The 10 best movies to procrastinate with are the ones you simply can’t say no to. When they pop up, your to-do list doesn’t stand a chance.
Procrastination gets a bad rap. But sometimes the most responsible thing you can do is recognize when a movie deserves your full attention, laundry be damned. These 10 films have derailed more of my afternoons than I care to admit, and I regret nothing.
Some are comfort watches I’ve seen so many times I could recite them. Others are so propulsive that I tell myself I’m only watching five minutes, then look at my watch an hour later. They span genres, decades, tones. What connects them isn’t just how good they are. It’s how impossible they are to walk away from.
Call it avoidance if you want. I call it taste. When one of these movies is on, I don’t fight it. I surrender. And honestly? My to-do list has survived worse. Here are the 10 best movies to procrastinate with!
10. Auntie Mame (1958)
Director: Morton DaCosta
This is a big, colorful studio picture that went on to inspire a hit Broadway musical and, later, a flop movie musical starring Lucille Ball. Neither can hold a candle to the magic and energy this one brings. Rosalind Russell’s Mame Dennis is such a force of personality that once she’s on screen, everything else feels optional. How she didn’t land an Oscar nomination, let alone take the award, is beyond me. DaCosta, adapting the hit Broadway play, gives Russell room to be gloriously theatrical while grounding the material in genuine warmth. The supporting cast, including Peggy Cass’s Oscar-nominated turn as the timid Agnes Gooch, provides perfect counterbalance to Russell’s whirlwind energy. The film runs nearly two and a half hours but earns every minute.
What gets me every time is how welcoming it feels. The episodic structure means you can join this movie at almost any point and immediately understand the vibe: life is meant to be lived loudly, generously, and without apology. “Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death” isn’t just a quotable line. It’s a mission statement for how to approach both cinema and procrastination. Whether she’s working at Macy’s or hosting a disastrous dinner party, Mame wouldn’t approve of you skipping her movie to do chores anyway.
9. The Birdcage (1996)
Director: Mike Nichols
In Mike Nichols’s remake of La Cage aux Folles, adapted by Elaine May, Robin Williams and Nathan Lane star as Armand and Albert, a gay couple who owns a drag club in South Beach. When Armand’s son Val (Dan Futterman) announces his engagement to Barbara (Calista Flockhart), daughter of an ultra-conservative senator (Gene Hackman), the family attempts a disastrous evening of playing it straight. Hank Azaria steals scenes as Agador, the flamboyant Guatemalan housekeeper who can’t quite master the art of walking in shoes. Dianne Wiest brings warmth as Val’s biological mother.
In 1996, the question of what defines a family was a genuine hot-button topic, and The Birdcage wades into those waters with surprising grace. Lane’s Albert, attempting to act masculine by walking like John Wayne and eating toast with a fork, is one of the great comic performances of the decade. Williams plays the straight man (in every sense) with perfect timing. Their chemistry as a couple who genuinely love each other anchors the farce in real emotion. Once Hackman shows up, the movie becomes a perfectly calibrated comedy of errors, each complication stacked exactly where it needs to be. But underneath the laughs, the film makes a quiet, powerful argument: love and commitment are what make a family, full stop. You’ll stay for “I pierced the toast,” but that message is what lingers.
8. Drumline (2002)
Director: Charles Stone III
I don’t think people give Drumline enough credit for how gripping it is. Nick Cannon stars as Devon Miles, a talented but cocky drummer from Harlem who earns a scholarship to Atlanta A&T University. It’s a fictional HBCU (Historically Black College or University) with a legendary marching band. His raw talent clashes with the disciplined traditions of the program and its demanding bandleader Dr. Lee (Orlando Jones, in a surprisingly dramatic turn). Zoe Saldana appears as a dance team member and Devon’s love interest, adding warmth to a film already rich with energy. The story follows Devon’s journey from showboat to team player, but the real stars are the performance sequences. These are meticulously choreographed showcases of precision, power, and pure musical athleticism.
