53 Movies to Fall Asleep to When Your Brain’s Completely Fried
There’s a certain level of tiredness that overcomes me in the hours between the end of the work day and going to bed. I’m beat, sure, but not quite ready to pass out either. My brain is completely fried from a long day, and movies to fall asleep to are the only solution.
Many friends have told me they’re hesitant to watch a movie during these hours because they don’t have the mental capacity to follow along. After all, that’s why things like The Bachelor work so well. And we’ve seen what a late-night viewing of Love Is Blind can do. But comfort TV and comfort movies basically offer the same thing: they stop me from thinking about everything I have to do tomorrow and lift my mood just enough so I won't have nightmares without actually getting me excited enough to start a project.
But there are actually a ton of engaging yet easy-to-watch movies to fall asleep to, and if you have any kind of insomnia, maybe you need the full 90-minute runtime to transition from awake to dreaming. So we've picked out flicks that are entertaining, familiar, and not too heavy. These 53 films, in particular, are ideal to check out—be it for the first time or the 400th time. Behold my favorite movies to fall asleep to, below.
Netflix1/53A Christmas Prince
An American blogger meeting a prince, falling in love, and marrying into a royal family would have sounded like a way more far-fetched plot had Meghan Markle not ended up with Prince Harry. While this Netflix film isn't based on their relationship, it is a delightful reprieve from real life—and there are two more films in the trilogy, so you've got plenty to watch.
Netflix2/53The Princess Switch
Speaking of delightful Netflix originals that feature Americans, royals, and the holidays—the limit does not exist for multiple viewings of The Princess Switch, in which you will get not one but two Vanessa Hudgens-es. Just wait until you see the sequel in which there are—you guessed it—three!
©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection3/53Love Actually
Whether you love it or love to hate it, there's no doubt that throwing on Love Actually will take your mind off whatever happened during your day. Do you ever find you're drawn to a different storyline depending on your mood, or is that just me?
Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/©STX Entertainment/courtesy Everett Collection4/53A Bad Moms Christmas
Don't stress about your own holiday family drama! Instead enjoy that of Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and Kathryn Hahn in the sequel to their hit movie, Bad Moms—which finds their own mothers in town, wreaking havoc on their lives.
©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection5/53The Holiday
Although we have no scientific evidence to prove this, we think watching Jude Law, Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, and Jack Black in this delightful rom-com will automatically boost your serotonin levels and brighten your mood.
©New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett Collection6/53Elf
We suggest sticking the four main elf food groups when watching this Will Ferrell holiday classic: candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup. It will definitely enhance the viewing experience.
Steve Wilkie/Netflix7/53Let It Snow
A teen rom-com with multiple storylines (à la Love Actually) set in a winter wonderland? You had us at “hello.” If you haven't already seen this Netflix original, now is your moment, and if you have, we can report it's just as delightful upon a second—or third—viewing.
©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection / Everett Collection8/53Clueless
Cher Horowitz is one of the most comforting film narrators of all time. Watching her transform from spoiled Beverly Hills scene kid to a mature woman is always a fun time—no matter how many times you’ve seen it. So feel free to doze off because you already know what happens. Spoiler: Cher ends up with her stepbrother, played by Paul Rudd.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection9/53Before Sunrise
Maybe it’s the sunny, hazy palette of this film or the fact that it takes place over an exhilarating 24 hours, but Before Sunrise will wear you out—in the best way possible. Maybe you’ll dream about meeting a handsome stranger on a train who convinces you to ditch your plans and hang for the day. What’s better than that?
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection10/53Finding Dory
Finding Dory has the same tranquil elements as its predecessor. Plus, the plot—Dory tries to find her birth parents—is pretty linear, so you can scroll Instagram without missing a beat. That’s what zone-out time is all about.
©DreamWorks/Courtesy Everett Collection11/53Antz
Like Finding Dory, something about the way these ants talk is oddly soothing. (They all have that delicious, “Just woke up, and now I’m drinking coffee” cadence. You know the one.) The central love story is pretty cute too. A worker ant and a royal ant find themselves disconnected from their colony and fall for each other.
