Collateral, of 2004, by Michael Mann, with Jamie Foxx as a cab driver of Los Angeles forced to drive a hitman, played by Tom Cruise, to his five targets in one night, rated 7.2; Jamie Foxx returns as a detective in a night of drugs and casinos in Sleepless, of 2017, and as a ladies' man in Booty Call. The best rated film of the shelf is the Tamil Kaithi, of 2019, by Lokesh Kanagaraj, a prisoner just released who must drive a truck full of poisoned policemen to a hospital through a night of ambushes, rated 7.6, a film of action from India with almost all of its story at night.

John Carpenter made the classic of the siege of the police station, Assault on Precinct 13, of 1976, rated 7.3, which was remade in 2005, on New Year's Eve. 21 Bridges, of 2019, with Chadwick Boseman as a detective who closes every bridge of Manhattan for one night to catch two killers; The Outfit, of 2022, with Mark Rylance as an English tailor of Chicago trapped by the mob in his shop; Hotel Artemis, of 2018, with Jodie Foster as the nurse of a secret hospital for criminals during a riot in Los Angeles; Snake Eyes, of 1998, by Brian De Palma, with Nicolas Cage as a corrupt detective at a boxing match in Atlantic City; Free Fire, of 2016, a gun deal in a warehouse that turns into a shoot-out of ninety minutes; Running Scared, of 2006, with Paul Walker chasing a gun through a night of New Jersey; Copshop, of 2021, and Crown Vic, of 2019, complete it.

The night shift

The shelf The night shift holds twelve films from 1976 to 2026 about the people who work while the city sleeps, and it is the most voted shelf of its family. Its three most voted films are its darkest. Drive, of 2011, by Nicolas Winding Refn, with Ryan Gosling as a stuntman of Hollywood who drives getaway cars by night, rated 7.6; Taxi Driver, of 1976, by Martin Scorsese, with Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle, a veteran who drives a cab through the nights of New York, with Jodie Foster, rated 8.1, the best rated drama of the guide; and Nightcrawler, of 2014, with Jake Gyllenhaal as a man who films the crimes of the night for the morning news.

The guards and clerks of the shelf meet ghosts and monsters. Night at the Museum, of 2006, with Ben Stiller as a night guard who finds that the exhibits of the Museum of Natural History come to life after dark; Five Nights at Freddy's, of 2023, a guard in a pizzeria of killer animatronics; Nightwatch, of 1997, with Ewan McGregor as the night watchman of a morgue, the American remake that Ole Bornedal made of his own Danish film; Graveyard Shift, of 1990, from Stephen King, the rats of a textile mill; The Night Clerk, of 2020, with Tye Sheridan as a hotel clerk who witnesses a murder, and The Mortuary Assistant, of 2026, the newest film of the guide, from a video game. Night Shift, of 1982, by Ron Howard, with Henry Winkler and Michael Keaton in his first leading role, runs a business from the morgue at night; Cashback, of 2006, follows an art student who works the night shift of a supermarket and learns to stop time, and Late Night with the Devil is a single night of television, a talk show of Halloween 1977 that goes horribly wrong.

Overnight thrillers

The shelf Overnight thrillers holds ten films from 1948 to 2014, and Jodie Foster stars in two of them. In Panic Room, of 2002, by David Fincher, she hides with her daughter, played by Kristen Stewart, in the safe room of her new house in Manhattan while burglars try to break in, and in Flightplan, of 2005, she searches an overnight flight for a daughter whom the crew insists she boarded alone. Jodie Foster appears in five films of the guide in all, with Taxi Driver, Carnage and Hotel Artemis. The overnight flights are a small genre of their own: Non-Stop, of 2014, the most voted film of the shelf, with Liam Neeson as an air marshal who receives threatening texts over the Atlantic; Red Eye, of 2005, by Wes Craven, with Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy; Snakes on a Plane, of 2006, with Samuel L. Jackson, and Turbulence, of 1997, a flight on Christmas Eve with a serial killer on board.

