How Do I Work This?

So, you’ve decided to host a theme party. Congratulations! I hope you have some one to help clean up.

This site is built for the home party host who is either:

1) Throwing a theme party for someone and has no idea what they got themselves into or

2) The experienced host who needs some quick, easy ideas or inspiration and is gonna do their own thing.

If you’re a business and need a real, professional solution: try something like this.

We put this site together because we love movies & TV. You don’t have to take all of our suggestions (some could be bad!) but having all the essentials we touch on will help make your night a success.

Each theme page goes into more detail, but all the basics are here.

The Basics Of Hosting

What to Watch & How to Watch it

(Or How To Not Watch Anything At All)

There are basically two types of theme parties we focus on here: A Watch Party (where you’re all there to watch or listen to a thing) and… NOT A Watch Party (where the theme is the theme).

But even if your party goes the “Not A Watch Party” route, its still fun to have something on your TV on mute with subtitles while you play music or play games or whatever.

We cover what to watch on each themed page. If you’re doing a movie binge, plan on watching at least two and have have some backups on hand in various genres if you want to lighten (or highten!) the mood.

If your TV is already set up for streaming, and you know where and when to watch your things, great! Move ahead one space.

If not, here’s our dummy proof guide how to get everything set up:

  • Check Reelgood or Justwatch to see where the thing you want to watch is streaming. If needed, download the app to the device you’re using and sign up before all the guests arrive, and save the movies or shows to your watchlist.

  • If you don’t have a smart TV with all the built in streaming apps, you’ll need a device to connect. As long as you have an HDMI port, you can use:

  • If you have an older TV without HDMI you can get a converter or a Roku Express. Whats an HDMI cable look like, you ask? This!

  • If you have a smart TV (or Chromecast or Apple TV) and want to stream from an app or file on a phone or computer then:

    • Mac or iPhone/iPad users click here

    • Android users click here

    • Chrome users click here (the best browser for this kind of thing, so get it here)

    • If your file is offline and on a USB stick, you can usually plug that right into the smart TV (or other available device like a Playstation), and depending on the format it will play fine. MP4 is the most commonly supported file type, but it depends on your TV. To convert the file the best file type, use an app like Handbrake.

    • If theres no available USB slot on the TV to plug your USB drive into, you can stream the file from your computer using a media player like VLC (and this guide ) or use apps like Plex, and Videostream for Chromecast.

  • If you can’t find what you want watch on streaming maybe its on DVD. This is where having a game system comes in handy because they’ll play DVDs, Bluray and also stream. If you want a stand alone DVD or Bluray player get one here.

  • If you can’t find what your looking for on streaming or DVD, you can look into other methods like torrenting — which for legal reasons, we do not support. If you go this route, Nord VPN is highly recommended, but again, for legal reasons we do not support torrenting. If you want to get started with torrenting the basics are here but again, just to be clear (for legal reasons) we do not support torrenting.

  • If you don’t want to watch anything at your party and just play music, connect a music player like Spotify to your TV. If your smart TV has Bluetooth you can connect your smartphone to it and play music through there.

  • You can also throw on a curated list of music videos… and man, if that’s not a great segue to our next then section then I don’t know what is!!

Pre & Post Show Entertainment,

What To Do If You’re Not Watching Anything

(AndWhat To Do During the Commercials)

Audio

  • Aside from liquor (or if you’re under 21/sober, candy!), music is the key to any good party. Have a good sound system set up, and have something playing as your guests arrive.

  • Depending on your set-up you might want to elect someone to be solely in charge of the music (more on this later).

  • You can set up a Spotify jam where everyone can play songs but depending on your crowd, you’re playing with fire here.

  • Each theme here has a few suggested Spotify playlists, but making your own can be fun. We would also strongly recommend using the premium service to whatever streaming app you have — no one wants to hear ads during a party.

  • But, if you really don’t want to hear ads…. support local record stores!

Visual

  • Have something fun to watch before your event. If you’ve been to an Alamo Drafthouse or Nitehawk Cinema in New York, you know the value of a good pre-show before the film. Here’s John Woods, Nitehawk’s cinema director explaining his philosophy.

  • Now, you don’t necessarily need a pre-show, but it can be fun to have on before (or after) your screening. And depending on your vibe you can have this going with the music (on mute with subtitles), have it on in a separate room, or cue it up as everyone gets settled in the viewing area before the main event.

  • We made some curated YouTube playlists for each theme. They’re listed on each page, you can also find them on our YouTube (under construction). The playlists all range in length and appropriateness for kids and we noted that as best we could.

  • It’s also easy to make your own playlist— but much like Spotify, going with YouTube Premium to avoid ads is a game changer/party saver and highly highly recommended.

  • If you don’t want to mess around with YouTue or anything like that, the easiest thing to do is throw on previous episodes of the show you’re watching, or movies related to the one(s) you’re screening.

“We’ll DO IT LIVE!”