Those marching band battles are genuinely thrilling, edited with the energy of action sequences and performed with the stakes of championship games. You don’t need to know anything about HBCU band culture to get swept up in the competition and camaraderie. The first time I stumbled onto one of these sequences mid-movie, I stayed until the end without hesitation. Once those drums start, your attention locks in. Whatever you were about to do can absolutely wait.
7. West Side Story (2021)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg spent decades trying to make this film, and every frame shows why it was worth the wait. His reimagining of the Bernstein-Sondheim musical is one of the most visually stunning films of the past decade. It’s a gorgeous, heartbreaking spectacle that honors the original while finding new depth in its tragedy. Rachel Zegler makes a luminous debut as Maria. Ariana DeBose delivers a ferocious, Oscar-winning performance as Anita. Rita Moreno, who won an Academy Award playing Anita in the 1961 original, returns in a newly created role as Valentina. It’s a torch being passed across sixty years of cinema history.
Spielberg stages the musical numbers with kinetic, swirling camera work that makes them feel dangerous and romantic at the same time. The Lincoln Center streets become a battleground and a dance floor in equal measure. “America” explodes across New York with joy and fury that takes your breath away. “Somewhere” aches with impossible longing. DeBose’s Anita alone is worth abandoning your afternoon plans. She’s fierce, funny, and devastating. I don’t scroll during this movie. I don’t check the time. When a film this beautiful demands your full attention, giving it feels less like procrastination and more like the only reasonable response.
6. Skyfall (2012)
Director: Sam Mendes
From the moment Adele’s Oscar-winning title song begins over those moody, submerged credits, you know this isn’t a typical Bond film. Sam Mendes brought prestige-drama sensibilities to the franchise and delivered what many consider the best 007 film ever made. It’s a sophisticated action film that happens to star James Bond. Daniel Craig‘s third outing finds Bond confronting his own mortality and the sins of MI6’s past, embodied by Javier Bardem’s bleached-blond cyber-terrorist Silva. Roger Deakins’s cinematography, particularly the Shanghai skyscraper fight rendered entirely in silhouette, elevates the action to something approaching art.
The emotional stakes here are remarkably high for a franchise built on martinis and gadgets. Judi Dench finally gets material worthy of her presence as M, and her relationship with Bond anchors the film in genuine feeling. Bardem’s Silva, introduced in a single unbroken shot as he tells a chilling story about rats, is one of the great screen villains. Mendes treats each sequence like a short film. The Shanghai fight. The Scottish Highlands finale. They pull you forward relentlessly. It’s a supremely high achievement, and once it’s on, you’re not doing anything else.
5. Game Night (2018)
Directors: John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein
This movie sneaks up on people. Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams play Max and Annie, a hyper-competitive married couple whose regular game night gets hijacked when Max’s flashier brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler) arranges an interactive mystery experience that turns out to be an actual kidnapping. The ensemble—including Lamorne Morris, Kylie Bunbury, Billy Magnussen, and Sharon Horgan as their fellow players—bounces off each other with the timing of a seasoned improv troupe. Jesse Plemons steals the film as Gary, the unsettling neighbor and cop who desperately wants to be included. He’s never seen without his equally unsettling dog.
Game Night is sharper, faster, and better constructed than it has any right to be. The direction is stylish without being showy, including clever tilt-shift photography that makes suburban sets look like game boards. McAdams removing a bullet from Bateman’s arm while they bicker about their marriage is a comedic highlight, absurd and sweet in equal measure. The whole thing is a breeze. Tight, funny, and effortlessly rewatchable. I’ve tried to “just catch a scene” with this one. It always turns into a full rewatch. You’ll tell yourself you’re only watching for ten minutes. You’ll be wrong.
4. What’s Up, Doc? (1972)
Director: Peter Bogdanovich
This movie doesn’t ease into chaos. It commits immediately. Peter Bogdanovich’s love letter to 1930s screwball comedy stars Barbra Streisand as Judy Maxwell, a chaos agent who becomes obsessed with buttoned-up musicologist Howard Bannister (Ryan O’Neal) at a San Francisco hotel. Four identical plaid overnight bags get mixed up, each containing something different people desperately want. Madeline Kahn makes her film debut as Howard’s aggressively put-upon fiancée Eunice, stealing every scene she’s in.