The best rated film of the shelf is Wait Until Dark, of 1967, by Terence Young, with Audrey Hepburn as a blind woman who fights off three criminals in her apartment by putting out every light, rated 7.3. Sorry, Wrong Number, of 1948, with Barbara Stanwyck as a bedridden woman who overhears a murder plot on the telephone, is the oldest; The Call, of 2013, with Halle Berry as an emergency operator, and Unfriended, of 2014, told on a single computer screen during a night of video calls, bring the telephone into the age of the internet.

Small hours

The last family, Small hours, gathers 58 films of the longest nights: the sieges in which a house or a building must hold until morning, the nights of Halloween, the battles and disasters that play out in the dark, and the nights of Christmas, New Year and the other holidays. It is the largest and most voted family of the guide, with about 209,300 votes. The guide Small hours sums up the family.

Sieges and home invasions

The shelf Sieges and home invasions holds fifteen films from 1968 to 2022, and its best rated film is the model of them all: Night of the Living Dead, of 1968, by George A. Romero, a group of strangers boarded up in a farmhouse while the dead walk outside, rated 7.6. Its most voted film is The Purge, of 2013, by James DeMonaco, with Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey as a rich family in an America where every crime is legal for one night a year, and its sequel The Purge: Anarchy, of 2014, takes the same night into the streets. Us, of 2019, by Jordan Peele, with Lupita Nyong'o, begins when a family on holiday finds four doubles standing in their driveway at night.

The houses of the shelf are attacked from every side. Hush, of 2016, by Mike Flanagan, a deaf writer alone in the woods with a masked killer; The Strangers, of 2008, a couple in a summer house visited by three masked strangers; The Collector, of 2009, a burglar who finds the house already taken by a worse intruder; the French Them, of 2006, a couple in Romania terrorised by hooded figures; and Vacancy, of 2007, with Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson in a motel whose rooms are wired for murder films. The family gatherings turn deadly in The Babysitter, of 2017, and in Bodies Bodies Bodies, of 2022, a game among friends during a hurricane. The besieged buildings are a punk club in Green Room, of 2015, with Anton Yelchin and Patrick Stewart as the leader of the skinheads outside; a block of council flats of south London in Attack the Block, of 2011, the first film of John Boyega, and an apartment building of Barcelona sealed by the authorities in the Spanish [REC], of 2007, filmed as the live footage of a television crew. A slasher of a family reunion in a country house, by Adam Wingard, released in 2013, completes the shelf.

Halloween nights

The shelf Halloween nights holds thirteen films from 1978 to 2022, and it begins with the film that named the night: Halloween, of 1978, by John Carpenter, with Jamie Lee Curtis as the babysitter Laurie Strode and Michael Myers returning to his town of Haddonfield, rated 7.6, the most voted and best rated film of the shelf. Carpenter directed three films of the guide, with Escape from New York and Assault on Precinct 13. David Gordon Green brought Laurie back forty years later in the Halloween of 2018 and in Halloween Kills, of 2021, which continues the very same night.

The rest of the shelf mixes fear and fun. Hocus Pocus, of 1993, brings three witches back to Salem for one Halloween night, rated 7.0; Monster House, of 2006, sends three children against a haunted house on the eve of Halloween; Muppets Haunted Mansion, of 2021, at 52 minutes the shortest film of the guide, locks Gonzo in a haunted house until midnight, and Trick 'r Treat, of 2007, weaves four stories of the same Halloween in a small town of Ohio, rated 7.0. The darker films are Terrifier, of 2018, and Terrifier 2, of 2022, with Art the Clown on Halloween night; Hell Fest, of 2018, a killer loose in a horror theme park; Night of the Demons, of 1988, a party in a funeral parlour; the anthology Tales of Halloween, of 2015, and Trick, of 2019. The guide A night of Halloween follows the night from the first trick to the last treat.

Battles and disasters

The shelf Battles and disasters holds fifteen films from 1958 to 2019 about a catastrophe or a battle that plays out in a single night, or a single day and night. Its best rated film is A Night to Remember, of 1958, by Roy Ward Baker, the sinking of the Titanic told hour by hour, from the iceberg to the last lifeboats, with Kenneth More as the officer Charles Lightoller, rated 7.7. Two more ships capsize on the night of New Year's Eve: The Poseidon Adventure, of 1972, with Gene Hackman leading the survivors up through the upside-down hull, and its remake Poseidon, of 2006, by Wolfgang Petersen. The Towering Inferno, of 1974, with Steve McQueen and Paul Newman, sets the tallest building in the world on fire on the night of its opening, at 165 minutes, and Skyscraper, of 2018, with Dwayne Johnson, does the same in Hong Kong.