  • If you’re watching something live and the commercials aren’t part of the draw (like the Superbowl) then have some music ready to play during the breaks. This is where having someone who can just be charge of music comes in handy because they can mute the TV and DJ while you attend to other party business.

  • Commercials can also be a great time to play a quick game, which makes me the segue king because….

Games Games Games

Just like having a DJ, having a dedicated host to handle games throughout the night can either be a great or terrible idea depending on your crowd. Not all parties lend themselves to games, but its good to have options!

Trivia

  • The gold standard. The most crowd pleasing, and most importantly, the easiest!

  • We found 10 Tips For Hosting a Successful Trivia Night and have our suggestions below:

    • The quick and easy way: use one of the quizzes we link to on each page, or the trivia we link to and make up your own questions — first person to raise their hand, or yell out the right answer wins. Or break out into teams, pass out pens and paper, read off some questions, then score it at the end of the night.

    • The longer and harder way: take some time and type up questions, print them out and distribute and score at the end of the night. You can spice up the questions from a straight Q&A with a picture round, a music round, true/false, or fill in the blanks.

  • Take it up a notch and buy some game buzzers for each team or single player.

  • If your watching something live, commercials are good time to get in a question or two.

Activities

  • Depending on how artistically inclined (or old, or stoned) your guests are, buy some themed activity books to pass out. These can also work as game prizes if it’s not that kind of party.

  • Some classic board games (Monopoly, Clue, Risk, etc) may have versions based on theme. There may also be table top card playing games you could play if people are into that.

  • If your theme lends itself to it, play a game from the show or movie. But be careful: if your party is Squid Game themed please do not kill anybody.

  • If your guests are into video games, and there’s one related to your theme, throw it on. Not all games are two (or more) players, so make sure you have something else for your guests to do while others are gaming. You can set up an extra laptop with games from Steam (or free ones you can find online), and don’t forget the controllers.

Whichever game you end up playing will require prizes… and sonofabitch if that don’t bring us to our next topic…

Decor & Invitations

Our basic advice for decorating is: don’t over think it. Any effort you make will generally impress the guests (depending on their age), or maybe they won’t care at all!

  • Most importantly, have decent lighting and make sure the place is clean.

  • That being said, it can be fun to go all out (especially for something like a birthday party). Each page has links to decor you can purchase or make and if you’re looking to get nuts, get some real advice here and here. If you want to get more creative with your lighting check out some ideas here.

  • Etsy is going to have a ton of unique items. We’ve saved you a click and linked to their searches (and some of our favorite items) on each theme page.

  • Amazon is an easy resource. We list our recommendations on each page, and eventually we’ll have curated shopping carts for all your one stop shopping needs.

  • Each theme party has links to posters you can buy, banners and small items you can use to decorate or give out as prizes for any of the games you play (see that segue worked).

  • To buy posters check out All Posters, Society6, MoviePosters.com, The Poster Database, Imp Award, and Cine Material.

Roger Kastel, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Cover Our Ass Disclaimer:

If you want to print out movie posters or pictures at home to decorate (even for your personal use), it is technically illegal to do so without the copyright holders permission.

However (and this is NOT legal advice)… as long as you are not selling the pictures or using them to make any kind profit the odds of getting sued are very, very, very low. But check the laws in your area first!

  • You can get royalty free pictures at Pixabay, Wikimedia Commons, Unsplash, or Pexels.

  • If you have the license for the pictures, want to go the “print out pictures” route, and don’t have a color printer, email the files to yourself individually. After that, put them on a thumb drive in case the copy shop needs the files that way. Copy places will most likely have image size restrictions, so check first in case your file is too big.

  • You also might be able to email them the files ahead of time so you’er not sitting around waiting.

  • There are lots of options for digital invitations. Partiful is free but you can also use Evite or Papperless Post if you want more control.

  • Along with the decor you may want to dress the part, so thank god we cover that next!

Costumes, Props & Apparel

Each page includes links to costumes, props and related apparel — that header wasn’t lying! If you want to browse some our favorite sites check out:

Clothing From TV and Movies

We don’t have a great segue to the next section. Which is weird because it’s the most important one, and I can’t believe it took us this long to get here.

Food & Drinks

(And How To Serve Them)

OK, we probably should have led with this one, because really: this is all people ever care about. Will I be fed? When will I be fed? Oh god, I hate parties, is there anything to drink? These are the important questions.

Our food and drinks menus are in a Google doc you can download if you want to make any changes. All we ask is that if you write something better, have a better recipe, or have a better idea of what to serve, please send it us so we can post it and give you the credit.

Additional Resources & Ideas

Here’s where we link to other ideas that don’t fit neatly into other categories. From linking to actors on Cameo, or hiring someone to come in character to your party, all the stray thoughts we have go here. At the end. THE END.

Disclaimer:

This site and the information herein is not affiliated, associated, authorized, endorsed by, or in any way officially connected with any of the properties on this page, or any of his subsidiaries or its affiliates.

All marks, emblems and images are registered trademarks of their respective owners, believed to be in Public Domain or used under the Fair Use provision.

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