The beauty of What’s Up, Doc? is its relentless escalation. Each gag tops the last until the whole thing detonates into one of the greatest chase sequences ever filmed. Bicycles, ladders, a Chinese dragon, a plate-glass window, all set to “You’re the Top.” There are bits in this film that have made me laugh so hard I’ve cried. Streisand’s timing is impeccable, and her chemistry with O’Neal makes the screwball romance actually romantic. Five minutes of this movie turns into the whole movie. Every time. Your responsibilities will have to wait until Judy gets her man.
3. Notting Hill (1999)
Director: Roger Michell
This is comfort cinema in its purest form. Richard Curtis’s screenplay pairs Julia Roberts as Anna Scott, the world’s most famous movie star, with Hugh Grant’s William Thacker, a divorced travel bookshop owner in London. Their romance unfolds in fits and starts, interrupted by paparazzi, bad timing, and the fundamental absurdity of their different worlds. The supporting cast is wonderful. Rhys Ifans plays William’s unhinged roommate Spike. A pre-Downton Abbey Hugh Bonneville appears as his friend from university. They provide the comic texture that keeps the fairy tale grounded.
I think this might be the best romantic comedy ever made, and I don’t say that lightly. It ranks right behind Roberts’s work in Erin Brockovich as the showcase for what she can do. That effortless blend of movie-star wattage and genuine vulnerability. The characters are finely sketched and lovely in their Britishness. Roberts and Grant have an unmistakable chemistry that’s a wonder to watch. “I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her” has become a cultural touchstone, and it hits me harder every time I see it. Once this movie starts, you’re watching the whole thing. Accept it.
2. Sister Act (1992)
Director: Emile Ardolino
This is joy, engineered. Whoopi Goldberg stars as Deloris Van Cartier, a Reno lounge singer who witnesses her mobster boyfriend (Harvey Keitel) commit murder and gets stashed in a San Francisco convent by a witness protection program with a sense of humor. The role was originally written for Bette Midler, but now it’s impossible to imagine anyone else playing it. Maggie Smith brings wry authority as the disapproving Mother Superior. The supporting nuns, including scene-stealing Kathy Najimy and Wendy Makkena, each carve out memorable moments. Once Deloris takes over the choir and transforms a group of tone-deaf sisters into a Motown-infused sensation, the rest of the world fades out.
I saw this at a sneak preview back in 1992. I still remember the audience roaring with laughter so loudly that I missed half the lines. The musical sequences build from charming to show-stopping, climaxing in a papal visit finale that earns every bit of its emotional payoff. Goldberg is magnetic throughout, bringing street-smart warmth to a role that could have been one-note in lesser hands. By the time that choir launches into “I Will Follow Him,” I’m locked in and smiling like I haven’t seen it a dozen times already. Some movies improve your mood just by being on. This is one of them.
1. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
Director: John Hughes
This had to be number one. No other movie understands procrastination this completely. John Hughes’s love letter to Chicago and truancy stars Matthew Broderick as Ferris, a high school senior who decides to skip school and take his best friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) and girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) on an epic day off. They steal Cameron’s father’s Ferrari, crash a parade, visit the Art Institute, and generally prove that sometimes not doing what you’re supposed to do is exactly what you need. Jeffrey Jones plays Dean of Students Ed Rooney, determined to catch Ferris in the act. Jennifer Grey is Ferris’s resentful sister Jeanie, furious that he gets away with everything.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off doesn’t just excuse avoiding responsibility. It celebrates it, philosophizes about it, and makes you feel like you’re participating in it just by watching. You can enter this movie anywhere and immediately feel like you’re part of the day. Broderick’s direct-address narration breaks the fourth wall to bring you into the conspiracy, like he’s letting you in on something important. Cameron’s anxiety, Sloane’s calm, Rooney’s obsession. It all clicks into place effortlessly.
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” If that’s not permission to skip whatever you were supposed to be doing and watch this movie instead, nothing is.