The battles of the shelf are true stories. Black Hawk Down, of 2001, by Ridley Scott, tells the night and day of fighting in Mogadishu in October 1993; 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, of 2016, by Michael Bay, the attack on the American compound in Libya on the night of 11 September 2012; Hotel Mumbai, of 2018, with Dev Patel, the siege of the Taj hotel in 2008, rated 7.5; Deepwater Horizon, of 2016, by Peter Berg, with Mark Wahlberg, the explosion of the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, and Zulu, of 1964, with Stanley Baker and the young Michael Caine, the defence of Rorke's Drift in 1879. Fury, of 2014, by David Ayer, with Brad Pitt as the commander of a tank in the last weeks of the war in Germany, ends with a battle that lasts all night and is the most voted film of the shelf; Where Eagles Dare, of 1968, with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood, is a raid on a castle of the Alps in a single winter night. Dog Soldiers, of 2002, sets a squad of British soldiers against werewolves in the Scottish Highlands; Hard Rain, of 1998, a robbery during a flood, and Crawl, of 2019, a daughter and her father trapped by alligators in a hurricane, complete it.

Holiday and family nights

The shelf Holiday and family nights holds fifteen films from 1988 to 2022, and it holds the most voted film of the guide: Coco, of 2017, by Lee Unkrich for Pixar, the night of the Day of the Dead in which a young musician of Mexico crosses into the land of the dead to find his great-great-grandfather, rated 8.2, the winner of the Academy Award for animated feature. Its most famous Christmas Eve is that of Die Hard, of 1988, by John McTiernan, with Bruce Willis as a New York policeman against the thieves who take a tower of Los Angeles during an office party, rated 7.8; Violent Night, of 2022, with David Harbour as a Santa Claus who fights mercenaries in a mansion, is its comic heir.

The family nights of the shelf are The Polar Express, of 2004, by Robert Zemeckis, with Tom Hanks in several roles, a train to the North Pole on Christmas Eve; Arthur Christmas, of 2011, by Aardman, the son of Santa who must deliver one forgotten present before dawn; the second and third Night at the Museum films, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, of 2009, and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, of 2014, with Robin Williams in one of his last roles, and the animated Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again, of 2022. Jingle All the Way, of 1996, with Arnold Schwarzenegger hunting for a toy on Christmas Eve, and The Ref, of 1994, with Denis Leary as a burglar taken hostage by a quarrelling couple on Christmas Eve, are the comedies of the holiday; Go, of 1999, by Doug Liman, follows three stories of a Christmas Eve in Los Angeles, and Office Christmas Party, of 2016, a party that saves a company. The nights of New Year are those of New Year's Eve, of 2011, by Garry Marshall, of 200 Cigarettes, of 1999, set on the last night of 1981 in New York, and of the remake of Assault on Precinct 13, of 2005, with Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne.

The directors and the stars

Martin Scorsese and Shawn Levy are the directors of the night, with four films each: Scorsese with After Hours, Bringing Out the Dead, Taxi Driver and The Last Waltz, and Levy with Date Night and the three Night at the Museum films he made for the cinema. John Carpenter follows with three, Halloween, Assault on Precinct 13 and Escape from New York, and so does David Gordon Green, with The Sitter and the two Halloween films of 2018 and 2021; Richard Linklater and James DeMonaco have two each. Jodie Foster is the star of the guide, with five films: the young girl of Taxi Driver, the mother of Panic Room and Flightplan, one of the parents of Carnage and the nurse of Hotel Artemis. Jamie Foxx, Ben Stiller, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Nicolas Cage and Jamie Lee Curtis appear on several shelves. The guide The directors lists them all, and the guide The stars the actors who appear most often.

