Movies play pretty fast and loose with the concept of time. While we have our butts glued to our seats (doing nothing) for two-plus hours, they often like to remind us that weeks' worth of outlandish events could happen to someone over the course of one night.

Action and horror movies are the best at compressing lifetimes of horrible things into the hours of darkness. When a comedy tries to do the same, it requires a much more delightful brand of suspension of disbelief. How much trouble will our heroes and heroines get into? How crazy will this party get?

This Friday's release of The Night Before proudly enters the grand tradition of all-in-one-night adventures. It's got all the elements we love crammed into a single evening: a pretty straightforward plan for the night, copious means of intoxication, good friends, exes, chance encounters with famous new friends, potential disasters and maybe even some life-altering realisations. It is missing the light-hearted murder and/or alien invasion of some of its predecessors in the genre, but a good Miley Cyrus cameo can make up for a lot.

Take a look back at these other momentous, and momentously funny, nights we love.