Everett Collection12/53Last Holiday
This hilarious flick about a woman (played by the one and only Queen Latifah) who takes a lavish vacation after learning she has only months to live will warm you up with feel-good vibes right before you fall asleep. Isn’t that the best feeling?
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection13/53Annie
Maybe you’re thinking musicals are not the best for winding down, but it truthfully depends on the type of musical. Annie is basically ingrained in my brain (“It’s a Hard Knock Life,” etc.), and the story is light, so it makes for great background noise.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
©Miramax/Courtesy Everett Collection14/53Bridget Jones’s Diary
I like to think of Bridget Jones as everyone’s best friend, which makes her the perfect person to chat with before falling into a REM sleep cycle. The first film is preferable to the sequels for its nostalgia factor. But let’s be real: Any installment from this series will do the trick.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection15/53The Devil Wears Prada
For a character nicknamed the Dragon Lady, Miranda Priestly’s voice is very calming. This hilarious film about a bright-eyed journalist’s first foray into fashion media is glamorous enough to keep you hooked but straightforward enough to keep you sane.
Available on Amazon Prime Video
©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection16/53E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial
There’s a childlike factor to E.T., the classic Steven Spielberg–directed film about an alien befriended by a group of children, that makes it one of the best movies to fall asleep to. In other words, you likely know this flick by heart, so there’s no shame in passing out 10 minutes into it.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
AF archive / Alamy Stock Photo17/53The Nutty Professor
Eddie Murphy is a comic tour-de-force in this classic movie about a professor coming to terms with his body and love. Laughing hysterically right before bed is brilliant if you think about. You’ll wear yourself out and get the best sleep of your life.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
Summit Entertainment18/53Twilight
The first Twilight movie basically plays out like a psychedelic dream, so it’s ideal to watch when your brain is on another planet. It’s also mind-numbingly simple. Plus, you won’t have any issues following along if you haven’t seen it yet. (A girl who purses her lips a lot falls in love with a 700-year-old vampire who sparkles in the sun. That’s all you need to know.) Rock me to sleep, Edward Cullen.
©Fox Searchlight/Courtesy Everett Collection19/53(500) Days of Summer
This simple boy-meets-girl, girl-dumps-boy love story is amplified by delightful performances from Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and a soundtrack full of indie jams. Watching this bubbly, bright romantic comedy will put you in an amazing mood before hitting the hay. Pleasant dreams guaranteed.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection20/53Fool’s Gold
The sun-drenched setting of this film, plus Matthew McConaughey’s hypnotic voice, will put you in the most zen mood ever. Fool’s Gold, which follows a recently divorced couple searching for a hidden treasure, is the movie equivalent of driving with the windows down on a sunny summer day.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
©New World Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection21/53Heathers
Heathers, which centers on the morbid dissolution of a mean-girl clique, is punchy and hilarious enough to keep your attention. But the smoky ’80s vibe of the film keeps it from getting too crazy, and you’ve likely seen it so many times that you won’t be mad if you fall asleep halfway through.
Available to stream on Amazon Prime Video
©Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection22/53Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves
The title of this childhood favorite is pretty self-explanatory: A scientist father (played by Rick Moranis) creates a machine that somehow shrinks him, his wife, and two friends. There’s a familiarity to this film that makes it a perfect bedside companion, don’t you think?
©Disney Channel/Courtesy Everett Collection23/53High School Musical
The same logic to Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves applies to the first (and best) installment of High School Musical. (A quick summary: Baby Zac Efron and Baby Vanessa Hudgens want to star in the school musical, but their respective cliques weirdly shame them for it.) I get tired just thinking about how I routinely stayed up past my bedtime watching this one on repeat.
©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection24/53How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
This romantic comedy, about a writer (played by Kate Hudson) who purposefully commits dating faux pas in the name of journalism, is hilarious and entertaining. But it’s also gloriously low-stakes: Nothing will ease your mind more than watching her rich-people problems unfold for 90 minutes.