StreamLikers in figures

The 155 films of the guide were released from 1948 to 2026: two in the 1940s, two in the 1950s, eight in the 1960s, twelve in the 1970s, eleven in the 1980s, 24 in the 1990s, 26 in the 2000s, 55 in the 2010s and fifteen in the 2020s. They carry about 425,700 votes on TMDB, with an average rating of 6.73; four reach 8 or more, Stop Making Sense with an 8.4, Coco with an 8.2, Taxi Driver with an 8.1 and Before Sunrise with an 8.0. The collection Rated 7.5 or more gathers the 26 films rated 7.5 or more, best first; the collection Before 1980 the 24 oldest, from Rope to The Warriors, and the collection The 1980s the eleven films of the decade of After Hours and Die Hard. Together the films last 15,787 minutes, more than 263 hours, enough for about twenty-two nights of twelve hours each; the longest is Long Day's Journey into Night, with 170 minutes, and the shortest is Muppets Haunted Mansion, with 52. The guide The figures gathers every number.

The clock of the night

Many films of the guide make the clock their engine. Some show the hour on the screen, like the countdown of the purge or the minutes left to a nuclear strike in Miracle Mile; others count down to an event, a party, a concert, a dawn, a train or the start of a new year. The films of real time go further and make the night last exactly as long as the film: Victoria and Boiling Point are single unbroken shots, Rope hides its cuts to look like one, and Locke follows a single drive in 85 minutes. The single night also gives the cinema its great endings: the first light of morning over Vienna in Before Sunrise, the sun rising on the survivors of Night of the Living Dead, the paper of the bearer bonds falling like snow over Nakatomi Plaza at the end of Die Hard. The guide The clock of the night follows the hours from dusk to dawn.

Where to begin

For a first night, choose one film from each family. From Dusk, try Before Sunrise for romance, Superbad for laughter or Rope for a dinner to remember. From Midnight, try After Hours or The Warriors for a journey across the city, Collateral for crime and Taxi Driver for the night itself. From Small hours, try Night of the Living Dead for fear, A Night to Remember for history and Die Hard or Coco for the holidays. The guide Start with StreamLikers gives one pick from each shelf.

How to use StreamLikers

The home page opens with the introduction, with its Night Mode label in yellow, and then Tonight, the row of tabs of the twelve shelves. Each tab shows the name of its shelf and its number of films, and leads to its row on the same page. Each row has a title in a green block, a line of posters and a grey View all tab that opens the full shelf. The menu in the header leads to the three families, and the search box finds any film by its title; the guide Search tips explains how.

Each poster carries the year in a green badge, the TMDB rating in a yellow one and, in white over the dark gradient at the bottom, the tag of its shelf, for example Party or Halloween; the poster darkens under the pointer, as on the old site, and under it come the first genre and the running time. The page of each film has the English synopsis, the cast, the director and the genres. The Watch now button opens the film on JustWatch, which shows the services that offer it in your country, and the button Add to My List keeps it in My list, stored in your browser. The guide How to use StreamLikers explains each part, and the guide The Watch now button explains how JustWatch works.

Cities of the night

The night has its cities, and the guide visits most of them. New York is the capital of the guide, the city of After Hours, Taxi Driver, The Warriors, Escape from New York, Bringing Out the Dead, Good Time, Date Night, The Sitter, Nick and Norah, Before We Go, 21 Bridges, 200 Cigarettes and Saturday Night Fever, a city whose streets seem to change their rules after midnight. Los Angeles comes next, the city of Collateral, Nightcrawler, Drive, Into the Night, Tangerine, Strange Days, Miracle Mile, Hotel Artemis and the tower of Die Hard, a sprawl of freeways and empty boulevards that the cinema of the night has painted in neon and sodium light.

Europe has its own nights. Vienna belongs to Before Sunrise, Berlin to the single take of Victoria, Barcelona to the sealed building of [REC], Paris to one of the five taxis of Night on Earth, the French countryside to the dancers of Climax, London to the hustlers of Night and the City, the blind date of Man Up, the restaurant of Boiling Point and the block of Attack the Block, and Rome to the dinner of Perfect Strangers, whose friends sit around a table in the Italian capital. The small towns are the stage of the American nights of growing up, Modesto in American Graffiti, Austin in Dazed and Confused, Haddonfield in Halloween and Salem in Hocus Pocus, and the sea and the sky hold the rest: the Titanic, the Poseidon and the overnight flights of Non-Stop, Red Eye and Flightplan. The guide Cities of the night maps them all.

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