©New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett Collection25/53He’s Just Not That Into You
And the rich-people problems continue with He’s Just Not That Into You, a movie about successful, attractive people who lament about not being able to get laid. It’s more far-fetched than any dream you’ll ever have. The cast includes Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, Drew Barrymore, and more.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection26/53The Lizzie McGuire Movie
Lizzie McGuire ventures to Italy with Alex Borstein and turns into an international pop star! This is what my dreams were made of in 2003, and it still does the trick now. Too bad that Disney+ reboot series is no longer in the works.
©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection27/53Magic Mike
Do you really need an explanation as to why this is the ultimate nighttime entertainment? Three words: Channing Tatum’s abs. They star alongside the abs of Joe Manganiello, Matt Bomer, and Matthew Mcconaughey in this comedy-drama about the world of male stripping. (The sequel is even better, but that’s one you’d want to stay awake to watch.)
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo28/53Think Like a Man
Taraji P. Henson leads this movie about a group of women who use Steve Harvey’s dating book to try to get inside their partner’s head. The stakes are fairly low—okay, really low—which means it’s the perfect movie to laugh along with before you nod off.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
©Focus Films/Courtesy Everett Collection29/53Pride and Prejudice
The story is deeply familiar (love, corsets, Mr. Darcy!), and the music is like a dream. That’s all you really need in a good movie to fall asleep to. Keira Knightley plays Elizabeth Bennet, a young woman who gets a very happy ending, in this 2005 adaptation of the classic Jane Austen novel.
©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection30/53Mean Girls
You probably have Mean Girls memorized—so it’s excellent filler noise. Tina Fey’s magnum opus about a new girl who takes on the school queen bee is perfectly cast, starring Lindsay Lohan as a naive newcomer thrown into the intense social politics of high school.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
©New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett Collection31/53Sex and the City
We spent six years getting lulled to sleep by the nonexistent glamazon struggles of Carrie Bradshaw and the gang. The Sex and the City movie essentially plays out like a giant, two-hour episode of the show. You’ll dream of cosmopolitans, Birkin bags, and unrealistically large New York City apartments.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
United Archives GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo32/53Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella
The only thing better than watching Disney’s animated take on Cinderella before bed is a live version with queen Brandy as the beleaguered young woman with some nasty stepsisters and great taste in shoes. Let Whitney Houston’s angelic voice put you under as Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella plays in the background.
©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection33/53In Her Shoes
In Her Shoes is a sweet, melodic film about two drastically different sisters who learn more about themselves by mimicking each other (hence the title). I find watching Toni Collette and Cameron Diaz smile at each other for two hours quite delightful, and I think you’ll agree.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
©TriStar Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection34/53Sleepless in Seattle
Contrary to its title, this beloved ’90s romantic comedy about unlikely love found through a radio talk show is whimsical and delicious—a dream cloud in movie form. Your REM sleep cycle will thank you after you’ve fallen asleep to this Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks classic.
Available to stream on Amazon Prime Video
Relativity Media/courtesy Everett Collection35/53Safe Haven
Admittedly, this is an intense drama—Julianne Hough plays a woman on the run from her abusive ex—but it is a Nicholas Sparks movie, which means the best place to take it in is curled up in bed. The gorgeous North Carolina backdrop certainly helps too.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection36/53Snow Day
This iconic Nickelodeon film about the greatest snow day ever will bring you back to that time in fourth grade when school was canceled because it slightly flurried at 8 a.m. Naturally, this memory will make you cozy enough to drift off to sleep.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo37/53Dreamgirls
If watching Beyoncé sing “Listen” in this musical about a Supremes-inspired girl group doesn’t put you in the most relaxed mood, absolutely nothing else will. Actually, maybe Jennifer Hudson singing “And I’m Telling You, I’m Not Going” will do the trick. But I swear the list ends there.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
©Touchstone Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection38/53Step Up
In the first Step Up, Channing and Jenna Dewan-Tatum danced their way to true love—both on- and offscreen. Watching a romantic movie before bed is great, sure, but watching one that created a real relationship, even if it didn’t last, and includes dancing takes the cake.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
Netflix39/53To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
Let Lara Jean Covey (Lana Condor) and Peter Kavinsky’s (Noah Centineo) adorable romance in this teen romantic comedy soothe whatever is troubling you as you drift off to sleep at night. All the yummy-looking desserts that Lara Jean cooks up in the movie should help too.
Available to stream on Netflix
©DreamWorks/Courtesy Everett Collection40/53Almost Famous
“You are home,” Kate Hudson’s Penny Lane says to Patrick Fugit’s William Miller in this Cameron Crowe classic—but she might as well be saying it to you. From the soundtrack to the costumes, everything about Almost Famous makes it incredibly rewatchable and relaxing at night.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
Francois Duhamel/©Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection41/53The Intern
There’s just something so incredibly comforting about the budding friendship between Anne Hathaway and Robert DeNiro that develops in The Intern. I cannot watch—or fall asleep to—this sweet comedy about a 70-year-old widower who becomes an intern at a start-up fashion website enough times.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video
©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection42/53Ratatouille
One of the most soothing films of all time, with a pretty light-infused color palette and a French-inspired score that puts me instantly in a good mood. Just don't watch on an empty stomach or you might wake up in a puddle of your own drool.
©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection43/53Bridesmaids
You might wake yourself up laughing, but after a hard day, truly nothing lifts my spirits like this classic comedy I could—and do—quote in my sleep.
© The Princess Bride Ltd. All44/53The Princess Bride
The definition of a comfort movie. The framing device is literally that this is a story you read to a kid who isn't feeling well.
©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection45/5313 Going on 30
Just like teenaged Jenna Rink wakes up as a hot 30-year-old career woman after falling asleep in her closet during a traumatizing junior high party, you will awaken refreshed and ready to “Thriller” if you fall asleep to 13 Going on 30.
©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection46/53Julie & Julia
Julie & Julia is another film that might make you too hungry to sleep, but it's worth taking the chance because Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci talking about butter is one of the most heart-warming sounds on planet Earth. This is a fact.
Walt Disney Pictures47/53The Parent Trap
You probably already have this movie—which should have won Lindsay Lohan her first Oscar—memorized, so if you fall asleep you won't miss a thing. In fact, if you fall asleep watching Nancy Meyers's 1998 classic The Parent Trap, you'll dream of Napa Valley, the streets of London, crisp white clothing, and absolutely iconic kitchens.
©PBS/Courtesy Everett Collection48/53Downton Abbey: The Movie
Chaos is not stressful when there are British accents, for some reason. In the 2019 Downton Abbey film, the Crawley's get a visit from the king and queen of England, which causes some very British things to happen in this very British movie that's based on a very British television show.
©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection49/53The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
In Chronicles of Narnia, four English siblings are transported to a magical world. Why not manifest this for yourself by watching it while you fall asleep? I mean, is there anything dreamier than the snowy landscape of Narnia and James McAvoy as a weirdly sexy faun with a knitted red scarf? I don't think so.
50/53The Grand Budapest Hotel
If you've already seen them before, Wes Anderson films are great background noise. Their colorful, symmetrical feel is intoxicatingly positive. The Grand Budapest Hotel takes place at a popular ski resort in Europe that has the quirkiest staff Wes Anderson could possibly imagine, making it a perfect film to rest your eyes to.
©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection51/53Fantastic Mr. Fox
Another soothing, colorful, and all-around aesthetically pleasing Wes Anderson film that will guarantee colorful and all-around aesthetically pleasing dreams. Although when you fall asleep to this one, you and everyone you know might be a fox, which could be confusing. On second thought, that actually sounds very cute.
©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection52/53Baby Mama
If you're anything like me, you've seen this classic comedy with familiar faves Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Greg Kinnear, and Steve Martin on cable so many times that you have the commercials memorized. It's a luxury to see Fey and Poehler onscreen together for such long periods of time. Their comfort with each other will hopefully make you comfortable enough to dose off in time for you to get a full eight hours.
©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection53/53Best in Show
If I could, I would fall asleep to the sounds of Catherine O'Hara and dogs every single night. And honestly, for every single nap. Christopher Guest's Best in Show is an ideal movie for sleeping because it not only has cute dogs and comedy legends including Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge, and Eugene Levy, but its mockumentary style makes it a peaceful watch that won't startle you at any point.
